“This is chaos, baby!” Epistemologies, Transcription Methods and Research Agendas in Video-Based Communication

The Multimodality Satellite of Language@Leeds will be hosting this research talk by Maria Grazia Sindoni, University of Messina

The analysis of spontaneous interaction is a research priority within social and linguistic sciences (cf. Bezemer and Jewitt 2010: 181), such as conversation analysis (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974; Sacks 1992), interactional sociology (Goffman 1981), interactional sociolinguistics (Gumpertz 1999), linguistic anthropology (Duranti 1997), micro-ethnography (Erickson 2004) and linguistic ethnography (Creese 2008).

However, synchronous video-based communication has called for a profound rethinking of theories and methods (Sindoni 2013). New concerns have started to circulate since the early 2000s (Norris 2004; Herring 2013), thus encouraging the shaping of an emerging field of analysis, that has contributed to identify the somewhat blurry boundaries of the research arena of web-based video interactions.

In this talk, I will critically review some of these concerns, with reference to three main areas:

Epistemologies, or why existing theories should be reshaped or new frameworks of analysis should be developed and consequent definition of the field/s and data (e.g. what are data and relevant semiotic resources/modes?)

Transcription and annotation methods, or how to collect and handle data (e.g., ethical issues and data contamination), considering that transcription and annotation are unavoidable methodological questions when dealing with multimodal data (e.g., manual vs. semi-manual or automatic transcription; text-based vs. multimodal-based annotation; mono-resource vs. multiple resource transcription)

Research agendas, or to which end research questions should be framed and how to prioritize goals, so as to make sure that findings can be tested and verifiable, and experiments are replicable.

To address these interrelated questions, I will adopt a top-down approach and draw upon different data sets to the end of exploring some of the most challenging areas in web-based video research galaxy, with a view to possible applicative contexts, such as in learning/teaching environments.

Biosketch

Maria Grazia Sindoni, PhD, is Associate Professor in English Linguistics and Translation at the University of Messina (Italy). She has published four books, articles in national and international journals, and edited two books. Her most recent book is “Spoken and Written Discourse in Online Interactions. A Multimodal Approach” (Routledge, London & New York, 2013). Her main research interests include systemic-functional linguistics, multimodality, testing and assessment, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, theories of semiosis of communication and computer-mediated interaction.