Part of
Multimodal Communication from a Construction Grammar PerspectiveEdited by Kiki Nikiforidou and Mirjam Fried
[Constructional Approaches to Language 38] 2025
► pp. 26–37
Edited by Kiki Nikiforidou and Mirjam Fried
[Constructional Approaches to Language 38] 2025
► pp. 26–37
Construction grammar, multimodal communication, and design features of language
Preliminaries to a consistent research program
The issue of the constructional status of a pattern of multimodal communication involves the
necessity to determine the position of the pattern on several distinct dimensions. Does it use the auditory or the
visual channel, or both? To what degree is it entrenched, conventional, or both? Does it exploit depictive or
descriptive techniques of communication, or both? An answer to one of these questions does not determine the answers
in the other dimensions; they correlate only partly. As a result, there can be no single combination of values on the
dimensions such that it determines the constructional status of the pattern (yes or no). But while the correlations
are only partial, particular values on some dimensions are differentially ‘attracted’ to certain values on another one
(e.g. speech seems to be more attracted to conventionality than vision). In this paper, I demonstrate these points and
explore some conceptual and causal differences and connections between these dimensions, for the purpose of enhancing
conceptual clarity and distinguishing terminological from truly empirical issues.
Keywords:
criteria for constructions, sensory channels, depiction/description, entrenchment/conventionality, symbols
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Differences between dimensions of constructions
- 2.1Channels, description, and depiction
- 2.2Entrenchment and conventionality
- 2.3Interim summary
- 3.Connections between dimensions of constructions
- 4.Final remarks
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Notes -
References
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