ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a comprehensive analysis of conference presentations, which involves various semiotic systems and shows how the relationship among them adds a particular pragmatic value to the linguistic message conveyed. An aside is an episode of discourse with a distinct topic framework which occurs between discourse episodes having the same topic framework. The chapter analyzes asides in plenary lectures taking a multimodal approach, which will start from a linguistic analysis and will move on to the paralinguistic and kinesic resources that accompany and complement language. It describes the general language features found in the asides. Regarding the in-depth study of the two asides selected, the joint analysis of verbal and non-verbal elements following the three-level analysis adapted from Carter-Thomas and Rowley-Jolivet confirms the validity of this analytical framework. The analysis has allowed us to apply a multimodal approach to better understand the role of asides and their final communicative aim in the genre of plenary lectures.
