Online language learning and teaching in multimodal contexts has been identified as one of the key research areas in computer-aided learning (CALL) (Lamy, 2013; White, 2014).1 This paper aims to explore meaning-making in online language learner interactions via desktop videoconferencing (DVC) and in doing so illustrate multimodal transcription and analysis as well as the application of theoretical frameworks from other fields. Recordings of learner DVC interactions and interviews are qualitatively analysed within a case study methodology. The analysis focuses on how semiotic resources available in DVC are used for meaning-making, drawing on semiotics, interactional sociolinguistics, nonverbal communication, multimodal interaction analysis and conversation analysis. The findings demonstrate the use of contextualization cues, five codes of the body, paralinguistic elements for emotional expression, gestures and overlapping speech in meaning-making. The paper concludes with recommendations for teachers and researchers using and investigating language learning and teaching in multimodal contexts.

A framing analysis of family interaction during dinnertime demonstrates that the mother and father linguistically create gendered identities through the number and types of discursive positions they take up within the frames they create and maintain. The mother accomplishes numerous tasks and activities by taking up multiple discursive positions within several interactional frames, whereas the father takes up fewer positions within fewer frames. Furthermore, the positions they take up are gendered, reflecting a sex-based division of labor, even though both parents work full-time outside the home. Through these gendered patterns of participation, the parents create gendered parental identities and negotiate their parental authority with their daughter and with each other. The attention to speech acts, footings, positioning, and framing reveals the intricate and dynamic details of interaction. Furthermore, this discourse model captures and explicates the process through which individuals create gendered identities as they enact and constitute other social identities.

This article brings the study of language to the social phenomenon of gender-related violence as it is currently being dealt with in institutional settings. It investigates the social significance of 2nd person pronoun variation and alternation in 26 professional-victim interactions in two parallel institutions created to address violence against women in Brazil: a police station with an all-female staff, and a feminist crisis intervention center. A quantitative analysis of patterns of use is complemented by a qualitative analysis of the interactional strategies of 2nd person pronoun alternation in the two settings. Pronoun switching is innovatively analyzed under the theory of code alternation developed by Auer 1995. The qualitative analysis demonstrates how pronoun alternation functions as a contextualization cue in face-to-face interactions. In particular, it shows the different ways in which pronoun alternation is used to contextualize phenomena such as preference organization and changes in frames and footings, and locally to exercise power and/or solidarity.

This study investigates the evidence of Australian Aboriginal witnesses in a New South Wales country courthouse, focusing on how and why witnesses are silenced in examination-in-chief, both by their own lawyer and by the judge. The analysis questions the assumption in previous sociolinguistic research that the syntactic form of questions is inherently related to the way in which power is exercised in court. Further, the article highlights how witness silencing in these cases appears to occur particularly in situations where legal professionals are seriously ignorant about fundamental aspects of the everyday cultural values and practices of Aboriginal people. Sociolinguistic microanalysis gives a glimpse of one aspect of the process by which the powerlessness and domination of Aboriginal people is perpetuated through the legal system.