A Multimodal Framework for Computer Mediated Learning: The Reshaping of Curriculum Knowledge and Learning

communication can be applied to movement and gesture. As a person moves nearer
or farther away to another person or object the social distance between them in
decreased or increased and this realises different kinds of relations between them.
Similarly if a person angles their body in a direct frontal angle towards another
person or object their engagement will be stronger than if they stand next to or at an
oblique angle to them.

Textual Meaning

Movement and gesture realise textual meanings. An actor, the process of their action,
and the location of the action can be related in different ways. Cohesion can be
realised through the similarity or contrast of gestures and movements, actors, or
location. The cohesion of a communicative event or text can be realised through the
rhythmic repetition of gestures and movements or a sequential unfolding relationship
as gestures build on and extend one another.

The Semiotic Resources of the Mode of Gaze

Gaze features in the analysis of students’ interaction with computers in the classroom.
What a person is looking at and how they are looking at it is frequently interpreted as
a sign of attention or lack of it, a sign of respect or lack of it and so on (Lomax and
Casey, 1998; Heath et al, 2002). The mode gaze realises the meta-functions
(Lancaster, 2001; Kendon, 1990).

Through the resources of Gaze elements can be bought into the communicative realm
of what is included in the ‘world, ideational gaze can either be directed or non-
directed. A directed gaze (transactional) can ‘act on’ objects and other people
bringing these into the realm of attention. Objects and people can be selected and
given importance through gaze, they can be ignored and made marginal. A gaze can
be поп-directed that is it has no visual goal.

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