Multimodalité et multimédialité en anglais de spécialité : enjeux discursifs, culturels, didactiques et traductologiques.

ESP and studies in specialized discourses have always been attentive to situated language practices : discourse communities (Swales 2016), specific settings, communicative genres, professional backgrounds…However, at the same time, a majority of studies in the field seem to focus on text and the written form. An attention to other modes of communication has traditionally been sparse. This changed at the turn of the century, namely with the work of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001), who highlighted the revolution in communication practices triggered by the use of digital media. Multimodality seemed to enter the ESP field through an attention to the multisemiotic dimensions of digital communication, so much so that “for some researchers the term multimodality simply seems to signify digital media and texts” (Prior 2013). Yet multimodality in specialized languages can be considered from a much broader perspective whether to consider non-verbal communication in specialized genres, or how visual, gestural, audio modes can influence cognitive processes in specialized settings. “Multimediality” has been coined to refer explicitly to the focus on media while “multimodality” is a much broader notion. Adopting an inclusive understanding of multimodality and multimediality, this conference seeks to address how different modes and tools of communication interact with specialized fields and discourses.