[EDLING:2129] CFP: Narrative and Multimodality

[Tamara Warhol]

via the Linguist List . . .

Full Title: Narrative and Multimodality

Date: 27-Apr-2007 - 28-Apr-2007
Location: Birmingham, United Kingdom
Contact Person: Ruth Page
Meeting Email: < click here to access email >
Web Site: 
http://www.lhds.uce.ac.uk/english/?page=narrative-and-multimodality

Linguistic Field(s): Ling & Literature

Call Deadline: 05-Jan-2007

Meeting Description:

This symposium draws together innovative work that investigates the 
impact of multimodality on narrative theory and practice in a range of 
contexts, particulary with reference to the use of new media technologies.

Structuralist narratology claimed to transcend concerns with media. 
Alongside this, stylistically-oriented narrative analysis has 
traditionally privileged spoken and written modes of narrative. Granted, 
multimodality, or the reliance on more than one semiotic channel for 
conveying communicative content, is inherent in the face-to-face 
narrative communication in everyday interaction, where people draw on a 
range of visual, verbal, paralinguistic, and other cues to make sense of 
each other. However, the rapid development and increasing use of new 
media technologies suggest the need to revisit the relations between 
multimodality and narrative. The purpose of this symposium is to foster 
further work on multimodality and its impact on narrative production and 
processing in a variety of storytelling contexts.

The symposium aims to generate conversation that explores the following 
questions:
-    How does the changing landscape of communication challenge the way 
we define, understand and use narrative?
-    What is the relationship between narrative theory and multimodality?
-    How far do classical and postclassical narrative frameworks account 
for texts that are multimodal or are transformed across media?
-    How can methods of narrative analysis help us understand how 
multimodal narratives function in specific contexts?
-    Do the new electronic media afford unprecedented opportunities for 
multimodality in narrative contexts?