چکیده:
In the language teaching and learning context, with the increase in communicative
language teaching theories worldwide, the use of video as an audio-visual material
has proliferated (Bal-Gezegin, 2014). Nowadays, many publishers produce
language learning videos tailored specifically for students in a foreign language
program to accompany and complete textbooks. Videos are multimodal because
they rely on various semiotic modes or sources (language, gesture, visual imagery,
movement, color, music, sounds, and so on). Videos can act as powerful elements
in creating learners' knowledge of the real world (Katchen, 2002, as cited Bal-
Gezegin, 2014). Despite the abundance of research on images (e.g., Elmiana,
2019; Roohani & Saeidfar, 2013, Tahririan & Sadri, 2013, to name but a few),
research on other kinds of visual materials such as videos has received scant
attention. Considering the possible effects of videos on constructing learners'
views and their psychological effects on the mind of learners, this study aims to
analyze the elements of the Rasa Persian teaching video series (hence, RPTVS)
created for non-Iranian Persian language learners from a social semiotic
perspective. Accordingly, the research questions which guided this study are (1)
What is the function of visual aspects in RPTVS?, (2) In what way do the visual
aspects of RPTVS support interaction between learners and represented
participants? To answer the research questions, three Rasa videos were randomly
selected and analyzed based on Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) three-fold
metafunction of visual grammar. The materials selected for analysis in this study
were the language teaching videos which accompany the Rasa series, for teaching
Persian to non-Persian speakers, authored by Shirmohammdi and published in
Iran by Al-Mustafa International University in 2012. Al-Mustafa University,
established to promote and advance Persian language-learning worldwide for non-
Persian speakers, is an international academic, Islamic, and Howzawi Institute in
Qom, Iran. RPTVS comes in soft copy featuring 21 units on the whole with each
unit accompanying one or two videos related to the particular topic of that unit. It
should be mentioned here that the Fundamental level has been chosen because
examination of all the levels was beyond the scope of this study and more
importantly, the Rasa series is just at the elementary level. The details of the
qualitatively analyzed videos were described separately based on the components
of visual grammar, namely representational, interactional, and compositional
meanings. In response to the first research question, i.e., the function of visual
aspects in RPTVS, the findings of the study showed that the visual elements of
RPTVS had a naturalistic and humanistic trend. In other words, RPTVS represents
the participants in familiar and factual ways. Moreover, all human characters were
adults, which might show that the videos were designed for adult users. Regarding
the settings and locations, RPTVS portrays common objects which were familiar
to students/learners; however, the selection of objects and locations seem
somewhat outdated and outstripped by the Iranian lifestyle at present. The
represented objects (e.g., clock, Television sets, sofas, tables and many more) are
portrayed in ways that could hardly associate with the current life-ways of the
Iranian people. Therefore, RPTVS did not show any indications of recent
technological improvements in current Iranian society. The findings were in line
with Tahririan and Sadri's (2013) findings in which Iranian high school old
textbooks used outdated portrayal of objects, overdramatized national identity
with poor modality and used grayscale printing. In response to the second research
question which was to investigate whether the visual aspects of RPTVS support
interaction between learners and represented participants, the results indicate that
in the videos of the RPTVS, the medium shot is used more frequently. In this
fashion, it can be concluded that the language learners are supposed to keep a
personal relationship with the participants as much as possible. The most common
contact in videos is the gaze of represented participants toward each other, which
shows that represented participants are communicating and encouraging the
learners to communicate. Moreover, the results show all visual elements form a
demand video through their gaze. In terms of contextualization, the study showed
that all videos contained background, except few scenes with a blank background.
However, the videos represented real-life activities, which is in line with Ahmadi
et al.’s (2020) study of Persian learning textbooks in which the images contained
real-life activities to introduce Iranian social life at the national level. Thus, the
analysis of the videos based on contextualization modality indicates that they
represent authentic meaning in real-life settings. The results of this study suggest
that locally developed materials for language teaching, be it teaching English to
Iranian learners or Persian to international students, share a lot of similarities in
transmitting language and cultural norms to learners, which distinguish it from
international publications such as Touchstone or Interchange series. Specifically,
Iranian locally developed materials display substantial commonality in terms of
culture load. The major implication of this finding is that to enhance the efficacy
of the content, instructors need to raise international learners' cognizance of the
intricacies, customs, traditions, and values in the Persian culture which make it
unique and different in its own right
هدف این تحقیق، تحلیل دقیق نشانهشناسی اجتماعی ویژگیهای بصری مجموعههای ویدیویی رسا در اموزش زبان فارسی به غیرفارسی زبانان است. برای این منظور، سه فیلم رسا به طور تصادفی انتخاب شد و بر اساس کارکرد متغیر سه وجهی دستورزبان تصویری کرس و ونلووون (2006) مورد تجزیه و تحلیل قرار گرفت. جزيیات تجزیه و تحلیل بصری با توجه به معنای بازنمایی، کنش متقابل و ترکیب به طور جداگانه شرح داده شد. یافتههای مربوط به حالت بازنمایی معنا نشان داد که عملکرد بیشتر تصاویر بصری بالا است و انها با روندهای ارتباطی انسانگرایانه طراحی شدهاند. با توجه به تعصبات جنسیتی و کلیشهها، در فیلمهای بررسی شده زنان کمترین حضور را داشتند. علاوه بر این، فیلمها اداب و رسوم مذهبی جامعه ایران را برای زبان اموزان فارسی به تصویر می کشید. از نظر حالت های تعاملی معنایی، اکثر مجموعههای ویدیویی رسا از نوع متوسط بوده و این بدان معناست که زباناموزان قرار است تا انجا که ممکن است رابطه شخصی با شرکت کنندگان داشته باشند. علاوه بر این، نتایج تجزیه و تحلیل نشان داد که فیلم ها در محیط واقعی، معنای واقعی دارند. معمول ترین تماس در فیلمها نگاه شرکتکنندگان نشان داده شده به یکدیگر است، که نشان میدهد انها در حال برقراری ارتباط و تشویق فراگیران به برقراری ارتباط هستند. در حالت ترکیب، فیلمها میتوانند به زباناموزان کمک کنند تا به طور مداوم با اطلاعات ارايه شده در فیلم ارتباط برقرار کنند.