Exploring Trans-Modal and Trans-cultural Communication in Mogahed’s (2016) Self- Representation and Life Narratives in her TED Talk: A Single Case Study Design

Abstract

TED speakers’ self- representation and life narratives are an understudied media genre that provides excellent data for investigating (trans)modal and (trans)cultural communication. The aim of this article is to explore how the memoir feature in TED Talks allows a second- generation Muslim immigrant of Arab origin to negotiate her mixed cultural identity and effectively resist social and political forms of dominance and subjugation via multiple semiotic means. Drawing on Baker and Ishikawa’s (2021) notion of (trans)modal/cultural communication and Norris’ (2004, 2019) multimodal interaction model, I argue that using the mediated action as the unit of analysis will give a deeper insight about how Mogahed’s (2016) identity construction, life narrative and cultural orientations are semiotically negotiated, and reconstructed in her TED Talk “What it is like to be a Muslim in America?” The study adopts a single case study design and a multimodal analysis approach to closely examine how Mogahed manipulated various semiotic resources to redefine her cultural identity, and address global issues of Islamophobia and cultural stigmas around Muslim communities in the West. Based on the trans-cultural semiotic analysis, Mogahed’s life narrative managed to challenge the Western mainstream media representation of Islam and the notion of Islamophobia after 9/11through the effective manipulation of multiple semiotic resources.