This study uses the multimodal corpus approach to examine how speakers use multiple devices to perform illocutionary acts and express illocutionary forces. The author combines qualitative and quantitative methods to show that illocutionary forces are multimodal in nature.

Lihe Huang is Associate Professor at Tongji University and Humboldt Fellow of Germany-based Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is one of the leading young scholars in multimodal study and gerontolinguistics in China. His current research interest is utilizing the multimodal method to explore the linguistic behaviour of Chinese elders (visit him at: ageing.tongji.edu.cn).

Foreword: multimodality and pragmatics. Preface: developing multimodal pragmatics from speech act study. 1. Some preliminary remarks. 2. Situated discourse and multimodal corpus. 3. Illocutionary force study: basic methodology and theory. 4. Discovery procedure of live illocutionary force. 5. Collecting and processing multimodal data. 6. Developing a multimodal corpus of speech acts in situated discourse. 7. Types and tokens of illocutionary force in situated discourse. 8. Dynamic interaction of illocutionary forces in situated discourse. 9. A multimodal study of illocutionary force: what has been found?. 10. Developing multimodal pragmatics.