Kay O'Halloran
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Kay O'Halloran (born 1958) is Chair Professor and Head of Department of Communication and Media in the School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool (2019 - present) and Visiting Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University (2017-2020). She is the founding director of the Multimodal Analysis Laboratory of the Interactive and Digital Media Institute (IDMI) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She developed systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) [1]approaches to mathematical discourse and multimodal texts. Her current work involves the development and use of digital tools and techniques for multimodal analysis and mixed methods approaches to big data analytics.
Biography
Kay O'Halloran was born in 1958. She received her PhD at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia in 1996, and then she held a postdoctoral position at Martin Luther University in Halle (Saale), Germany from 1997 to 1998. Since 1998 till 2013, she worked at the the Department of the English Language & Literature of National University of Singapore. From 2007 to 2013, she was the Director of the Multimodal Analysis Lab in the Interactive & Digital Media Institute and from 2012 to 2013, she was the Deputy Director of Interactive & Digital Media Institute (2012-2013). After that Kay O'Halloran was full Professor (tenured) at Curtin University from 2013 to 2019. At present, Kay O'halloran is Chair Professor and Head of Department of Communication and Media in the School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom and Visiting Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China.
Her research field involves the study of the integration of language, images and other resources (e.g. gesture, movement, 3D objects and space) in texts, interactions and events, and her current work involves the development and use of digital tools and techniques for multimodal analysis and mixed methods approaches to big data analytics.
Contributions to linguistics
Kay O'Halloran's research makes a contribution to multimodal discourse analysis. She develops systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) approaches to mathematical discourse and multimodal texts. Her team produces two software applications for multimodal analysis which are widely used for teaching and research in the world.
Kay O'Halloran's PhD work involved multimodal analysis of classroom discourse and board texts in secondary school mathematics classrooms differentiated on the basis of social class and gender. Following this, she explored the historical evolution of mathematics discourse, the semantic expansions of meaning arising from the interaction of language, images and mathematical symbolism in mathematical texts, and multimodal approaches to mathematics, grammar and literacy. Following this, she focused on the development of new digital tools and techniques for multimodal analysis and mixed methods approaches for analysis of large multimodal data sets. She is internationally recognised as a leading academic in her various areas of research.
Her research in multimodal approaches to mathematics is having a major impact in education. Leung (2007: 630-634) states in Applied Linguistics 28(4) that Mathematical Discourse (O'Halloran 2005) is“a scholarly and important addition to the growing body of analysis in mathematics education research, mostly in the last two decades, around the cultural, social, and political dimensions of mathematics and its education”(p. 634)[2].
In terms of exploitation of findings, Kay O'Halloran founded the Multimodal Analysis Company, a spinoff company from the Multimodal Analysis Lab, and produced the commercial software applications, Multimodal Analysis Image (2012) and Multimodal Analysis Video (2013). The software is being used for teaching and research in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, USA, United Kingdom, Brazil, Finland, Greece, Germany, Sweden and South Africa.
Key publications
Sindoni, M. G., & Wildfeuer, J. & O'Halloran, K. L. (eds) (2017). Mapping Multimodal Performance Studies. New York & London: Routledge.
Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J. & O'Halloran, K. L. (2016). Introducing Multimodality. London: Routledge.
Tan, S., E, Marissa K. L., & O'Halloran, K. L. (2012). Multimodal Analysis Image (Teacher Edition and Student Edition). Singapore: Multimodal Analysis Company.
O'Halloran, K. L. & Smith, B. A. (eds) (2011). Multimodal Studies: Exploring Issues and Domains. New York & London: Routledge.
O'Halloran, K. L. (2005). Mathematical Discourse: Language, Symbolism and Visual Images. London and New York: Continuum. (reprinted 2008).
O'Halloran, K. L. (ed) (2004). Multimodal Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Continuum. (reprinted 2006).
References
- ^ O'Halloran, Kay L . (2008-11). "Systemic functional-multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA): constructing ideational meaning using language and visual imagery". Visual Communication. 7 (4): 443–475. doi:10.1177/1470357208096210. ISSN 1470-3572.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Leung, Constant (2007-12-01). "Kay L. O'Halloran: MATHEMATICAL DISCOURSE—LANGUAGE, SYMBOLISM AND VISUAL IMAGES". Applied Linguistics. 28 (4): 630–634. doi:10.1093/applin/amm040. ISSN 0142-6001.