This article identifies some limitations of discourse analysis by analyzing
interactions between five boys in which the TV and the computer are
featured as mediational means. The incorporation of several modalities into
transcripts and a shift in focus from primarily language to human action
facilitate a better understanding of the multi-modal interaction involved. The
use of conventional transcripts with a focus on language demonstrates
that movie- and computer-mediated interactions appear fragmented; by
contrast, an inclusion of images into the transcripts, representing central
interactions and/or images of a movie or computer screen, demonstrates
the significant visual modes that are imperative to the ongoing talk. Just as
written words correspond to the oral language, images can exemplify the
global interaction among the participants, or they can represent the images
on the screen. In addition, viewing an image is much faster than reading a
description, so that these images also display the fast pace of the movieand/
or computer-mediated interaction. |