Prof. Simon Mark HARRISON

My research explores embodied and relational understandings of language, communication, and culture across diverse settings and scales. I am interested in a wide range of topics that can be approached through the study of gesture. In English language studies and applied linguistics, I work mainly on topics in classroom interactivity and English for Academic Purposes, studying language and gesture during group interaction tasks and oral presentations. My RGC-funded project 'Embodied English as Interactional Competence' analysed a corpus of group discussions between students learning academic English with a focus on gesture during 'language related episodes'.

Spoken language interactivity refers broadly to the psychological processes, linguistic meanings, discourse patterns, intimate feelings and interactional dynamics of speaking and gesturing with others in diverse environments. With funding from Cambridge Assessment, we are studying how the Cambridge B2 First speaking paper is delivered across in-person and online environments. 

My first monograph The Impulse to Gesture: Where Language, Minds, and Bodies Intersect (CUP, 2018) worked at the micro-level of spoken language utterances and developed a cognitive-linguistic view of gesture. With a corpus of examples from English, French, and Chinese conversation, it focused on the embodied linguistic system of negation and used methods of gesture analysis with ELAN annotation software to discover the intricate relations between grammatical conceptualisation and gestures. My current book project is an ambitious monograph nearing completion entitled The Body Language Myth: Understanding Gesture in Language and Communication. Aiming to dramatically expand the micro-scope of my first phase of gesture research, this book interweaves several lines of empirical and theoretical gesture scholarship from multiple disciplines to propose a relational dynamics of gesture and gesturing bodies. These dynamics help think through different kinds of environmentally embedded gesturing that typically animate language and communication research, while unsettling common tropes surrounding the notion of ‘body language’.

PhD Students

I warmly welcome applications in Gesture Studies or studies of gesture from diverse empirical, theoretical, and philosophical perspectives, within different domains of language and linguistics, speech science, communication and cultural studies research. My specialism in gesture studies research is gestures associated with negation ('multimodal negation').

PhD dissertation topic proposals are invited relating to the research project Culturally Widespread Gestures in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. This project explores and compares gestures associated with negation across Mandarin Chinese and American English spoken language corpora within a validated mode of inquiry known as multilevel or multimodal. The project sets out to discover how various typological and cultural differences affect different dimensions of gesture communication. The results will impact debates in language typology, Chinese linguistics, intercultural pragmatics, multimodal language studies, and recurrent gesture research.

I highly encourage enquiries from potential PhD students interested in exploring various domains of research in English Studies/Applied Linguistics/Professional Communication, such as:

• Public speaking and oral presentations;
• Language proficiency and/or language testing and assessment;
• Mediatised dialogue;
• Political speeches, political debate, or political humour;
• Informal situations, conversations, small talk;
• Classroom interactivity, peer dialogue, and language learning;
• Interactive lecturing and small group teaching;
• Cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, and intercultural perspectives.

Classroom interactivity, peer dialogue, and language learning are the focus of ongoing video corpus projects, which PhD proposals could contribute to exploring and developing. The same goes for our video samples of the Cambridge B2 First Speaking Paper that were collected across in-person and online enviroments. 

EN5495 Spoken Language Interactivity

EN2502 Language in Social Interaction

EN2722 Foundations of Language and Communication

EN3321 Public Speaking and Presentations in Context (course coordinator)

EN2011 English on the Move (course coordinator)

GE2410 English for Engineering (course coordinator)

Dissertations supervised by Dr. Harrison in the area of gesture studies include:

• Xia, Yunqi (2023). Spoken Language Assessment across In-person and Online Environments—Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Cambridge B2 First Speaking Test Administration. City University of Hong Kong.
• Lu, Yi (2023). Foreign language anxiety during oral presentations: Analysis of speech acoustic, adaptors and perceived experience. City University of Hong Kong.
• Shi, Lujuan (2021). Language-Related Episodes from a Dynamic View: Multimodal Negotiation and Types of Communication Breakdowns during Peer Interaction. City University of Hong Kong.
• He, Jingyi (2021). Interactional Competence and Gesture during Group Interaction: A Corpus-based Study of Language-Related Episodes. City University of Hong Kong.
• Xu, Jian (2018). A Multimodal Analysis of L2 Learners’ Participation in Peer Interaction Concerning Language-Related Episodes. University of Nottingham Ningbo China. (with Dr. Yu-Hua Chen)
• Stutzman, Levi (2017). Multimodal Corrective Feedback and Interactional Moves within Language-Related Episodes and Inscription-Related Episodes: An Analysis. University of Nottingham Ningbo China.
• Stevens, Michael Paul (2016). Gestural Depiction and Conceptualization in Philosophical Exposition: A Microanalysis. University of Nottingham Ningbo China.
• Wild, Jacob Lee (2015). Second Language Learner Multimodality and Linguistic Development in Naturalistic Settings: A Study of L2 Learners in the Chinese Street Market. University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

Honorable Mention, Ken Hyland Best Paper Award (Journal of English for Academic Purposes), for the article: “Showing as sense-making in oral presentations: The speech-gesture-slide interplay in TED talks by Professor Brian Cox” (Volume 53, September 2021)