Multimodal evaluation in academic discussion sessions: How do presenters act and react?

Evaluation in academic discourse has received considerable attention from researchers. Much of the work on evaluation has focused, however, on written genres, and less attention has been paid to how evaluation unfolds in spoken academic genres. In our present research, we are interested in disclosing how the interpersonal meaning of evaluation is expressed in the discussion session (hereafter DS) that follows conference paper presentations, since DS has already been defined as an “evaluative forum”, when comparing its phraseological patterns with those of the presentation. Though the study of evaluation in spoken genres has been developed focusing exclusively on linguistic aspects, we assume the non-linguistic message that accompanies the linguistic message has an effect on the interpersonal meaning of the communication. Therefore, the aim of our research is to analyse the evaluative meaning conveyed in DSs that follow paper presentations in an applied linguistics conference. In the study, we draw on a social semiotic theory of language and of kinesics and paralanguage to frame a multimodal exploration of this interpersonal meaning. The comparative analysis between linguistic evaluation and multimodal evaluation reveals the significant contribution of non-linguistics features which are used to intensify linguistic evaluation or to express the speakers’ attitude.

► We analyse the discussion session following a linguistics paper presentation.
► Results reveal the presenter shows attitude with language and also with non-linguistic features.
► Non-linguistic features commonly accomplish a pragmatic function.
► Kinesic features reinforce the meaning of the linguistic utterance or add new attitudinal meaning.
► Evaluation in discussion sessions tends to be multimodal.