Heteroglossic co-becoming in CLIL: the multimodalities-entextualisation cycle in public relations writing

Siu, L. Y. P. [蕭樂怡]. (2025). Heteroglossic co-becoming in CLIL : the multimodalities-entextualisation cycle in public relations writing. (Thesis). University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR.

The prominent increase in English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education has prompted a wide range of empirical investigation across regions and contexts, ranging from teachers’ preparedness, students’ readiness, to institutional policies (Galloway & Rose, 2021). This doctoral study focuses on understanding the challenges tertiary students may face in developing Public Relations Writing skills in EMI classrooms. For instance, bi/trilingual students need support to expand their discipline-specific language patterns (Macqueen, 2012) and develop professional identities (Wenger, 1998). The Multimodalities-Entextualisation Cycle (MEC) (Lin, 2016) is one feasible way to do this scaffolding in English as an additional language (EAL) context where content learning and language learning are integrated simultaneously. In the process of producing Public Relations-specific teaching and learning materials, teachers and students in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) are participating in two transformative trajectories, namely ‘an inbound trajectory targeted at competence in a specific practice’ and ‘an outbound trajectory toward a broad field of possible identities’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 263). This study used design-based research (DBR) in a 13-week Public Relations Writing course for 85 bi/trilingual students in Hong Kong, employing the MEC as a curriculum genre and heuristic tool in CLIL. Theories of translanguaging, trans-semiotising, and multimodalities are articulated throughout the stages of the MEC as a heteroglossic co-becoming (Bakhtin, 1981; Garcia, 2020; King & Thibault, 2023; Sembiante & Tian, 2023) tool to leverage multimodal meaning-making and interactivity. This study used Nexus Analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2007) as a research methodology framework to provide an ethnographic account (with field notes, lesson observations, assessment/ teaching materials design and reviews, student writing samples, semi-structured individual interviews and focus group discussion) of potential roles and impact of the MEC on tertiary students’ identity change and discipline-specific content/ knowledge/ language development. Data analysis involved working through multiple semiotic cycles of multilingual/ multimodal resources and social-inter-actions co-created through the MEC while “circumferencing” (Scollon, 2004) the co-meaning-making process in a CLIL course designed for Public Relations Writing in EAL contexts. Research findings indicate that fluid access of multimodal and multilingual resources in the MEC provide dialogic space for (1) curriculum planning, (2) semiotic/ language development and (3) identity change in a disciplinary community of practice. This study revisited the research gap identified in bridging potential connection between bi/trilingual tertiary students’ identity change and language patterning in CLIL, especially in the process of selecting appropriate research/ pedagogical resources to address a balanced focus on CLIL in higher education. The roles and impact of multilingual and multimodal resources are identified in the MEC's adoption as a heuristic tool in CLIL, contributing to language patterning with teacher-to-student and student-to-student scaffolds. Most significantly, the empirical analysis shows how a process-based lens can illuminate dynamic processes in humanising digital multiliteracies for CLIL. The thesis concludes with a discussion on how this MEC process has shaped the heteroglossic co-becoming of the teacher-researcher and tertiary students for CLIL in higher education.