Dylan Yamada-Rice: PhD Candidate

Email: d.yamada-rice@sheffield.ac.uk

Supervisor(s): Professor Jackie Marsh and Dr Julia Davies

Working Title of Topic:

Visual aspects of contemporary multimodality: an enquiry into young children´s interaction with and comprehension of the visual mode in Japan

Details:

As a result of my previous postgraduate research on young children´s interaction with primarily visually-based communication tools in Japan (2007) and differences in the variance and quantity of visuals and their relationship to the written mode in the urban landscapes of Tokyo and London (2009), I believe it is likely that young children exposed to the Japanese environment will currently have greater exposure to a wider variety of visual skills and codes than their contemporaries living in the UK. As a result it seems probably that Japan can provide greater insight into the visual mode, as the country appears to have a more historically grounded, stronger alliance to the visual in comparison to the UK which has until recently given preference to the written mode. Therefore my PhD aims to update and extend research on the connection between environmental print and emerging literacy practices by focusing singly on the visual mode. It will look at the ways in which young children living in Japan interact with and comprehend the visual mode across four environmental domains: their bedroom, home, local and unknown urban environments. The methodology centers on child participative and visual research methods. It is hoped this research will provide insight into young children´s early acquisition, understanding and interaction with visuals as the UK increasingly relies on the visual mode in meaning making and communication practices.

This PhD research is funded by the ESRC. Previously I have completed postgraduate degrees in MA Early Childhood Education (Distinction) (2007) and MA Educational Research (2009) for which my dissertation has been nominated for The UKLA Student Research Award. As well as a member of the Centre for the Study of New Literacies, I am also a member of the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth and a core participant on the ESRC seminar series: Children and young people's digital literacies in virtual online spaces (2009-2010).