Journal Article

A Multiliteracies Approach to Teaching Korean Multimodal (Im)politeness

Brown, Lucien, Yoon, Sue Y.

2017

Overview

This study provides and tests pedagogical materials for teaching Korean multimodal (im)politeness, reflecting recent findings on the role of nonverbal means of communication in the communication of (im)politeness. A pedagogy of multiliteracies is implemented in this study, which supports the development of language learners' multimodal competence. Within the multiliteracies classroom, learners are encouraged to actively express their identities via language and other multimodal means. In order to examine the effectiveness of multiliteracies framework in enhancing identity negotiation, the activities performed by language learners to express their identities are analyzed from an activity-theoretic perspective. This study includes an 80-minute lesson designed around the theme of yeyuy ‘manners, etiquette’ in Korea for intermediate-level Korean learners as well as a qualitative analysis of the classroom interaction where the lesson was carried out. The analysis shows that language learners construct and negotiate their first-language and second-language identities producing multimodal identity artifacts, while expressing their own perspectives on Korean (im)politeness and dealing with the views held by the teacher, their classmates, and materials. It is also demonstrated that learners recognize the significance of multimodal resources involved in authentic media texts and critically evaluate the (im)politeness-related meanings that the resources intend to signal.