| In order to make a comparative case study of two open online English writing courses respectively from NetEase and MOOCs(Massive Open Online Courses), the present study adopts quantitative and qualitative methods, and uses the Integrative Multi-semiotic Model put forward by Lim in 2004 and the theoretical framework put forward by Zhang Delu in 2011 as the theoretical framework, and Visual Grammar by Kress and Van Leeuwen as well as the Systemic Functional Linguistics as the theoretical foundation.The present study intends to investigate the following three research questions:(1) As the smallest meaningful units in analyzing dynamic multimodal discourse, how are events distributed in these two courses?(2) To what extent do visual and auditory modes interact to construct the discourse meaning in these two courses?(3) What differences, if any, exist between these two courses from the perspective of Dynamic Multimodal Discourse Analysis?The research procedure consists of three stages. In the first stage, the dynamic multimodal discourse of these two open online English writing courses will be cut into three units based on the criteria proposed by Zhang Delu for the sake of analyzing the discourse(discourse semantics, experiential meaning and the foreground things). Thus, the discourse is cut into phases, episodes and events. The 5 texts from NetEase are cut into 71 events while the 36 texts from MOOCs are cut into 308 events. By transcribing the discourse, the amount and proportion of events will be calculated. In the second stage, the communicative mode patterns of the dynamic multimodal discourse will be investigated, then the distributions of events in different communicative mode patterns will be analyzed; thus, the interaction and cooperation of different modes in realizing the communicative meaning will be found out. In the third stage, based on the study done in the previous two stages, the contrast will be made between these two chosen courses from the perspective of dynamic multimodal discourse analysis.From the dynamic multimodal perspective, there exist similarities as well as differences between two courses, which can be summarized as follows.It is found in this study that these two courses share some characteristics:(1) The genre structure of two courses can be generalized as: CB^TO^MC^PA^SUM^(AS)^FI;(2) In these open online courses, the communicative mode patterns can be divided into three categories and six sub-categories: Presenting Beginning and End Category, Giving Information Category and Demanding Attention Category. And in Presenting Beginning and End Category, it includes two sub-categories, Presenting Beginning Category and Presenting End Category; in Giving Information Category, it includes three sub-categories, Lead In Category, Giving Information turn to Pause Category and Giving Information turn to Finish Category;(3) In these two open online courses, the auditory modes in the study refer to the spoken language of the teachers and they are the main modes in the dynamic multimodal discourse. The visual modes can be divided into two kinds, bodily media and non-bodily media. The bodily media refers to the facial expressions of the teachers and the movements of the body; the non-bodily media refers to the course wares used by the teachers and the background environment. By analyzing the corpus, the relations between the visual and auditory modes include Complementary and non-Complementary. Specifically, in these two courses, in the synergies between the auditory mode and the visual modes of non-bodily media, there are three kinds of relations, Complementary relation of non-Reinforcement, Complementary relation of Reinforcement and disfunctional; in the synergies between the auditory mode and the visual modes of bodily media, the relation is non-Complementary relation of Context Interaction or disfunctional;(4) The auditory modes are the main modes in the whole process of teaching, they are realized by the spoken language of the teachers, and the auditory modes are always in the foreground place. However, when the visual modes and the auditory modes are in the relation of Complementary of Reinforcement, both the auditory modes and visual modes are in the foreground place. When the relations are Complementary of non-Reinforcement, both the auditory modes and visual modes are in the foreground place. When the relations are non-Complementary of Context Interaction, the auditory modes are in the foreground place while the visual modes are in the background place.The study also shows that there exist some differences between these two courses:(1) Through the analysis, it can be found out that the teacher of MOOCs has a tendency to use short events while the teacher of NetEase has a preference for using long events;(2) As the smallest meaningful unit in analyzing the discourse, the distributions of events in three communicative mode patterns are different. In the course from NetEase, the rank of the amount of events in three communicative mode patterns in descending order is: Giving Information Category, Presenting Beginning and End Category, Demanding Attention Category; in the course from MOOCs, the rank in descending order is: Giving Information Category, Demanding Attention Category, Presenting Beginning and End Category. Therefore, in the course from NetEase, the teacher teaches the course as normal and does not put an emphasis on the novelty of the teaching contents, while the teacher from MOOCs intends to use a lot of phrases to draw learners’ attention to the transition and coherence of the course;(3) In the course from NetEase, both the bodily media and non-bodily media do not play a decisive role in constructing the discourse meaning in the process of teaching. However, in the course from MOOCs, though the bodily media does not help much in constructing the discourse meaning, the non-bodily media plays a significant role in constructing the discourse meaning.To conclude, the present study chooses two open online English writing courses as the linguistic materials and investigates them from the perspective of dynamic multimodal discourse analysis. It also discusses the transcription and cutting of dynamic multimodal discourse as well the synergies of different modes and how different modes interact and cooperate with each other to realize the teaching goals. It not only enriches the dynamic multimodal discourse analysis both theoretically and practically, but also provides a linguistic perspective for the study of open online courses. |
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