1,721,057 research outputs found
Climate Change Websites and Web Film Annotation: Applying Web Tools and Techniques developed in the Living Knowledge Project
No full textAt the start of the Internet era, a web page was mainly made up of written texts containing, every now and then, some hot words (i.e. hyperlinks) that took you to a related web page. So, you started reading from the top of the page and ended at the bottom of the same page. But with the development of increasingly visually-oriented programs (e.g. Adobe Flash), in the last 15 years, web pages have evolved greatly: they have become even more complex. Sophisticated animations, short videos, and interactive objects have often taken the place of written text. The real trick for readers and web analysts is in finding ways of keeping track of the complexity of web pages, which is where multimodal web page analysis comes in handy.
With specific reference to the issue of climate change, one of the major social issues of the contemporary age, this paper reports on part of the research into websites and web film analysis and annotation carried out within the Living Knowledge Project (Baldry, 2010, 2011a, 2011b; Baldry, Coccetta, in press). In particular, Sections 2, 3, and 4 explore a multimodal model of web analysis inspired by scalar principles (Baldry, Thibault, 2006a, 2006b; Coccetta, 2011) and shows the kind of information researchers can gather when applying a scalar model to film clips and web pages. Section 5 briefly describes the climate change film corpus that the author has compiled for research purposes while Section 6 explores the concept of thematic system (Baldry, 2010; Baldry, O’Halloran, 2010; Baldry, Thibault, 2006a) in relation to this corpus and, in particular, provides some examples of multimodal intertextual thematic formations (Baldry, Thibault, 2006a: 55). Finally, Section 7 examines websites and web film annotation in relation to the McaWeb tools (http://mcaweb.unipv.it) developed as part of the Living Knowledge Project and reports on the benefits they bring to web genre analysis
Medical CLIL (Part II): How the Body Works
No full textThe research presented in this paper is based on the successful outcomes of the use of multimodal-based studies in the university English classroom (Baldry, 2008a, 2008b; Baldry, Coccetta, 2012, in press; Baldry, Kantz, 2009, forthcoming; Coccetta, in press) as a means of helping students not only improve their competence in the foreign language, but also develop analytical skills to better cope with the texts they will encounter in their future occupations. This multimodal perspective in the English classroom is further enhanced when CLIL-oriented syllabuses are adopted. This study reports on the author’s experience as professore a contratto in two undergraduate degree courses at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Pavia: the course in Healthcare Professions (Corso di laurea della Classe 3 – Professioni sanitarie tecniche) and the one in Nursing (Corso di laurea in Infermieristica) based in Treviglio. The English course for the Healthcare Professions is a 40-hour course split between the first (24 hours) and the third year (16 hours). The course for Nursing, on the other hand, was of 65 hours split between the first (45 hours) and the third year (20 hours). In particular, the paper briefly: 1) discusses the rationale for and management of a multimodal CLIL approach to medical English in the two degree courses; 2) describes the courses’ final exam and the kind of exam-oriented activities carried out in class; and 3) explains why the approach and materials functioned for both degree courses despite their fundamentally different nature
First Steps towards Multimodal Functional Concordancing
No full textThe development of the MCA (Multimodal Corpus Authoring System, Baldry 2005, Baldry/Beltrami 2005) online corpus construction and concordancing system, capable of investigating a variety of multimodal texts without denuding them of their distinguishing features, has led to extensive research on the integration of multimodal corpora, and multimodal concordancing in particular, into university syllabuses in the past few years (Baldry et al. 2005, Grunther 2005, Ackerley/Coccetta 2007b, Baldry 2007, in press, Grunther 2007, Coccetta in press, Dalziel/Metelli in press). This article describes a pilot project set up at the University of Padua (Coccetta 2004) which through the use of the MCA system made a small corpus of film texts, the English Language Learning Oriented (ELLO) film corpus, more easily accessible to language learners and allowed them to investigate: a) how a specific language function (van Ek/Trim 1998a, 1998b, 2001) is enacted by a set of different language forms and b) the ways in which the various manifestations of this function perform in relation to the multimodal co-text in which they are produced. In so doing, it illustrates some of the benefits this approach brings to language learning and gives examples of teaching materials based on the ELLO film corpus which are designed to promote language learners’ communicative competence
Multimodal Text Analysis and English Language Teaching
No full textCorpora of spoken texts are commonly investigated by applying approaches borrowed from the investigation of corpora of written texts, partly due to the lack of adequate concordancing software tools. This common practice has somewhat limited the potential spoken texts bring to the study of oral discourse. Based on the theoretical and technical innovations which have taken place in the field of multimodal corpus linguistics (Baldry and Thibault, 2001; 2006a; 2006b; forthcoming), especially within the MCA project (Baldry, 2007b; 2008a; Baldry and Thibault, 2008), this thesis presents an alternative method for analysing spoken corpora for language functions and notions (van Ek and Trim, 1998a; 1998b; 2001). In particular, it applies the scalar-level approach developed within multimodal corpus linguistics to a corpus of 52 texts, carefully selected from the Padova Multimedia English Corpus (Ackerley and Coccetta, 2007a; 2007b), and demon-strates how this approach to text analysis facilitates the study of language functions and notions vis-à-vis their multimodal co-text (Baldry, 2008a). To illustrate this, the online multimodal concordancer MCA (Multimodal Corpus Authoring System) (Baldry, 2005; Baldry and Beltrami, 2005) was used to create, annotate and concordance the corpus in terms of functions and notions, as well as non-verbal features including gestures, dynamics and gaze. The findings of this research have been applied to English language teaching and learning by creating interactive activities illustrating the way in which corpora of spoken texts and multimodal concordancing techniques can be used by language learners and teaching material developers alike. The activities have been included in the online English course Le@rning Links (Ackerley, 2004; Ackerley and Cloke, 2005; Ackerley, Cloke and Mazurelle, 2006; Ackerley and Cloke, 2006; Ackerley and Coccetta, in press)
Multimodal Corpora with MCA
No full textThe study presented in this article is part of an ongoing research strand that investigates how multimodal corpora, and multimodal concordancing in particular, can be integrated into university syllabuses (Baldry et al., 2005; Coccetta, 2004; Grunther, 2005; Ackerley and Coccetta, in press; Dalziel and Metelli, in press; Baldry, forthcoming; this volume). The article is based on previous work in the use of corpora and concordancers in the language classroom to analyse lexicogrammatical patterns (Johns, 1991; Partington, 1998; Gavioli and Aston, 2001), but discusses their limitations in the investigation of multimodal texts, focusing mostly on spoken texts. In particular, it reports on research which is being carried out on the Padova Multimedia English Corpus (Padova MEC) and suggests how spoken corpora can be exploited to promote communicative language competence. In so doing, it introduces the concept of functional-notional concordancing and moves away from what Baldry (forthcoming; this volume) defines as monomodal form-oriented concordancing towards meaning-oriented concordancing. Finally, the article presents the online multimodal concordancer MCA (Multimodal Corpus Authoring System, Baldry, 2005), the tool used to investigate parts of the Padova MEC for functions and notions, and gives some practical examples of functional-notional concordancing
Multimodal functional-notional concordancing
No full textThis chapter reports on the latest theoretical and technical innovations which have taken place in the field of multimodal corpus linguistics (Baldry and Thibault 2001, 2006a, 2006b, forthcoming) and shows how they can be applied to spoken texts. In particular, the paper suggests how the online multimodal concordancer MCA (Baldry 2005) can be used to create, annotate and concordance spoken corpora in terms of functions and notions (van Ek and Trim 1998a, 1998b, 2001), and illustrates the kind of informa- tion the concordances and their associated film clips provide. In so doing, the paper introduces the multimodal functional-notional concordancing technique (Coccetta 2008b), which is based on the notional-functional tradition (e.g. Wilkins 1976), and presents two multimodal data-driven-learning activities which show how established theory and new tools can be combined to create a novel approach to the analysis of spoken texts and enhance language learning
Multimodality for Non-Language Specialists: Reconsidering the ESP Syllabus in a Multimodal Perspective
No full textWhile it may be argued that multimodality is only for researchers or for students majoring in specific subjects, experience of teaching in Italian universities shows otherwise. This paper will demonstrate how multimodality, and multimodal text-based studies of English in particular, can be integrated into university syllabuses of faculties as varied as Medicine, Communication Studies and Political Science. In the light of the considerable success in the use of multimodal text-based studies of English and examoriented project work in the English classroom (Baldry, 2008 a/b; Rizzo, 2009; Baldry and Kantz, 2009; Coccetta, 2012), the paper will give a preliminary report of a one-year project involving students at the University of Padua. The project aims at training students to talk about multimodal meaning-making in texts similar to those they will encounter in their textbooks by equipping them with basic concepts on multimodality such as multimodal transcription and annotation, the resource integration principle, multimodal genres and so on. The paper will also include a description of the methods, resources and materials developed together with examples of work produced by students for their final exam
Introduction. Section 3: The Impact of Living Knowledge: Web-related Cultural and Technological Issues
No full textThe paper presents the four papers in Section 3 of the volume "Web Genres and Web Tools. With Contributions from The Living Knowledge Project"
Analysing the Language of Interpersonal Relations in Corpora of Elicited Learner and Native Interactions in English
No full textMultimodal Functional-Notional Concordancing
No full textSpoken texts provide a large quantity of information which extends beyond language; they include semiotic resources such as gesture, posture, gaze and facial expressions which, like language, contribute to the overall meaning-making of the texts (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006: 41). However, until recently their investigation has completely relied on their 'basic' orthographic transcriptions (Leech 2000), partly due to the lack of adequate concordancing software tools. This has somewhat limited the potential spoken texts bring to language teaching and learning. Based on the theoretical and technical innovations which have taken place in the field of multimodal corpus linguistics (Baldry and Thibault 2001, 2006b, forthcoming), especially within the MCA project (Baldry in press, Baldry and Thibault in press), this study presents a pedagogical application of spoken corpora in the promotion of communicative language competence by language learners at various levels of proficiency. In particular, it illustrates how MCA, a multimodal concordancer (Baldry 2005, Baldry and Beltrami 2005), can be used to create, annotate and concordance spoken corpora in terms of functions and notions (van Ek and Trim 1998, 2001). The study illustrates the kind of information the concordance lines and their associated film clips provide in terms of: a) the linguistic forms realizing a specific language function and b) the ways in which language interacts with its multimodal co-text (Baldry in press). In so doing, the paper introduces a new concordancing technique, namely multimodal functional-notional concordancing (Coccetta in press b), and presents two multimodal data-driven-learning (DDL) activities which show how this new approach to the analysis of spoken texts can enhance language learning
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