摘 要

在教学设计过程中运用两种及以上符号资源和手段呈现教学内容的的教学模式即为多模态外语教学，国内有关多模态外语教学的研究已有十余年历史。本文在多模态话语分析和多模态外语教学理论的指导下，从研究方法和研究内容等角度入手对2007-2017年以来，发表在外语CSSCI核心期刊以及其他教育学科期刊的相关文章进行了文献整理和综述研究，主要分析了国内外语多模态教学研究关注的重点和取得的成绩，发展现状和趋势，总结了研究存在的不足。在实际的外语教学中，多模态现象虽然一直存在却未被充分实践，对外语多模态研究多以实证研究为主，并且理论研究和实践教学还没有很好的衔接。本文还尝试对外语多模态教学研究提出一些建议，希望能够有效地提高大学生的英语学习能力和实际水平。

关键词：多模态；外语教学；大学英语；多模态话语分析

Abstract

Multimodal foreign language teaching indicates that using two or more symbol resources and means as teaching modes to present teaching content in the instructional design process. The study of domestic multimodal foreign language teaching has been more than ten years old. Based on the theory of multimodal discourse analysis and multimodal foreign language teaching, this paper takes research method and research content as the study points, and collects the relevant articles published in Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) of foreign language core journals and other educational periodicals from 2007 to 2017. The paper did the literature review of the collected articles and mainly analyzed the achievements of domestic study of multimodal foreign languages teaching, summarized the development status and trends of the study, and tried to point out the existing problems. Actually, although multimodal has been in foreign language teaching, it has not been fully practiced. Moreover, there are mostly empirical researches of multimodality foreign languages teachings due to the statistics, in addition theoretical research and practical teaching have not been well connected. This paper also tried to put forward some suggestions on the study of multimodal foreign languages teaching, which might also help college student to effectively improve their English learning ability and level.

Key Words: Multimodal; Foreign Language Teaching; College English; Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 3

3 The Research Design and Data Analysis of Multimodal Foreign Language Teaching (MFLT) Research in China 5

3.1 Research Design, Objects and Methods 5

3.2 The Development of MFLT Research in China 6

3.3 The Research Methods Applied in MFLT Research in China 7

3.4 The Research Contents of MFLT in China 8

4 The Major Discussion on Multimodal Foreign Language Teaching (MFLT) Research 11

4.1 The Deficiencies of MFLT Research 11

4.2 The Suggestions on MFLT Research 12

5 Conclusion 14

References 15

Acknowledgements 16

A Review of Studies on Multimodal Foreign Language Teaching in China

1 Introduction

Multimodal teaching is a new teaching philosophy put forward by stein, which interpreted as teachers in the classroom using sound, pictures, animation and other channels to mobilize the students’ multi-sensory response, so that students actively participate in the dynamic language learning, which focuses on training students to multiple reading ability and promoting students to participate in language learning through participation and cooperation.

In the 1990s, Western scholars developed a combination of social semiotics, systemic functional grammar, and traditional discourse analysis based on critical discourse analysis. The theory thinks that language is a social symbol, while the other non-language symbols are painting, music, dance, and so on，which is also the source of meaning expression. The non-language symbol modes are independent and interact with each other and generate meanings together with language symbols. It breaks through the limitations of traditional discourse analysis and isolated research on the language itself, and extends the study of discourse to modal symbols other than language, such as images, colors, and fonts, in addition it focuses on various modal symbols in discourse. With the development of 20 years, multimodal discourse analysis has been widely used in various disciplines which also plays an important role in foreign language teaching.

This paper reviews research papers of connotation, origin and development of multimodal foreign language teaching from domestic and international contexts, which published on of CSSCI in 10 years from the perspective of volume, research methods, research content, etc. The results of the analysis show that the number of research papers of MFLT is rising; the content of the research is multi-dimensional but also is lack of the breadth and depth; the theoretical basis of the research is extensive; empirical research is rare but increases year by year; most research objects are the foreign language teaching in colleges and universities. In general, domestic multimodal foreign language teaching research is still in its infancy. For the current situation and development trend of MFLT, the paper tried to propose some relevant suggestions for future research.

2 Literature Review

Western multimodal teaching research could be traced back to 1990s, and developed rapidly in the early 21^st Century, and has formed its own theoretical system and research methods. The western research representatives of multimodal teaching include Stein (2000), Kress (2000), Royce (2002), etc. The study of multimodal foreign language teaching in China originated from the study of pluralistic reading teaching in foreign countries (Hu, 2007; Zhu, 2008).

Jewitt (2009) distinguishes three perspectives of multimodality research: social semiotic analysis (Kress amp; van Leeuwen, 1996; van Leeuwen, 2005), systemic functional grammar analysis (Baldry amp; Thibault, 2006; O’Toole, 1994; O’Hallomn, 2005) and social interaction analysis (Norris, 2004). Although these three perspectives are slightly different, they all belong to “social function analysis” (Bateman amp; Schmidt 2012). At the same time, Jewitt ignores two other important research perspectives, namely the study of multimodal metaphors based on the cognitive metaphor theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) (EI Refaie, 2003; Forceville, 1996; Forceville amp; Urios-Aparisi, 2009) and Multimodal text analysis from the perspective of corpus linguistics (Gu, 2006, 2009). According to the social semiotic theory of Halliday (1978, 1994), both linguistic and non-linguistic signs cannot be regarded as immutable semantic “coding” but can construct “resources” of meaning in certain contexts. Thus, Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) depict the visual “grammar” is only a systematic “description” of imagery ideological resources rather than a rigid “rule”, which explicitness powerfully guide multimodal analysis by means of linguistic theories and also establish a multimodal theoretical system.

Since the discourse analysis (Discourse Analysis) theory was proposed by American linguist Z Harris in 1952, scholars at home and abroad have put forward a variety of discourse analysis theories and methods based on different perspectives, and revealed a large number of case studies. For example, Zhu Yongsheng (2003) once indicated the intrinsic relationship between the inherent laws of discourse activity and cognitive behavior in his research. Previous discourse analysis studies focused on the structure of discourse texts, grammatical laws, and the relationships between sentences, ignoring expressions such as images, sounds, colors, animations, spaces, and symbols. However, with the development of information technology and the interpenetration of multiculturalism, traditional discourse studies have been unable to meet people’s communication needs, and multimodal discourse studies have been applied. In the 1990s, the international linguistics field began to rise up with the upsurge of multimodal discourse research. Surely, China started the related research relatively late. Li Zhanzi (2003) first introduced multimodal discourse analysis into China. From 2007 to 2013, 92 multimodal discourse research articles and 42 multimodal foreign language teaching research papers published in the domestic core periodicals of foreign languages, which has speeded up the pace of multimodal foreign language teaching and research in China. These studies have made many new breakthroughs and progress, and shorten the gap between china and the western countries. Nevertheless, the influence of Chinese multimodal teaching research is not large enough to form an independent subject category.