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Article summary:
1. This paper explores the use of metadiscursive elements in university lectures from a multimodal discourse analysis perspective.
2. The study focuses on two opencourseware lectures from Yale University's collection of MOOCs and analyzes the co-occurrence of linguistic, paralinguistic, and kinesic elements.
3. The results show that lecturers mainly use metadiscursive elements for discourse organization, including introducing, adding to, concluding, previewing, and reviewing topics.
Article analysis:
The article "A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Linking Metadiscursive Elements in Two Opencourseware Lectures (MOOCs)" by Edgar Bernad-Mechó aims to analyze the metadiscursive elements used by lecturers to link different sessions within a course. The study focuses on online lectures from Yale University's collection of MOOCs and uses a Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) approach to identify recurrent patterns and relationships between these elements and paralinguistic and kinesic elements.
The article provides a clear introduction to the topic, highlighting the importance of metadiscourse in achieving proper cohesion and creating a clearer message for students. However, the article lacks a clear research question or hypothesis, which could have helped guide the analysis and provide more focus to the study.
The methodology section is well-described, with detailed information on how the lectures were selected, transcribed, and analyzed using ELAN software. The use of multiple tiers for linguistic, paralinguistic, and kinesic elements is appropriate for a multimodal analysis.
The results section presents interesting findings on the distribution of linking elements in both lectures. However, there is no discussion or interpretation of these results beyond their presentation in figures. The article would benefit from more detailed analysis of how these linking elements are used verbally and non-verbally, as well as their relationship with paralinguistic and kinesic features.
One potential bias in this study is its focus on only two lectures from one university's collection of MOOCs. This limits the generalizability of the findings to other contexts or types of lectures. Additionally, while the article acknowledges that all genres are multimodal, it does not fully explore how this multimodality affects communication in academic lectures beyond hand gestures.
Overall, while this article provides an interesting perspective on metadiscourse in academic lectures from a multimodal point of view, it could benefit from more focused research questions and deeper analysis of its findings.