Full Circle Associates

Therese Örnberg in Sweden offered an update of her research which focuses on multimodality in online communications. I am fascinated by her questions. Emerging Communications: Research update

"In Part I, I investigate how different modes are used for communication in different types of virtual environments. The environments included all allow for voice communication, but differ greatly with regards to other qualities. One of the environments is a graphical three-dimensional world in which the participants are represented as avatars; another environment is a videoconferencing platform in which participants are visible via web cameras; and the third is a voice conferencing platform without any visual component.

What I am interested in here is how people participating in gatherings in these environments co-construct both structure and content of conversation, (bolded by Nancy) in accordance with Common Ground Theory, as well as how they negotiate for roles and identity via the different modes available. Important factors here include spatiality and embodiment, and in addition to theories of Multimodality, also theories of Presence play an important role. Apart from this comparative study, a study in which I follow a group of students communicating in one of these environments over time will also be conducted and these results will be presented in a separate article.

In Part II, I turn the camera around and focus on the individual in front of his/her computer.
Technological development has not only resulted in new modes of communication to be employed in well-defined conversational settings online, but also in the possibility to engage in different conversations simultaneously. When multitasking, the individual is in the centre of a unique and complex discourse scenario in which different discourses are interwoven. Here, I will examine how the different modes combine when people participate in several intertwined and/or separate discourses. The questions explored include: how does the individual navigate between the different channels and how do they interrelate? What governs the choice of channel and what modes tend to be the primary ones? How does this type of communication situation differ from the less complex communication situations studied in Part I, and how do they differ from communication situations face-to-face? How do these differences affect the verbal and non-verbal signals transmitted? What role does the verbal play? What linguistic patterns can be identified? How is discursive coherence created? What is the function of each channel/mode respectively and do they differ as regards level of formality? Does code-switching take place when switching between channels? These questions will be explored by closely observing a number of multitasking informants and the way they interact and communicate via modern technology.

The results of my research project should provide additional insight into the complex matter of how our language and our communication are adapted in computer-mediated communication situations. Apart from the linguistic (the term linguistic here also includes what traditionally is referred to as extralinguistic) results, I hope that my research will have practical implications for e-learning, not least in language education at a distance, which is one of my areas of interest."

Both directions in this research proposal are interesting. I'm interested too, in how people co-construct their experiences (from the first part of Therese's research) and how we pass non verbal cues in the online environment -- and I'm convinced we do. Silence is a non verbal. Quick or slow response is a non verbal. I think it is richer than you might expect, but also really hard to interpret.