The role of digital video media in second language listening ...

ather than visual conventions” (p. 11) and emphasised that the spoken word, notvisual images, should remain paramount in the language classroom.First language educators have also struggled with defining the act of attending toimages. ‘Visual literacy’, or the ability to decode visual statements within a specificcontext, was a term first coined by Dondis (1973). Although Dondis claimed thatvisual literacy skills would become “one of the fundamental measures of educationin the last third of our century” (Dondis, 1973, p. 19), further attempts to define theterm have been unsatisfying and remain vague (Seels, 1994). Although researchconcerned with visual literacy is maturing (cf., Moore & Dwyer, 1994), Kress andvan Leeuwen (1996) point out the central difficulties that have retarded itsdevelopment so far: “The problem we face is that literate cultures havesystematically suppressed means of analysis of the visual forms of representation,so that there is not, at the moment, an established theoretical framework within whichvisual forms of representation can be discussed” (p. 8).As noted by Kellerman (1992), of course, the area of second language listening alsolacks a basis on which to discuss visual forms of input. Although Rost (1990), forexample, writes that determining the intentions of a speaker “depends on theinterplay of verbal, vocal and visual features” (p. 79), he does not develop thisobservation much further. For Rost (1990), visual and gestural clues areconceptualised as ‘editing strategies’ which help listeners interpret discourse in thatthey provide “weak inferences” (p. 79) regarding a speaker’s intentions.Other researchers point out the provision of context as a role for visuals. In anattempt to draft listening assessment bandscales, Brindley and Nunan (1992) placed“the amount of nonverbal cues” (p. 6) amongst input factors that relate to thecontextualisation of a listening event. Dunkel and colleagues (1993, p. 180) havecharacterised the role of dynamic visual media in listening assessment as ‘videosupport’ that make up one of several ‘levelling variables’ likely to affect thedemonstration of listening abilities. In discussions of video in listening assessment10