Multimodality” Across Three Discourse Analytical Paradigms

“Multimodality” Across Three Discourse Analytical Paradigms was held by the School of Foreign Studies at the University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB) on the afternoon of December 5th 2019, in315 Academic Hall. The lecture was given by professor Wendy L. Bowcher, from the School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University and hosted by lecturer Liang Yameng, professor Chen Hongwei, dean of the SFS, with teachers and graduate students enrolled in 2018 attended.

Prior to the lecture, Wendy L. Bowcher was announced to be a visiting professor of the SFS, then she was awarded the letter of appointment by professor Chen Hongwei, dean of the SFS, and received warm welcome from teachers and students. Then lecturer Liang Yameng introduced Wendy L. Bowcher’s research interests and achievements to the audience. Professor Wendy L. Bowcher serves as director of 2 research centers of Sun Yat-sen University: the Center of Australian Studies and Functional Linguistics Institute. She has a wide range of research interests including Linguistic Theory, Discourse Analysis, and Multimodal Analysis and has made rich research achievements. She is an editor of many academic books, such as New Directions in the Analsis of Multimodal Discourse (Erlbaum 2007, Routledge 2014), Multimodal Texts from Around the World: Cultural and Linguistic Insights (Palgrave 2012), Systemic Phonology: Recent Studies in English (Equinox 2014), Society in Language, Language in Society: Essays in Honour of Rugaiva Hasan (Palgrave 2016) and The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (CUP 2019).

Professor Wendy L. Bowcher introduced 3 kinds of multimodal analysis paradigms of discourse analysis, pragmatics and systemic functional linguistics with interesting examples and vivid words. First, professor Wendy L. Bowcher thought communications between people were not limited to language, which triggered her study of multimodal analysis. Then she explained how to apply multimodal analysis to discourse analysis, pragmatics and systemic functional linguistics, based on her brief introduction of their basic concepts. In her view, although their different theoretical bases and analysis frameworks, the 3 research paradigms have the same research object: language used in a certain contexts. In addition, in the process of communication Meaning is construed not only by words  but also nonverbal symbols like eye contact, gestures, facial expressions, angles and distance. At the end of the lecture, Professor Wendy L. Bowcher said, multimodal analysis still faces questions and challenges waiting for students to think and explore.

After the lecture, Professor Wendy L. Bowcher answered many questions, such as the cognitive process in pragmatics and understanding differences of people in different backgrounds to the same words. She also explained whether the 3 theories could be used to analyze a corpus at the same time and whether the conclusions would be contradictory. Teachers and students all benefited a lot through the heated discussion.