Taylor, Roberta E. (2011) Being clouds, pulling teeth and using their breadloaves : a multimodal micro-analysis of instantiations of child-to-child interaction in classroom contexts. PhD thesis, University of Sheffield.
Abstract
This study examines the ways in which children communicate and collaborate with one another whilst working on curriculum tasks in an educational setting. It uses an approach to methodology founded on Linguistic Anthropology and Linguistic Ethnography and informed by a social-semiotic theory of communication, drawing upon field notes and video-recorded data from a class of nine and ten year olds at a Sheffield primary school. A framework informed by sociolinguistic theory and multimodal analyses of communication has been devised to analyse the data in such a way that the many and varied modes of meaning-making employed by the children are considered. The purpose of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which children creatively employ semiotic resources in their face-to-face spontaneous interactions. The main findings of the study are that modes of meaning-making are integral to the communicative activity and work in coordination with each other. Features which have been noted in linguistic studies of interaction can be seen in this multimodal study and could be classed as features of multimodal communication rather than linguistic features. In addition, child-to-child classroom meaning-making is intersubjective and collaborative. Knowledge can be presented through any chosen mode and can be developed collaboratively through multiple modes. The study has implications for pedagogy in that educationalists need to be aware of the multimodal nature of children's interactions, recognise the value of the semiotic work of pupils and ensure opportunities for meaning-making using multiple modes are planned for. The implications for future research are that methodological approaches need to take account of the use of all modes in interactions in order to gain a thicker description of what is taking place than could be achieved with a language-dominant approach.
Metadata
Awarding institution: | University of Sheffield |
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Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Education (Sheffield) |
Identification Number/EthosID: | uk.bl.ethos.538001 |
Depositing User: | EThOS Import Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 Oct 2016 10:06 |
Last Modified: | 27 Oct 2016 10:06 |
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