Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis (review)

Traditionally, discourse analysis has mainly focused on audiotaped discourse and verbal data. Recently, however, the proliferation of communication technologies has brought about a multimodal turn in this area of inquiry. Containing a selection of seventeen papers from the 2002 Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, Discourse and technology: Multimodal discourse analysis addresses the major concerns of the state of the art in multimodal discourse analysis (MMDA).

The volume opens with the editors’ introduction, which identifies five central themes: why we should study discourse and technology and MMDA, the role of the Web in discourse analysis, MMDA in studies of social actions and interactions, MMDA in educational social interactions, and the use of MMDA in doing our analyses in workplaces.

Theo van Leeuwen puts forward ten reasons to call attention to the ‘exciting new area’ of multimodal communications (18). Rodney H. Jones takes issue with the traditional concept of context and suggests that it be rethought in light of new communication technologies. Angela Goddard probes the nature of novices’ use and perception of interactive written discourse (IWD). Boyd Davis and Peyton Mason examine how rhetorical and leading questions are used in electronic discourse to establish authority, identity, and recipient design. Hsi-Yao Su explores the interaction among technology, linguistic practice, and language ideologies by studying the mock Taiwanese-accented Mandarin in the Taiwanese internet community. Inspired by Scollon’s concept of geosemiotics, Ingrid de Saint-Georges discusses the relationship between materiality, especially space and layout, and meaning making. Applying an MMDA approach to authentic data, Laurent Filliettaz reveals the importance of nonverbal communication in service encounters. Sigrid Norris introduces a conceptual framework for the holistic investigation of social interactions. Alexandra Johnston illustrates the importance of two mediational means—gaze behavior, and document layout and font style—in immigration interviews. Through her microanalysis of a blind woman and her sighted friends, Elisa Everts shows that visual cues are crucial to gaining full access to interaction with the sighted community. Elaine K. Yakura addresses ethical concerns about how videotaping might affect researcher/research-participant relationships, and calls for the raising of awareness on the part of the researcher. Lilie Chouliaraki discusses how Danish television meditates the September 11 event by using different space-time articulations. Joel C. Kuipers analyzes the ethnography of language in the ‘age of video’ by focusing on the management of voices in contexts of ritual and clinical authority (167). Carey Jewitt calls for the exploration of the relationship between the affordances of media and modes. Frederick Erickson recounts a brief history of the emergence of MMDA. Marilyn Whalen and Jack Whalen report on their ongoing study of ‘workscapes’ (208) and its contribution to the establishment of a natural discipline for the study of human conduct.

With its rich and varied perspectives, this volume testifies to the dynamics of multimodal discourse analysis.