A A Comparative Study of Multimodal Discourse in Micro-Learning Videos via Intersemiotic Complementarity Theory

With the increasing popularity of online educational videos, how to teach and disseminate these videos has become a challenge for many creators. But few of the current studies discussed the intersemiotic complementarity of micro-learning videos and how to promote their effectiveness through this angle. Based on the intersemiotic complementarity theory, this research explores how the collaborative interaction between micro-learning videos’ image and text affects the effectiveness of teaching and dissemination. This study compares and analyzes the image-text relationship of the two videos, Crash Course (CC) and Home Revise (HR) from ideational, interpersonal and compositional intersemiotic complementarity (IC). The study finds that: (1) For ideational IC, both videos use synonymy, collocation and hyponymy, and repetition is often combined with other relationship types to form a composite type. (2) For interpersonal IC, CC uses a lot of demand shots, and the text mood is diverse, so as to build a sense of interaction. (3) For compositional IC, the layout of CC is more flexible. In contrast, the layout of HR is relatively fixed and monotonous. The results of this study show that good ideational IC can reduce the cognitive burden and promote the teaching effectiveness; highly interactive interpersonal IC can improve audience participation; good compositional IC can balance teaching and fun. This study expands the application of intersemiotic complementarity in video analysis, and also provides inspirations for the design and evaluation of micro-learning videos.