Multimodality, Translingualism, and Rhetorical Genre Studies (Gonzales) (Dani):
● Rhetorical genre studies expands previous conceptions of genre to “fuse text and context, product and process, cognition and culture in a single, dynamic concept”
○ Doesn’t focus on restricted types of genres
○ “one of the stronger and most promising developments for comprehending the sociality of discourse while allowing discursive freedom and agency to individuals”
● “The aim of both RGS and multimodal composition is to understand writing in context”
● “translingualism (as it is used in this paper) provides a lens by which to examine (and value) “how writers deploy [and combine] diction, syntax, and style, as well as form, register, and media””
● When asked to “draw on” a topic, a student literally drew her answer
○ English as a second language
○ An act of translanguaging, as she “adopt[ed] interpretative strategies,” to combine words and visuals in her multimodal reading response
● The study
○ “Composition curricula at both institutions asked students to compose both conventional print and multimodal genres in the same semester. Students at both universities were asked to write a literacy narrative and rhetorical analysis assignment in a conventional print form, and were then asked to “remix” either the literacy narrative or rhetorical analysis through a multimodal genre”
○ 10 ESL, 7 native speakers
○ Recorded video, encoded with ELAN software
■ Tiered coding scheme enabled video to be labeled with layers of info at once
● Used to enumerate specific occurrences for statistical analysis
○ Common problem of students (L1 and L2): transferring their ideas onto paper
■ Made gestures of pointing to head, then to table
>In an composition class, students were offered a chance to create ae multimodal project, instead of a standard written paper
>A majority of both L1 and L2 students chose to work on a multimodal project for different reasons
>L1 student wanted to reinforce the idea that she already had in her head
>L2 students wanted to layer meaning, rather than reiterate
>Study suggests possibly that students with stronger grasp of English would benefit less from a multimodal project
>A large number of L2 students also consistently used hand gestures and waves, when referring to the bringing together of various mediums
>Once again though this is a limited study
>L2 writers, as evidenced by my focus group data, claim to not always have “the right words” when attempting to communicate in English, leading them to readily practice translanguaging as they leverage semiotic resources. The result is a complex, purposeful approach to multimodality illustrated through the narratives of L2 writers, an approach that could help begin to question how L2 students, as experts in multimodality, can help the discipline better understand how to teach and theorize the rhetorical nature of genres.