Uses of multimodal statements on the playground: a Foucaultian approach to multimodal discourse analysis. Issue 2 (15th March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ranker, Jason
• Is Part Of: Social semiotics. Volume 28:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 169
• Page End: 183
• Publication Date: 2018-03-15
• Subjects: MMDA -- multimodal -- discourse -- Foucault -- semiotics -- play -- statement; Semiotics -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Functionalism (Linguistics) -- Periodicals; Critical theory -- Periodicals; 302.2
• DOI: 10.1080/10350330.2017.1278917
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1035-0330

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In this study, I draw upon the concept of a statement (l'énoncé), Foucault's fundamental discursive unit, as developed in The Archaeology of Knowledge, extending and applying the concept to a group of children's multimodal discourse operations on the playground, and thereby developing the concept of a multimodal statement . I do this by focusing on Foucault's semiotic grounding of the statement, which he describes as being constituted by a group of signs. My analytical approach involved developing a form of multimodal transcription that enabled the isolation of individual multimodal statements within a focal discursive event. In later stages of analysis, I identified the signifiers (from across multiple modes) that comprised the students' multimodal statements, and found that these multimodal statements were discursive practices that created a network of nodal point signifiers drawn from multiple modes. Through these multimodal discourse processes, the students created subjective positions as part of a local discursive formation, which I refer to as a multimodal discursive microformation : a social semiotic web of subjectification that the children produced.