The role of rhythm in science-animated videos: construing entities and bridging across different semiotic modes

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed the increasing popularity of animation used for science education. However, the affordances of animation are still yet to be described in a comprehensive manner. Working on a corpus of online science animated videos, this article firstly proposes a visual rhythm system for animation, and then examines the convergence and divergence of the rhythm in animation and language at different levels of analysis. The author found that different visual rhythms in animation function to construe different quantities and properties of entities. In terms of the intermodal relations between animation and language, at shorter wavelengths, animation can be in sync with the rhythm in language, with different ‘beats’ in animation converging with different phonological units in language; at longer wavelengths, the larger rhythmic pattern of animation can function to scaffold the generic structure of language. This article enriches the systematic description of the meaning-making potential of animation, which also informs empirical studies focusing on the effectiveness of animation used for science education.