Meaning in the Making: Revealing the Convergence of Languaging, Semiosis, Knowledge, and Culture in Digital Video Composing

• In Event: Discourse, Semiosis, and Justice from Early Childhood to Adolescence

Abstract

This study explores how students’ sense-making in digital video composing (DVC) constitutes a dynamic space for the convergence of language, semiosis, knowledge, and culture. Situated in a Grade 8 Chinese World Language classroom in the U.S., this research analyzed three multimodal DVCs created by multilingual students interpreting Qin Dynasty culture. Guided by the 4T Lenses—translanguaging, trans-semiotizing, transknowledging, and transculturing—and drawing on an integrated thematic pattern analysis (TPA), this study found that students engaged in dynamic meaning-making by recontextualizing historical knowledge through multimodal and affective strategies. These processes revealed students’ active use of linguistic, semiotic, epistemic, and cultural resources to produce culturally resonant and emotionally engaging representations.

Authors

• Qianqian Ma, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Chunhong Liu, Simon Fraser University