Digital Communication of Gene Editing: A Pilot Study of Multimodal Metadiscourse

This pilot study explores the integration and distribution of verbal, paraverbal and non-verbal metadiscursive markers in the scientific and legal conference presentations delivered at the International Summit on Human Gene Editing, and is part of a larger scale project on the communication of gene editing. The study applies Hyland’s (2005) model of metadiscourse as a realisation of the interests, the perspectives and the values of text producers and focuses on both interactive and interactional metadiscoursive resources. The analysis is carried out on three levels: 1) textual / discursive 2) paraverbal (tone, pitch) and 3) non-verbal (gestures, kinesics), where applicable. The findings indicate a predominance of interactional verbal markers and pinpoint a correlation between verbal, paraverbal and non-verbal engagement markers, with gestures of inclusion – of a deictic or iconic type – performing the interactive function of maintaining the audience involved. The multimodal analysis uncovers a peculiar trend in the use of hedges, which lose their mitigating character on the paraverbal level. The paraverbal and non-verbal analysis highlights abundance in code glosses and attitude markers, which are lacking on the purely textual level, thus emphasising the importance of these analytical dimensions in digital science communication.