Introducing MDA

MDA (alternatively called Multimodal Discourse Analysis; see LeVine & Scollon, 2004) considers texts in their social and cultural contexts with the aim of exploring the actions individuals take with texts and the consequences of those actions. As mentioned, it is a theory and methodology related to CDA (Fairclough, 1995) with a contextual focus; it en-deavors to move beyond verbal data and “mere” textual analysis for social research. It is generally useful for research in the areas of linguistics, applied linguistics, and ethno-graphic research, and it is applied in the humanities and the educational field. MDA com-bines methods from close linguistic analysis of social interactions and also refers to the cognitive, sociocultural psychology of Wertsch (1998) and Goffman’s concept of the par-ticipation framework (1981), which all share an interest in context. MDA refers to visual and social semiotics and Kress and van Leeuwen’s work regarding discourses in place, or how the physical and material characteristics of signs “give meaning” (R. Scollon & S.W.

Scollon, 2003).

The main books I used for my adaptation of MDA are Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet (2004) and Discourse in Place: Language in the Material World (2003) by lin-guists and ethnographers Ron and Suzie Wong Scollon, and Ron Scollon’s Mediated Dis-course: The Nexus of Practice (2001b) (see also Ibid. 2001a, 2006). Another relevant book on MDA is Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis, edited by linguists Philip LeVine and Ron Scollon (2004), in which scholars discuss the role of the Internet and “real life” activities in educational contexts and workplaces. In LeVine and Ron Scollon (2004), the contribution by Sigrid Norris provides a framework for how to account for various modalities, including material layout, gesture, posture, and gaze, as well as spoken lan-guage, described in more detail in Norris’s Analyzing Multimodal Interaction (2004a). I am inspired by her approach to using video stills for video analysis (Ibid. 2002, 2004b; Jones &

Norris, 2005). Van Leeuwen (in LeVine & Scollon, 2004) confirms the significance of the visual mode in discourse analysis.

Ron and Suzie Wong Scollon apply the notion of mediated actions to occurrences in se-lected moments in time and space (2004). This idea can reveal how people interact with all the different types of discourses in a context. Thus, actions and experiences intersect, and, together, are constantly transforming; “each of these can be thought of as having a history that leads into that moment and a future that leads away from it in arcs of semiotic cycles of change and transformation” (Ibid., p. 160).

There are three areas of MDA, which are illustrated in Figure 5.1, Nexus Analysis of the So-cial Action. A nexus refers to a “site of engagement,” as in a context for the action that is the object of study. Figure 5.1 is adapted from a sketch of areas to consider for data analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, p. 154). As illustrated below, exploring the central “social action”

involves doing a nexus analysis with consideration of three areas:

1. Discourses in a place, which are discourses that cycle through and from many places and uses.

2. Interaction order of a group of agents.

3. Experience of any given agent as an individual, and his or her history.

The three areas are illustrated and explained below, as is “social action.”

Figure 5.1

Nexus Analysis of the Social Action, Based on Scollon and Scollon

This figure is my interpretation and illustration of the three areas of the MDA framework as applied to the case study. The “social action” refers to the core question behind a study, such as my question of how the students are designing and reflecting in relation to transforming texts.

Discourses in place is described as semiotic aggregates, a coming together of many types of discourses for both place (location, environment, or site), and time (time units, schedules).

In a classroom, the dominant discourse is pedagogical but embedded in long-standing tra-ditions. I also want to discover how the students communicate about their filmmaking

ex-perience in the school context—that is, their discourses about aesthetic exex-perience in rela-tion to school and their culture at large. This communicarela-tion is revealed during filmmaking (see Chapter 8) and also through interviews (see Chapter 7). I include their texts, such as films, as a type of discourse.

Interaction order is a basis for clarifying an aspect of interaction to determine the human or social factors that create the scenes that constrain or allow our actions (Scollon & Scollon, 2004). This area is related to the roles people take or perform in social settings and the posi-tions that occur in our everyday social interacposi-tions (Goffman, 1981). It can be difficult to separate individual actions, such as during the filmmaking process, from the interactions involved in orienting oneself with others. Therefore, I use the data from the individual level of portraits to reveal more about the group order in the film groups.

Experience refers to the self and to others. In MDA, this area refers to a term from Japanese phenomenologist Nishida, historical body (as cited in Scollon & Scollon, 2004), which basi-cally refers to how the self is anchored in a bodily basis of experience. But I prefer the term experience and refer to similar ideas on synaesthesia, prior experience, metaphor, and em-bodiment as used in pragmatic theories (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Dewey, 1934). Experience relates to my interest in the individual agent (filmmaker) and his or her identity and im-plies embodiment, as used in this thesis. Figure 5.1 attempts to illustrate how experience is embodied by showing a few of our senses: eye for sight, hand for touch, ear for hearing.

When uncovering experience in my case study, I also address the question of how design-ing or filmmakdesign-ing involves interactions with others in the school, the positiondesign-ing of groups, and the individual (referring to Goffman). In regards to experience, I want to dis-cover how the students bring their previous experience into the classroom; how they use that experience with film, art, and technologies; and if, or how, this experience enables them to carry out their roles in the film groups.

The social action is an aggregate of the three areas, which are seen as united, and refers to a study’s primary question. In this case, that question focuses on the designing and reflecting processes of the students, the “double” process of transformation seen as relating to mul-timodal “design competence.” MDA supports “mining” data for indicators of design com-petence as a framework for analyzing real-time actions of designing texts, actions that are physical, material, and visible.

The MDA approach seeks to uncover the overarching social problem at issue (Scollon &

Scollon, 2004) in real-time events. These actions are related to and reflective of larger social discourses and practices; thus, the micro level of actions is intertwined with various chains of events or trajectories (Ibid., 2003, 2004).

In data analysis, it is impossible to treat the three areas equally. My main focus is on the aspect of discourses in place, especially the discourses called texts in the context of the school. Using the MDA approach to texts involves seeing texts as cycling through dis-courses, which are taking place in the school and social field. This cycling of text and action in context also underlies the use of the term resemiotization (from Iedema) and the social semiotic view of texts and redesigning or innovating meanings, which are made from com-bining layers of meanings in new, unique compositions.