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A Theater of Embodied Actions: Communicating and Imagining Space in Mise-en-scene Conversations
Situating in a multimodal theory of communicative practice,
this dissertation studies the construction of one type of professional/institutional discourse,
the mise-en-scene conversation in which the scenic designer and director discuss and negotiate the stage design for a theater production.
My analyses focus on professional discourse in theater production meetings in Taiwan-
on how professionals work with various visual and graphic representations
and how they use language to interpret the meaning of visual representations.
Informed by the method of discourse analysis, this study finds that mise-en-scene conversations
typically involve several discourse genres: negotiating, problem-solving,
and narrating. While participants negotiate the stage design concept and solve particular design problems,
they also narrate personal experience or narrate drama and aesthetic experience based on the dramatic text.
Embodied actions (such as eye gaze, gesture, bodily movement and other sensory modalities)
manifest at the intersection of language and multiple semiotic resources
which constitute design activities and the work environment.
An analytical description of the discursive/semantic features
and embodied/interactive process (Jarmon, 1996) is provided through a situated practice model (Goodwin, 2003)
and moves communication studies from a monomodal theory of communication to one that concerns multimodality. This study also examines mise-en-scene conversations in classroom interaction in which theater students learn how to formulate design concept and build theatrical models. At the same time, in the presence of experts/instructors, students have to justify their design and make both their work and their “identity of practice” (Wenger, 1999) as being apprentices meaningful by telling a design or dramatic story. Narrative is often a useful medium for the construction of meaningful classroom and mise-en-scene expression through the acquisition of figurative language and the process of symbolic interaction. Learning and becoming a scenic designer therefore involve both discursive and kinesthetic practices essential in constructing theatrical meaning. This study broadens the research field of communicative practices which always exist in and involve representation, social semiosis and embodied interaction.

Tentative Topic:
	A Theater of Embodied Actions: Communicating and Imagining Space in Mise-en-scene Conversations Situating in a multimodal theory of communicative practice, this dissertation studies the construction of one type of professional/institutional discourse, the mise-en-scene conversation in which the scenic designer and director discuss and negotiate the stage design for a theater production. My analyses focus on professional discourse in theater production meetings in Taiwan- on how professionals work with various visual and graphic representations and how they use language to interpret the meaning of visual representations. Informed by the method of discourse analysis, this study finds that mise-en-scene conversations typically involve several discourse genres: negotiating, problem-solving, and narrating. While participants negotiate the stage design concept and solve particular design problems, they also narrate personal experience or narrate drama and aesthetic experience based on the dramatic text. Embodied actions (such as eye gaze, gesture, bodily movement and other sensory modalities) manifest at the intersection of language and multiple semiotic resources which constitute design activities and the work environment. An analytical description of the discursive/semantic features and embodied/interactive process (Jarmon, 1996) is provided through a situated practice model (Goodwin, 2003) and moves communication studies from a monomodal theory of communication to one that concerns multimodality. This study also examines mise-en-scene conversations in classroom interaction in which theater students learn how to formulate design concept and build theatrical models. At the same time, in the presence of experts/instructors, students have to justify their design and make both their work and their “identity of practice” (Wenger, 1999) as being apprentices meaningful by telling a design or dramatic story. Narrative is often a useful medium for the construction of meaningful classroom and mise-en-scene expression through the acquisition of figurative language and the process of symbolic interaction. Learning and becoming a scenic designer therefore involve both discursive and kinesthetic practices essential in constructing theatrical meaning. This study broadens the research field of communicative practices which always exist in and involve representation, social semiosis and embodied interaction.
References Goodwin, C. (2003). Pointing as situated practice. In S. Kito (Ed.), Pointing: Where language, culture and cognition meet. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates. Jarmon, L. H. (1996). Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.