Multimodal Communication in the Focus of Research Reflection: A Problem-Oriented Approach

Abstract

The paper discusses the problem-oriented approach to the multimodal communication as it is expounded by John Bateman, Janina Wildfeuer and Tuomo Hiippala. The authors claim for the productivity of the approach to the analysis of the contemporary informational communicational system in terms of developing media, i.e. smart- phones, computer games, 3D cinema, VR and AR technologies, etc., which are multimodal by their nature and use. The basic notions associated with multimodality include mode, communication situation, ergodic text with its features of mutability and temporality. The main characteristics of communication situations as an item of the multimodal analysis is the source of information, recipients, conditions of communication and its duration. While interacting, the communication situations bear linear, micro-ergodic, non-mutable ergodic and mutable ergodic types depending on the prevailing way of perception. The authors claim that the most representative results of research of “vague” and unpredictable multimodal objects could be gained by the mixt of quantitative and qualitative methods, including corpus analysis, eye-tracking technics, and computing methods.