12.4 A Grammar of Tactile Meaning

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Do curso por University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Multimodal Literacies: Communication and Learning in the Era of Digital Media

13 classificações

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Multimodal Literacies: Communication and Learning in the Era of Digital Media

13 classificações

This course introduces innovative approaches to learning and teaching, with a focus on the use of e-learning and social web technologies.

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Module 3: Making Spatial, Tactile, and Gestural Meanings + Making Audio and Oral Meanings + Literacies to Think and to Learn

In this third module of the course, we examine spatial, tactile, gestural, audio, and oral meanings – all today part of a wider repertoire of teaching and learning that we call "literacies" in the plural, or "multiliteracies." In the final section of the module, we explore how we use literacies to think in characteristically "academic" ways. In this sense, literacies play a critical supportive role in the learning process.

12.1 Spatial, Tactile, and Gestural Meanings10:15

12.2 A Grammar of Spatial Meaning7:25

12.3 Tactile Meanings7:45

12.4 A Grammar of Tactile Meaning7:08

12.5 Gestural Meanings9:47

12.6 A Grammar of Gestural Meanings7:19

Conheça os instrutores

Dr William Cope
Professor
Department of Education Policy, Organization & Leadership, College of Education
Dr Mary Kalantzis
Professor
College of Education

What I want to do now is I want to go and

apply our multiliteracies grammar to tactile meanings.

So what we might do is we might refer to the world

using objects and it might be a tool, it might be a toy.

And these are kind of like a specific tool or a specific toy.

These are like common nouns or concept a kind of tool or a kind of toy,

and they have characteristics, which are sort of like adjectives, shapes and

sizes and qualities, and they have relations.

You might fit them in relation to each other.

You might put the imaginary car on imaginary road or

the imaginary doll in imaginary bed.

Or as we saw in the picture back there,

the imaginary dolls in an imaginary car which is just a couple of boxes.

So in other words what we might do is we might

put those things together in relationships like prepositions.

And they might have a whole lot of possessives in them as well which is it's

my car.

That car has certain things which are possessive.

It's got a car, the car's door and so on.

So in other words, we build all those relationships in these objects as well.

Then to dialogue is that people are positioned in relation

to objects and the object actually position you.

So let's take tools for example, the way in which you position yourself,

your body in relation to the world that you're acting on is

different if it's a hammer compared to a saw.

And in a way, it's the hammer compared to the saw, that positions you differently.

Now, you've learned conventionally, this is what you do with a sword, and

this is what you do with a hammer.

You do different things, but you do them in different ways.

And in a way, the object positions you in relation to the world.

A toy car is different from a doll.

You're positioned differently in relation to that object and

in relation to the world that that object represents.

So, in other words, they are profound into personal,

interpersonal dialogical things that are to be found in objects.

To use that word dialog again to describe person to person,

person to the world relationships, not literally talking.

That's what I'm trying to imply by that word.

Now, these objects have structures, which is like syntax.

Give a kid a Lego kit and they're operating on the syntax of

building something where the components go together to form something.

They're learning something about the syntax of objects in the world and

that all objects have materials.

They've got a materiality to them, which are like the media we use.

So in other words, in written language and spoken language there are media.

So the media for written language might be writing, that's media, or

the media for written language might be talking into a video like I am now.

Well, materials have media, the media of the tactile world are materials.

And the materiality shapes that meaning.

What it's actually made of is pretty important.

So that's the area of structuring meanings.

These meanings are also situated.

Where is the object?

What's around it?

That tells you something about what the object is.

A hammer sitting on my desk at school would be a rather strange thing, but

sitting in a regular desk but sitting in a technical

studies classroom, it means something different.

How is it like other objects and how's it different from other object?

What are the similarities and differences?

So in language we call that genre,

a narrative is like other narratives and a report is like other reports.

Well, this tool is like other tools, this toy is like other toys,

and we are the situation in which these things are found.

How it's like or

unlike other objects frames its meaning in some very important ways.

Finally, purposes are designed into the object.

So, in other words the purpose of a saw is designed into a saw,

the purpose of a hammer is designed into a hammer.

But, also, I can use that object with different purposes.

I don't have a hammer handy but I've got a metal, I've got a little metal car and

I can use that just to push in something that I would otherwise use a hammer for.

So things can be used in ways which are different from what's designed into them.

Your own purpose as a user changed the way in which that particular object is used.

So what we have is we have intention written into and

around objects both in their designs and in their use.

I want to come to this synesthesia idea again by talking about metaphor.

This world, which is felt and touched and smelled, this tactile world,

there's an incredible metaphorical power in this world.

And we import the sensations of that world into language.

So when we say, warm, so down at the bottom of the email it says, warm regards.

What does warm mean?

Well warm literally means temperature,

which we can feel with our bodies, it's a tactile kind of thing.

And what does cool mean?

Cool's a funny word, I'm being, I can be cool, which is well I'm cool.

Or I can be cool in the sense of being indifferent.

It's got a whole pile of associations but they're imported into language

out of our very, very visceral experience of the tactile world.

Things that are, someone's a rough diamond, someone's a smooth talker,

somethings happened to me which is really painful,

this person is being really sweet.

All of these things that when that word's used,

it takes our meaning it transports us backwards and forwards between the world

of deeply filled material tactile experience and the world of language.

It's a nice example of synesthesia, now the only interesting thing of course with

metaphor is if I say somebody's really sweet.

I often don't think about what's sweet originally means.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

But whatever it is there are degrees of transportation, backwards and

forwards between these modes of meaning in the use of metaphor.

A final point I want to make about tactile which is a point about all these

modes a little point about the theory of multi modality.

What's incredible is that you can do the whole of language in touch and

braille is a good example.

So in other words that we can actually build

complete meaning systems in these other modes.

So in other words if somebody is blind,

that they're able to read through the sense of touch.

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