Argumentation and Multimodal Analysis

In this section of the review, I introduce the concept of multimodality, identifying a space in the research field of argumentation but also contributing to a theoretical framework within which the research questions (especially the question of how argumentation emerges and unfolds and how people position themselves and others in this process) can be addressed. However, before we begin, it should again be stated (as it was in the introduction) that the analysis conducted in this thesis is not primarily multimodal, in nature. Nevertheless, at various points, I have introduced a multimodal dimension. The section will begin by defining the concept of multimodality more broadly and then the focus will be narrowed to consider its relevance to the discourse analysis of argumentation. The methodological implications of a multimodal approach will be considered in the next chapter.

Semiotics is, fundamentally, concerned with signs and the ways in which they make meaning. Language is but one of those signs. In Britain, the concept of multimodality is informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics and especially by the research of Kress (2001). Drawing on but expanding the work of Halliday (1977) he suggests that the modes, what he defines as resources for meaning-making, are not simply verbal but multiple:

There is a potent point to multimodality as such, namely the assertion that ‘language’ is just one among the resources for making meaning; and that all such resources available in one social group and its cultures at a particular moment ought to be considered as constituting one coherent domain, an integral field of nevertheless distinct resources for making meaning; all equal, potentially, in their capacity to contribute meaning to a complex semiotic entity, a text or text-like entity.

(Kress, 2011, p. 242). These modes inter-penetrate in complex ways and provide different resources for meaning- making. These include: speech, writing, images and, importantly for the analysis presented here, gesture and facial expression. However, his words at the end suggest his focus is largely textual in nature, and not concerned with speech. It is for this reason that we need to look elsewhere for the theoretical background to underpin the preliminary work on multimodality undertaken here. I do this by drawing upon the work of Goodwin, C. (2000), which comes out of a tradition that is broadly conversation analytic.

Goodwin, C. (2000) and Goodwin (2006) deepen and extend the insights of conversational analysis, discussed earlier, exploring the ways in which body language interacts with speech in the making of meaning. For him, participation frameworks (most relevantly, those of Goffman, 1981) are bodily as well as verbal. Positioning thus has a bodily dimension, unfolding in space as well as time. Goodwin uses the term ‘embodiment’ to capture the ways in which the body, as well as speech, carries meanings and is also (along with speech) a resource through which speakers position themselves and each other. In this sense, he observes, all actions, including speech, are ‘embodied.’

Like Kress, Goodwin argues for an approach that doesn’t assume that language is either ‘primary or autonomous,’ one that ‘accounts for the ‘simultaneous use of multiple semiotic resources’ (Goodwin, C., 2000, p. 1450). He uses the term ‘semiotic fields’ in order to refer to the different ways in which meaning can be made e.g. talk, gesture, posture etc. In this way, meaning is ‘accomplished through the temporally unfolding juxtaposition of quite different kinds of semiotic resources’ (Goodwin, C., 2000, p. 1492). This approach has the merit of focussing on spoken, as opposed to textual, discourse. Furthermore, research in this paradigm has begun to focus on argumentation and the ways in which it emerges and unfolds; this is a key research question in this thesis and will be considered shortly. Deepening and extending the concept of positioning to include a bodily as well as a verbal dimension allows

for the possibility of considering, for example, the relevance of gesture, body posture and facial expression in argumentation. These concepts are operationalized in relation to argumentation that emerges in the form of competing voices, in both serious (Chapter 4) and more playful (Chapter 5) form.

The principal multimodal focus in this thesis is gesture. Research has established that gestures often relate closely to accompanying speech (Schegloff, 1984) and thus can serve to offer further support for interpreting the meaning of an utterance (Kendon, 1995; 2001). So, an analysis of how gestures emerge in concert with speech can offer a way of triangulating data and this will be discussed again in relation to research validity later in the Methodology chapter. However, this is not simply a matter of the methodological triangulation of data. It is also a matter of capturing the fine-grained detail, the ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) of the ways in which argumentation emerges and unfolds and the ways in which speakers position themselves in this process. It is to this that the review now turns.

Here I review the literature on multimodality with specific reference to argumentation, with a view to staking out the space for the preliminary analysis presented within the pages of this thesis. I begin by observing that a socially-oriented view of argumentation, such as the one taken in the thesis, needs to account for a multimodal dimension. This focus is not a new one and has emerged from within existing research approaches.

The more exclusively rational and logical approaches to argumentation (e.g. formal and informal logic, argumentation theory) considered earlier in the review define it in almost exclusively linguistic terms and view its unfolding in largely linear terms, as a process (or chain) of logic or reasoning. However, there are dissenting voices. Thus, for example, Willard observes that:

I do not see how one can take the notion of argument as interaction seriously, and yet still maintain that arguments are uniquely or exhaustively linguistic communications.

(Willard, 1981, p.191) In other words, there is a need to move beyond the verbal (as well as the rational) when analysing argumentation. Similarly, Gilbert (1994) observes that argumentative discourse as it unfolds in practice is neither linear nor exclusively rational. He sees it as encompassing both physical and emotional dimensions. This emphasis on the importance of the emotional and physical dimension in the emergence, unfolding and indeed, authorisation, of argumentation is important for the thesis.

This, clearly, is particularly germane to the study of argumentation, where the emotional dimension is often crucial. Goodwin et al., (2002) explore the role of multimodal features such as gesture and body positioning in the emergence and unfolding of adversarial argument (or disputes) amongst children in playground games. Crucially, they conceptualise stance and positioning in multimodal and not simply linguistic terms and begin to connect this to intonation. This is a move I begin to make in Chapters 4 and (especially) Chapter 5.

Goodwin (2000) observes that the concept of ‘embodiment’ can encompass different phenomena. Thus, the body functions in one way when the prosodic features of voice are used to take up particular stances or positions (Goodwin, 1998) and in another when gestures can function as individual actions or multi-modally, in concert with speech. Posture is yet another way of establishing the context for meaning-making.

The connection of voice to the body seems particularly salient when approaching talk, or here argumentative talk, as a situated practice. By this, I mean to suggest that the voices of argumentation are embodied ones. Goodwin and Goodwin (2000) highlight the connection between a strong affective stance (often, of course, characteristic of argumentation) and prosodic features such as word stress, raised pitch and loudness. Tannen (1984) suggests that silences and pauses are indicative of high emotion, if not tension and Sandlund (2004, p.36) notes that sighing is a sign of frustration.

However, strong emotional orientations can also be communicated multimodally. Biber et al., (1999, p.967) note that ‘‘emotive and attitudinal stance meanings can be conveyed through a number of non-linguistic means, such as body posture, facial expressions, and gestures.’’ Goodwin and Goodwin investigate embodied arguments in the context of everyday encounters, largely centred on play, both in the context of girl’s hopscotch (Goodwin, M.H., 2001) or boys playing slingshot games (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1990). However, as Argaman (2009) observes, there is very little research into embodied practices in more institutional contexts. She therefore focusses upon the ways in which embodied argument emerges in asymmetrical power encounters within an institutional setting, specifically that of a high school staff meeting, concluding that the multimodal emergence of argument (in the form of gestures, gaze, posture etc.) is an important component of interaction and serves to reproduce existing hierarchies within the institution.

Similarly, Yu (2011) examines adversarial argumentation and demonstrates the ways in which both verbal and non-verbal features of argumentation can display emotion and, more

specifically, frustration. Interestingly, she suggests that non-verbal displays of frustration are often the most powerful. Yu (2013) also explores the ways in which self-mockery emerges, explaining its functions with reference to face-based politeness theory. This is interesting in that it foreshadows the work on parody in Chapter 5 of the thesis, although my focus there is more on the mockery of others, rather than self-mockery. However, Yu’s suggestion that the use of gestural exaggeration is important in humour is something I observe in Chapter 5 in relation to stylization.

The dimension of multimodality focussed upon in this discourse analysis is largely that of gesture and it is considered largely in relation to playful argumentative discourse, especially parody. This is suggestive when it comes to the gesture, the principal focus of the preliminary multimodal work in this thesis. In Yu’s view, this multimodal dimension pushes the study of argumentation in the direction of rhetoric not logic and this is the approach taken in this thesis. Retzinger (1991) for example, studies the ways in which marital arguments emerge and unfold both linguistically and multi-modally, focussing upon the emotional dimension, and foregrounding shame and anger.

To sum up, and to re-emphasize, although the approach to argumentation in this thesis is not principally multimodal, concepts such as ‘embodiment,’ particularly in relation to the concept of participation frameworks, and voices, are particularly helpful in accounting for the ways in which argumentation emerges and unfolds or the ways in which speakers position themselves and others, both research questions posed in this thesis. Positioning theory (discussed a little later in the review) needs to account for the multimodal nature of meaning-making. As well as establishing this theoretical foundation, there is a research space that needs filling out here; as yet, there is no thoroughgoing investigation of multimodal argumentation in the Adult ESOL classroom. Thus, while it is not a major focus, this is the space that the research presented in this thesis begins to inhabit.