A Multimodal Study Of The Textbooks For The Doctoral Courses Of English For Academic Communication In Mainland China

With the spreading of English as a Lingua Franca and Chinese universities' efforts to improve academic performance,there has been an increasing need for students to engage in international communication through attending international conferences or publishing research articles in internationally indexed English language journals.To date,many top universities in mainland China have provided postgraduates and doctoral students with EAP courses,the development of which necessitates the evaluation and analysis of EAP textbooks.However,there is little research on the evaluation or discussion of the compiling principles of ESP textbooks.The research of EAP textbooks for postgraduates or doctoral students from the perspective of multimodality is no exception.The present study aims to examine the multimodal resources and the relations between image and text in the two representative textbooks on the doctoral courses of English for Academic Communication.The author conducted a detailed coding process under the framework of multimodal content system and Martinec and Salway's logico-semantics.Besides,the study also aims to find out how doctoral students evaluate multimodal resources by conducting a structured interview.To be more specific,the present study aims to explore the following questions:(1)What are the features and evaluation of the visual,text block and layout in the textbooks on English for Academic Communication?(2)What are the image-text relations in the textbooks on English for Academic Communication?The author analyzed 674 pages of two representative EAP textbooks English for International Conferences and English for Academic Communication with mixed methods to study the above research questions.The quantitative method of content analysis and qualitative method of interview were used to study the features and evaluation of the visual,text block and layout in the two textbooks as well as the image-text relations in them.The major findings are:(1)The visuals in the two EAP textbooks for doctoral students in mainland China characterize inappropriate visual density,varied quality,black and white color with little interpersonal meaning represented.Ideational meaning,organizational meaning and monotony in color and typography characterize the text blocks in the two textbooks.The underlying design grid of the EAP textbooks for doctoral students is a manuscript grid with the least complexity and the two textbooks are all text-dominated with most images and texts disconnected by empty space.Most doctoral students dislike the visual,color and layout of the textbook English for International Conferences and they can't easily identify the relation between different headings in this textbook.Most doctoral students dislike the visuals in the textbook English for Academic Communication,accept the color of it,like the layout of this textbook and like or consider the typography of different levels of headings and running texts in it acceptable.The doctoral students expect textbooks for the doctoral courses of English for Academic Communication to be functional and aesthetic with meaningful visuals,comprehensive and readable content,clear layout,appropriate price,good materiality,digital resources and clear typography.(2)Most images and their accompanying texts in the two EAP textbooks for doctoral students realize logico-semantics with exemplification accounting for the most,followed by extension,enhancement,exposition and locution while some images and their accompanying text form no logico-semantics with the principle of coherence violated.The findings demonstrate that the two textbooks lack in professional design to tap the potential of each mode and multimodality to represent meanings considering the results of the analysis of visual,text block,layout and the image-text relation.The present study has implications for both multimodal research and textbook analysis.This case study provides more empirical evidence for multimodal research in academic setting and textbook analysis.The study also provides a multimodal content system for textbook analysis.The findings of this case study also have important implications for the future practice of compiling EAP textbooks for doctoral students like the necessity of needs analysis,the design principles to be considered,visuals choosing and multimodal design.