Past Events
VIRTUAL TALK SERIES 2020
October 28, 2020, 16:00 (BST)
Paying attention on video chat
Dorottya Cserzo
University of Cardiff
Please register here:
https://edinburgh.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/baal-sig-language-new-media-virtual-plenary-cserzo-2
This talk explores the use of video chat (VC) for personal relationship maintenance. The study investigated VC practices at a time of rapid technological transformation (2014-2015) focusing on the practices of university students using VC with family, friends, and partners. It is based on micro analyses of recorded VC sessions and thematic analysis of 29 semi-structured interviews about VC practices. The findings from the two types of analysis were brought together under the framework of nexus analysis (Norris & Jones, 2005). I re-examine these findings in light of recent changes in VC use.
The analysis builds on the theory of technological affordances (Hutchby, 2001), considering the capabilities of the technology together with habits of use. I also incorporate the concept of polymedia (Madianou & Miller, 2013) by evaluating VC practices with reference to other forms of distance communication available to my participants (for example texting, instant messaging, and phone calls). I argue that instead of economic costs, choices between distance communication technologies are driven by ‘attention costs’ in the context of the attention economy (Goldhaber, 1997; Jones, 2005; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003).
I demonstrate that unlike other forms of distance communication, typical VC encounters require a full investment of attention. This can be formulated as an interactional maxim: focus your attention on the VC interaction. I discuss the boundaries of the maxim, for example circumstances where multitasking is accepted during a VC. Furthermore, I examine the exceptional practice of lapsed VC encounters (previously open connections or always-on video). I argue that participants still display an orientation towards the maxim while multitasking, and that lapsed encounters operate under a different value system than typical focused VC encounters. Finally, I reflect on changes in VC practices in response to social restrictions introduced in reaction to COVID-19.
July 30, 2020, 09:00 AM (BST)
Emoji Syntax: Evidence of Preferred "Word" Order
Susan C. Herring
Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Emoji usage is increasingly taking on characteristics of verbal language. Singly and in sequences, alone and together with text, emoji can substitute for words, phrases and utterances and express semantic and pragmatic meanings (Danesi, 2016). Some scholars claim that emoji are in fact evolving into a separate, graphical language (Ge & Herring, 2018). Others further assume that because it is pictographic, emoji language is, or will be, universal (Ai et al., 2017). This talk is concerned with emoji sequences, or uninterrupted strings of two or more semantically distinct emoji. Starting from the premise that an emoji sequence is analogous to a sentence-like utterance and functions in some respects like a sequence of words, it asks: To what extent do emoji sequences exhibit recurrent patterns in the ordering of emoji, and which patterns occur most frequently? If patterned regularities can be identified, it would lend strong support to the view that emoji sequences have language-like properties. In particular, it would demonstrate that emoji sequences have syntax, an essential component of language.
Findings will be presented from a study of "word" orders in emoji sequences on Sina Weibo, a prominent Chinese microblogging site, drawing on research on word order types in verbal langauges (Comrie, 1981). Most of the sequences can be analyzed as diplsaying a linear word order with variants of Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) order occurring most often. Given such evifence, I propose that emoji sequences on Sina Weibo have an emergent syntax, and that they constitute a "pre-language" (Givon, 1979) independent of Chinese. Their syntactic properties are not universal, however, since OVS order differs from the SVO order previously reported for emoji sequences in English-language contexts (Danesi, 2016).
You can listen to the talk here.
July 16, 2020 11:00 AM (BST)
Digital intimacy and ambient embodied copresence in YouTube videos: Construing visual and aural perspective in ASMR role play videos
Michelle Zappavigna
University of New South Wales, Australia
This presentation explores how digital intimacy is construed through ambient embodied copresence in 'personal attention' role play videos, a type of ASMR video, that has become popular on YouTube. ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) is the experience of positive sensations in response to visual and aural stimuli. Online video sharing platforms have provided a way for people who experience these ASMR sensations to watch, produce, and disseminate ASMR-invoking material. In ASMR role play videos the YouTube constructs a conceit (e.g. a beautician visit) and uses visual and aural resources to encourage the feeling in the ambient viewer that they are there with the YouTuber experiencing the interaction. This talk employs multimodal discourse analysis to explore how these videos forge an immersive (faux) interactional context, and invoke the visual and aural perspective and embodiment of the ambient viewer. The dataset considered is a playlist of 116 role play videos from the GentleWhispering ASMR YouTube channel, the most popular ASMR channel at the time of writing. Attendees are invited to watch the following ASMR video (using headphones) prior to the presentation which will hopefully also help with relaxation in these stressful times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYxvmKzmME8.
You can listen to the talk here.
July 2, 2020 at 3:00 PM (BST)/4:00 PM (CET)
Jannis Androutsopoulos
Universat of Hamburg/MultiLing, University of Oslo
Media repertoires and multilingual practices in transnational family communication: a Norwegian-Senegalese case study
What happens when people with multilingual repertoires use digital devices and apps to conduct transnational communication? Common as they may be in today's mediatized lives, practices at the intersection of linguistic and media repertoires have been largely unexplored in sociolinguistic research on language and digital communication, which has mainly focused n single and mostly public digital platforms. In an ethnographic project with four Norwegian-Senegalese families, we (Kristin Vold Lexander and myself) examined how elevent parents and children (adolescents and participants tailor their language choices (involving Wolof, French, English, Arabic, Norwegian) to local and transnational interlocutors by means of various digital apps. Our findings suggest that digital practices are organised in homologies that involved specific discourses, audiences, linguistic choices, and media channels. More specifically, digital media enable family members to tap into various national public spheres, to engage in discourses of religion and popular culture, and to practice informal conversational exchange and heritage language learning, in each case mobilizing different resources from their linguistic and media repertoires. Some of these orientations are historically new, enabled by transnational circulation of semiotic resources, others quite old, drawing on the remediation of historically rooted discourses. On a theory plane, these findings drive home the need to extend sociolinguistic concepts in order to cope with language practices in a digital age. I introduce the notion of 'mediational repertoire', which integrates (a) linguistic resources brought along by participants, (b) media channels selected by participants to conduct digital interaction, and (c) sign-inventories as afforded by the selected media environments. Such a notion, I suggest, enables us to examine how resemiotized language practices and linguistic diversity in general feed into the complex techno-semiotic arrangements of utterance production afforded by contemporary digital media.
Please click her to register your interest and receive the link to the talk:
https://edinburgh.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/baal-sig-language-new-media-virtual-plenary-ii-androutso
APRIL 17, 2020, 11 am (BST)
Jack Grieve, University of Birmingham
Big Data and Little Phenomena in Linguistics
There has been a lot of excitement in linguistics about using online data to build very large corpora of natural language. Most often interest has focused on how big data opens up the possibility of conducting large-scale linguistic research. For example, based on Twitter corpora, we can map the regional distribution of thousands of lexical forms at a spatial resolution that was impossible only a decade ago. But large social media corpora also open up the possibility of conducting small-scale research that zooms in on incredibly rare phenomena that could not otherwise be systematically observed. For example, based on Twitter corpora, we can study double modals (e.g. might can), which have long resisted analysis because they are such uncommon and stigmatised grammatical forms. In this talk, I discuss these two approaches to working with big data in linguistics, illustrated by examples from my research, where I have used large social media corpora to study language variation and change in the English language. I conclude that the real potential of big data in linguistics is that it allows for language to be analysed on a systemic level, respecting both the diversity of linguistic forms and the diversity of social contexts across which these forms are used.
You can listen to the talk here.
2020 Workshop: Working with language and multimodal social media data: Methods and Methodology
University of Edinburgh
April 16-17, 2020
***This event had to be cancelled, due to COVID-19. Please see Virtual Seminar Series 2020***
Working with social media poses a unique set of challenges for applied linguistic research. For instance, how can the relation between online and offline language practices be captured? how can the interplay between images and texts be analysed? what are the most effective methods for scraping (quantitatively) and collecting (qualitatively) data in different platforms/apps? What are the ethical and privacy implications of such research? The 2020 annual research seminar of BAAL Language and New Media SIG will focus on methods and methodology. We welcome papers that showcase various qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods for collecting, analysing and interpreting data across different social media platforms/applications. We particularly encourage “work-in-progress” papers that experiment with innovative research methods and designs.
Confirmed invited speakers
Jack Grieve, University of Birmingham
Agnieszka Lyons, Queen Mary, University of London
For more information please contact [email protected].
2019 Workshop: A force for good? Digital media, positive social change and transformative practice
University of Nottingham, UK
Thursday, 2nd May 2019
Recent technological developments have enabled individuals and groups who are socially disparate and geographically dispersed to connect and communicate with relative speed and ease. This unprecedented access to others’ experiences, personal details and political opinions has had a range of significant effects on social practices and relationships. This event will focus on those effects that can positively impact people’s lives, for example by helping to disrupt and transform damaging practices, or by opening up new and multiple perspectives and possibilities in relation to social issues, policies or politics. The day will include a range of presentations that critically examine the role digital communication can have in redressing forms of social injustice and inequality, promoting individual and group rights, and maximising communicative potential. This will include consideration of practices that raise consciousness about social problems, that allow people to express and explore diverse and marginalised identities and experiences, and that facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and information about complex and little-understood issues.
Plenary speakers
Amanda Potts (Cardiff University) and Louise Mullany (University of Nottingham).
Registration costs:
Standard - £40
BAAL member - £35
Student - £30
Student BAAL member - £25
The event includes lunch and refreshments. Please sign up here: https://store.nottingham.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/conferences/schools-and-departments/english/baal-language-and-new-media-sig-2019-seminar
Registration is now closed. Event report available HERE.
For more information, please contact Jai Mackenzie at [email protected]
2018 Workshop: Changing Language and Communication Practices in Contemporary Networked Societies
Open University, 19 July, 2018
Report available here
Recent social and technological developments, including a dramatic rise in the number of smartphone users and the increased convergence of social network platforms and apps, are bringing about changes in the ways we use social media. In this seminar we are interested in the real-world language and communication practices of individual users, groups of users, or institutions, which attest to the blurring of boundaries between the self and the public, media and social media, the online and the offline. The aim of this seminar is to bring together linguists researching digital language and communication to share their empirical and theoretical perspectives on changing digital practices. We invite papers that further our understanding of the complex and multiple roles that social media plays in contemporary networked societies, moving beyond public discourses – be they dystopian or utopian – about the implications of digital technologies for social life.
We invite abstract submissions in the following areas:
2017 Workshop: Language, New Media and Alt.Realities
University of Reading, 21 April, 2017
Report available here
This year's annual conference of the BAAL Language and New Media SIG will take up the important issue of how the semiotic affordances, information architectures and communicative practices associated with digital media are affecting people's constructions and interpretations of 'reality' and 'truth' - including such phenomena as 'filter bubbles' and 'echo chambers', 'fake news' and conspiracy theories, the decline in influence of mainstream media, 'post-truth' politics and 'alt' movements, and the role of new media in the rise of authoritarian governments. The focus will be on what scholars of language and discourse can contribute to understanding
1) the new ways information circulates through digital media and the new norms of communication and interpretation that have developed around these flows of information;
2) the effect that new media communication is having on the status of such constructs as 'truth', 'facticity', 'objectivity', and 'expertise' and the new 'ways of knowing' it is giving rise to; and
3) the consequences of these new epistemologies on politics, public policy, governance and democratic institutions.
Plenary speakers
2016 Workshop: Multimodality in Social Media and Digital Environments
Queen Mary University of London, 15 April, 2016
Report available here
Gestures, positioning in space, and other forms of embodied communication are frequently recognised as bearing meaning-making potential in interpersonal interactions and print media alongside (or instead of) language. There is also a feeling of urgency to systematically account for multimodal aspects of digital environments, particularly as they increasingly focus on multimodal content and foster intertextuality and interactivity.
This relatively new scholarly interest brings with it a number of methodological considerations as well as questions related to the application and interpretation of semiotic resources beyond language in digital contexts.
The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers interested in the multimodal aspects of social and digital communication, to discuss methodological considerations in multimodal social media research, and explore the possible ways forward. The event will consist of invited plenaries, paper presentations and discussions.
Plenary speakers
2015 Workshop: The Ethics of Online Research Methods
Cardiff University, 16-17 April, 2015
Today, more than ever, data are widely accessible, visible, and searchable for research in digital media contexts. At the same time, new data types and collection methods challenge existing approaches to research ethics and raise significant and difficult questions for researchers who design, undertake and disseminate research in and about digital environments.
The aims of this workshop are to bring together researchers who use online research methods and data in different subfields of applied linguistics, to discuss ethical considerations in online data collection and analysis, to identify challenges and share solutions to ethical issues arising from applied linguistics research.
Plenary speakers
October 28, 2020, 16:00 (BST)
Paying attention on video chat
Dorottya Cserzo
University of Cardiff
Please register here:
https://edinburgh.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/baal-sig-language-new-media-virtual-plenary-cserzo-2
This talk explores the use of video chat (VC) for personal relationship maintenance. The study investigated VC practices at a time of rapid technological transformation (2014-2015) focusing on the practices of university students using VC with family, friends, and partners. It is based on micro analyses of recorded VC sessions and thematic analysis of 29 semi-structured interviews about VC practices. The findings from the two types of analysis were brought together under the framework of nexus analysis (Norris & Jones, 2005). I re-examine these findings in light of recent changes in VC use.
The analysis builds on the theory of technological affordances (Hutchby, 2001), considering the capabilities of the technology together with habits of use. I also incorporate the concept of polymedia (Madianou & Miller, 2013) by evaluating VC practices with reference to other forms of distance communication available to my participants (for example texting, instant messaging, and phone calls). I argue that instead of economic costs, choices between distance communication technologies are driven by ‘attention costs’ in the context of the attention economy (Goldhaber, 1997; Jones, 2005; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003).
I demonstrate that unlike other forms of distance communication, typical VC encounters require a full investment of attention. This can be formulated as an interactional maxim: focus your attention on the VC interaction. I discuss the boundaries of the maxim, for example circumstances where multitasking is accepted during a VC. Furthermore, I examine the exceptional practice of lapsed VC encounters (previously open connections or always-on video). I argue that participants still display an orientation towards the maxim while multitasking, and that lapsed encounters operate under a different value system than typical focused VC encounters. Finally, I reflect on changes in VC practices in response to social restrictions introduced in reaction to COVID-19.
July 30, 2020, 09:00 AM (BST)
Emoji Syntax: Evidence of Preferred "Word" Order
Susan C. Herring
Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Emoji usage is increasingly taking on characteristics of verbal language. Singly and in sequences, alone and together with text, emoji can substitute for words, phrases and utterances and express semantic and pragmatic meanings (Danesi, 2016). Some scholars claim that emoji are in fact evolving into a separate, graphical language (Ge & Herring, 2018). Others further assume that because it is pictographic, emoji language is, or will be, universal (Ai et al., 2017). This talk is concerned with emoji sequences, or uninterrupted strings of two or more semantically distinct emoji. Starting from the premise that an emoji sequence is analogous to a sentence-like utterance and functions in some respects like a sequence of words, it asks: To what extent do emoji sequences exhibit recurrent patterns in the ordering of emoji, and which patterns occur most frequently? If patterned regularities can be identified, it would lend strong support to the view that emoji sequences have language-like properties. In particular, it would demonstrate that emoji sequences have syntax, an essential component of language.
Findings will be presented from a study of "word" orders in emoji sequences on Sina Weibo, a prominent Chinese microblogging site, drawing on research on word order types in verbal langauges (Comrie, 1981). Most of the sequences can be analyzed as diplsaying a linear word order with variants of Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) order occurring most often. Given such evifence, I propose that emoji sequences on Sina Weibo have an emergent syntax, and that they constitute a "pre-language" (Givon, 1979) independent of Chinese. Their syntactic properties are not universal, however, since OVS order differs from the SVO order previously reported for emoji sequences in English-language contexts (Danesi, 2016).
You can listen to the talk here.
July 16, 2020 11:00 AM (BST)
Digital intimacy and ambient embodied copresence in YouTube videos: Construing visual and aural perspective in ASMR role play videos
Michelle Zappavigna
University of New South Wales, Australia
This presentation explores how digital intimacy is construed through ambient embodied copresence in 'personal attention' role play videos, a type of ASMR video, that has become popular on YouTube. ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) is the experience of positive sensations in response to visual and aural stimuli. Online video sharing platforms have provided a way for people who experience these ASMR sensations to watch, produce, and disseminate ASMR-invoking material. In ASMR role play videos the YouTube constructs a conceit (e.g. a beautician visit) and uses visual and aural resources to encourage the feeling in the ambient viewer that they are there with the YouTuber experiencing the interaction. This talk employs multimodal discourse analysis to explore how these videos forge an immersive (faux) interactional context, and invoke the visual and aural perspective and embodiment of the ambient viewer. The dataset considered is a playlist of 116 role play videos from the GentleWhispering ASMR YouTube channel, the most popular ASMR channel at the time of writing. Attendees are invited to watch the following ASMR video (using headphones) prior to the presentation which will hopefully also help with relaxation in these stressful times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYxvmKzmME8.
You can listen to the talk here.
July 2, 2020 at 3:00 PM (BST)/4:00 PM (CET)
Jannis Androutsopoulos
Universat of Hamburg/MultiLing, University of Oslo
Media repertoires and multilingual practices in transnational family communication: a Norwegian-Senegalese case study
What happens when people with multilingual repertoires use digital devices and apps to conduct transnational communication? Common as they may be in today's mediatized lives, practices at the intersection of linguistic and media repertoires have been largely unexplored in sociolinguistic research on language and digital communication, which has mainly focused n single and mostly public digital platforms. In an ethnographic project with four Norwegian-Senegalese families, we (Kristin Vold Lexander and myself) examined how elevent parents and children (adolescents and participants tailor their language choices (involving Wolof, French, English, Arabic, Norwegian) to local and transnational interlocutors by means of various digital apps. Our findings suggest that digital practices are organised in homologies that involved specific discourses, audiences, linguistic choices, and media channels. More specifically, digital media enable family members to tap into various national public spheres, to engage in discourses of religion and popular culture, and to practice informal conversational exchange and heritage language learning, in each case mobilizing different resources from their linguistic and media repertoires. Some of these orientations are historically new, enabled by transnational circulation of semiotic resources, others quite old, drawing on the remediation of historically rooted discourses. On a theory plane, these findings drive home the need to extend sociolinguistic concepts in order to cope with language practices in a digital age. I introduce the notion of 'mediational repertoire', which integrates (a) linguistic resources brought along by participants, (b) media channels selected by participants to conduct digital interaction, and (c) sign-inventories as afforded by the selected media environments. Such a notion, I suggest, enables us to examine how resemiotized language practices and linguistic diversity in general feed into the complex techno-semiotic arrangements of utterance production afforded by contemporary digital media.
Please click her to register your interest and receive the link to the talk:
https://edinburgh.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/baal-sig-language-new-media-virtual-plenary-ii-androutso
APRIL 17, 2020, 11 am (BST)
Jack Grieve, University of Birmingham
Big Data and Little Phenomena in Linguistics
There has been a lot of excitement in linguistics about using online data to build very large corpora of natural language. Most often interest has focused on how big data opens up the possibility of conducting large-scale linguistic research. For example, based on Twitter corpora, we can map the regional distribution of thousands of lexical forms at a spatial resolution that was impossible only a decade ago. But large social media corpora also open up the possibility of conducting small-scale research that zooms in on incredibly rare phenomena that could not otherwise be systematically observed. For example, based on Twitter corpora, we can study double modals (e.g. might can), which have long resisted analysis because they are such uncommon and stigmatised grammatical forms. In this talk, I discuss these two approaches to working with big data in linguistics, illustrated by examples from my research, where I have used large social media corpora to study language variation and change in the English language. I conclude that the real potential of big data in linguistics is that it allows for language to be analysed on a systemic level, respecting both the diversity of linguistic forms and the diversity of social contexts across which these forms are used.
You can listen to the talk here.
2020 Workshop: Working with language and multimodal social media data: Methods and Methodology
University of Edinburgh
April 16-17, 2020
***This event had to be cancelled, due to COVID-19. Please see Virtual Seminar Series 2020***
Working with social media poses a unique set of challenges for applied linguistic research. For instance, how can the relation between online and offline language practices be captured? how can the interplay between images and texts be analysed? what are the most effective methods for scraping (quantitatively) and collecting (qualitatively) data in different platforms/apps? What are the ethical and privacy implications of such research? The 2020 annual research seminar of BAAL Language and New Media SIG will focus on methods and methodology. We welcome papers that showcase various qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods for collecting, analysing and interpreting data across different social media platforms/applications. We particularly encourage “work-in-progress” papers that experiment with innovative research methods and designs.
Confirmed invited speakers
Jack Grieve, University of Birmingham
Agnieszka Lyons, Queen Mary, University of London
For more information please contact [email protected].
2019 Workshop: A force for good? Digital media, positive social change and transformative practice
University of Nottingham, UK
Thursday, 2nd May 2019
Recent technological developments have enabled individuals and groups who are socially disparate and geographically dispersed to connect and communicate with relative speed and ease. This unprecedented access to others’ experiences, personal details and political opinions has had a range of significant effects on social practices and relationships. This event will focus on those effects that can positively impact people’s lives, for example by helping to disrupt and transform damaging practices, or by opening up new and multiple perspectives and possibilities in relation to social issues, policies or politics. The day will include a range of presentations that critically examine the role digital communication can have in redressing forms of social injustice and inequality, promoting individual and group rights, and maximising communicative potential. This will include consideration of practices that raise consciousness about social problems, that allow people to express and explore diverse and marginalised identities and experiences, and that facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and information about complex and little-understood issues.
Plenary speakers
Amanda Potts (Cardiff University) and Louise Mullany (University of Nottingham).
Registration costs:
Standard - £40
BAAL member - £35
Student - £30
Student BAAL member - £25
The event includes lunch and refreshments. Please sign up here: https://store.nottingham.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/conferences/schools-and-departments/english/baal-language-and-new-media-sig-2019-seminar
Registration is now closed. Event report available HERE.
For more information, please contact Jai Mackenzie at [email protected]
2018 Workshop: Changing Language and Communication Practices in Contemporary Networked Societies
Open University, 19 July, 2018
Report available here
Recent social and technological developments, including a dramatic rise in the number of smartphone users and the increased convergence of social network platforms and apps, are bringing about changes in the ways we use social media. In this seminar we are interested in the real-world language and communication practices of individual users, groups of users, or institutions, which attest to the blurring of boundaries between the self and the public, media and social media, the online and the offline. The aim of this seminar is to bring together linguists researching digital language and communication to share their empirical and theoretical perspectives on changing digital practices. We invite papers that further our understanding of the complex and multiple roles that social media plays in contemporary networked societies, moving beyond public discourses – be they dystopian or utopian – about the implications of digital technologies for social life.
We invite abstract submissions in the following areas:
- real-world uses of social media and mobile technologies for forming, maintaining and negotiating interpersonal relations
- uses of social media for engaging or mobilising publics
- text and story trajectories and the making of digital selves (and groups)
- language and communication in protest campaigns online and citizen journalism
- practices of news sharing online, including fake news
- ways of navigating social media platforms and apps affordances and constraints for specific purposes
- case studies of uses of social media for particular types of public engagement or interventions (positive or negative).
- Mirca Madianou (Goldsmiths, University of London)
- Rachelle Vessay (Birkbeck, University of London)
2017 Workshop: Language, New Media and Alt.Realities
University of Reading, 21 April, 2017
Report available here
This year's annual conference of the BAAL Language and New Media SIG will take up the important issue of how the semiotic affordances, information architectures and communicative practices associated with digital media are affecting people's constructions and interpretations of 'reality' and 'truth' - including such phenomena as 'filter bubbles' and 'echo chambers', 'fake news' and conspiracy theories, the decline in influence of mainstream media, 'post-truth' politics and 'alt' movements, and the role of new media in the rise of authoritarian governments. The focus will be on what scholars of language and discourse can contribute to understanding
1) the new ways information circulates through digital media and the new norms of communication and interpretation that have developed around these flows of information;
2) the effect that new media communication is having on the status of such constructs as 'truth', 'facticity', 'objectivity', and 'expertise' and the new 'ways of knowing' it is giving rise to; and
3) the consequences of these new epistemologies on politics, public policy, governance and democratic institutions.
Plenary speakers
- Caroline Tagg and Philip Seargeant (Open University)
- Colleen Cotter (Queen Mary, University of London)
2016 Workshop: Multimodality in Social Media and Digital Environments
Queen Mary University of London, 15 April, 2016
Report available here
Gestures, positioning in space, and other forms of embodied communication are frequently recognised as bearing meaning-making potential in interpersonal interactions and print media alongside (or instead of) language. There is also a feeling of urgency to systematically account for multimodal aspects of digital environments, particularly as they increasingly focus on multimodal content and foster intertextuality and interactivity.
This relatively new scholarly interest brings with it a number of methodological considerations as well as questions related to the application and interpretation of semiotic resources beyond language in digital contexts.
The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers interested in the multimodal aspects of social and digital communication, to discuss methodological considerations in multimodal social media research, and explore the possible ways forward. The event will consist of invited plenaries, paper presentations and discussions.
Plenary speakers
- Prof. Rodney Jones (University of Reading)
- Dr Myrrh Domingo (IOE UCL)
2015 Workshop: The Ethics of Online Research Methods
Cardiff University, 16-17 April, 2015
Today, more than ever, data are widely accessible, visible, and searchable for research in digital media contexts. At the same time, new data types and collection methods challenge existing approaches to research ethics and raise significant and difficult questions for researchers who design, undertake and disseminate research in and about digital environments.
The aims of this workshop are to bring together researchers who use online research methods and data in different subfields of applied linguistics, to discuss ethical considerations in online data collection and analysis, to identify challenges and share solutions to ethical issues arising from applied linguistics research.
Plenary speakers
- Alexandra Georgakopoulou (King's College London)
- Claire Hardaker (Lancaster University)
- Annette Markham (Aarhus University, Denmark)
- Stephen Pihlaja (Newman University, Birmingham)