A Study Of Multimodal Elements Of Interpersonal Meaning And Interactive Meaning Construction In Business English Micro-class

In recent years,dynamic multimodal discourse receives a high popularity in current research.Micro-class,as a new typical type of dynamic multimodal discourse,is becoming more and more important in teaching.But it has not caused enough attention of the academic.Based on the interpersonal meaning of Systemic Functional Grammar,the interactive meaning of Visual Grammar and Zhang Delu's Theoretical Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis,an analytical framework and related code annotation are designed with ELAN as a research tool.The current study chose six micro-class videos from business English group of the 2th Micro-Course Contest of Foreign Languages in China and two questions are explored from speech act,modality,types of image,text formatting,kinesics and distance:(a)How are interpersonal meaning constructed by different modes in the verbal system of business English micro-class?(b)How are interactive meaning constructed by different modes in the visual system of business English micro-class?The findings of the study can be concluded as follows:Firstly,in the verbal system of business English micro-class,the Representatives is the most used mood among the five in the speakers' language.The Commissives and the Declarations are least used.The result indicates that a"Speaker-oriented”classroom will be created when performing a speech act of representative while a“Listener-oriented" classroom will be created when performing a speech act of directive.Besides,the speakers of business English micro-class prefer to use the median and low value modal expressions in business English micro-class.The result shows that it can help shorten the distance between teachers and students and thus establish an equal,cooperative and harmonious teacher-student relationship.Secondly,in the visual system of business English micro-class,the speakers are more likely to employ content-related static images and content-related dynamic images.The result reveals that the static or dynamic images together with learning content can often bring the learners into the immediate context.Both Bold and Colour are most frequently used in business English micro-class videos so as to catch the learners' attention and emphasize the teaching content.Kinesics is frequently used in business English micro-class,Gesture is the most utilized among them.In micro-classes,personal distance and social distance are constructed differently because of the difference in teaching contexts,but in general,the interpersonal relationship and interactive meaning are achieved by personal distance.In conclusion,this study is beneficial to help the designers of the micro-classes apply various mode elements scientifically and rationally to achieve optimal design and expression of micro-classes.It also can help learners to understand the process of constructing interpersonal meaning and interactive meaning in multimodal discourse in micro-classes and make them more in-depth understanding of learning content of micro-classes.