Viewpoints in multimodal storytelling: From sensation to narration

• I examine a range of multimodal cohesive and evaluative devices in 27 transcribed oral narratives.
• Visual compositions and camera techniques could be considered as having textual meta-functions for visual–verbal cohesion.
• Multimodal analysis revealed dynamic organization of player-generated embodied actions to enhance speaker stances.
• Viewpoint expression facilitates the semiotic process from sensation to narration.

This study combines the virtual world of Second Life with a classroom storytelling activity to explore the ways in which second language (L2) speakers express narrative viewpoints. Building upon social-semiotic approaches to multimodality, the researcher analyzed 27 transcribed narrative presentations by nine English majors at a university in Taiwan. The L2 students expressed narrative viewpoints through a range of cohesive and evaluative resources. Multimodal analysis revealed a more dynamic organization of visual and embodied actions to enhance speaker stances. Visual compositions and camera techniques could be considered as having textual metafunctions for visual–verbal cohesion. This study may provide insight into multimodal communication and rhetoric aimed at the construction of viewpoint for facilitating the semiotic process from sensation to narration.