Using Google Talks in ESP educational settings: A multimodal approach

This study analyses a small specialized corpus consisting of 10 Google Talks in the domains of business and economics from a multimodal perspective. It investigates how different (verbal and visual) semiotic modes are combined in Google Talks and, therefore, how these videos can be used as multimodal ESP materials for linguistic improvement and professional development. Drawing on the notion of intersemiotic complementarity, the study shows how verbal features can be integrated with still and moving visuals (charts, images, photographs, videos) and hand gestures (iconics, deictics, metaphorics) either to represent concrete data and figures, to explain more abstract concepts, or even to provoke the audience’s emotional reactions. The study demonstrates that, although each mode has its specific affordance, in Google Talks different modes synergistically concur to meaning-making and successful communication. Therefore, in ESP educational settings, they can be employed to develop students’ multimodal awareness in meaning-making processes, as well as to teach them how to exploit modes beyond verbal language to produce effective domain-specific text.