Approaches To Multimodality

Gunther Kress, a pioneer in the field of multimodality and the co-author of the bestselling Reading Images, produces a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of the topic providing sample analyses and suggestions for further reading.

This accessible introduction to multimodality illuminates the potential of multimodal research for understanding the ways in which people communicate. Readers will become familiar with the key concepts and methods in various domains while learning how to engage critically with the notion of multimodality. The book challenges widely held assumptions about language and presents the practical steps involved in setting up a multimodal study, including: formulating research questions collecting research materials assessing and developing methods of transcription considering the ethical dimensions of multimodal research. A self-study guide is also included, designed as an optional stand-alone resource or as the basis for a short course. With a wide range of examples, clear practical support and a glossary of terms, Introducing Multimodality is an ideal reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students in multimodality, semiotics, applied linguistics and media and communication studies. Online materials, including colour images and more links to relevant resources, are available on the companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/jewitt and the Routledge Language and Communication Portal.

The overarching theme of Discourse and Technology is cutting-edge in the field of linguistics: multimodal discourse. This volume opens up a discussion among discourse analysts and others in linguistics and related fields about the two-fold impact of new communication technologies: The impact on how discourse data is collected, transcribed, and analyzed—and the impact that these technologies are having on social interaction and discourse. As inexpensive tape recorders allowed the field to move beyond text, written or printed language, to capture talk—discourse as spoken language—the information explosion (including cell phones, video recorders, Internet chat rooms, online journals, and the like) has moved those in the field to recognize that all discourse is, in various ways, "multimodal," constructed through speech and gesture, as well as through typography, layout, and the materials employed in the making of texts. The contributors have responded to the expanding scope of discourse analysis by asking five key questions: Why should we study discourse and technology and multimodal discourse analysis? What is the role of the World Wide Web in discourse analysis? How does one analyze multimodal discourse in studies of social actions and interactions? How does one analyze multimodal discourse in educational social interactions? and, How does one use multimodal discourse analyses in the workplace? The vitality of these explorations opens windows onto even newer horizons of discourse and discourse analysis.

"The Handbook includes chapters on key themes within multimodality such as technology, culture, notions of identity, social justice and power, and macro issues such as literacy policy. Taking a broad look at multimodality, the contributors engage with how a variety of other theoretical approaches have looked at multimodal communication and representation, including visual studies, anthropology, conversation analysis, socio-cultural theory, sociolinguistics, new literacy studies, multimodal corpora studies, critical discourse, semiotics and eye-tracking. Detailed multimodal analysis case studies are also included, along with an extensive updated glossary of key terms, to support those new to multimodality and to allow those already engaged in multimodal research to explore the fundamentals further"--Publisher's website.

Multimodal Approaches to Media Discourses brings together contributions from an interdisciplinary group of scholars on corpus-assisted analyses of multimodal data on austerity discourses in the United Kingdom, which extend and expand on the understanding of austerity but also of the methodologies used to analyse multimodal corpora. The volume demonstrates how the austerity measures introduced in response to global economic and financial crises in recent years can be viewed as being more complexly layered than they appear, not simply reduced to their connections to spending cuts and fiscal debt. The book employs an innovative methodological approach, in which established and emerging scholars from linguistics and computational and social sciences critically reflect on the exact same set of data – multimodal texts and articles from The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph from 2010 to 2016. This framework allows for the exploration of the role of the media in mediating the public’s assessment of austerity and the ideas, actors, emotions, geographies and broader material context which contribute to such perceptions. In so doing, the volume also offers unique insights into systematic analyses to multimodal data which may be applied to other topics and connected with other disciplines. Enhancing our awareness and assessment of austerity in public discourse and of the methodologies to study it, this book is key reading for students and researchers in discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, multimodality, and those working at the intersection of these fields.

This book offers a new framework for analysing textbook discourse, bridging the gap between contemporary ethnographic approaches and multimodality for a contextually sensitive approach which considers the multiplicity of multimodal resources involved in the production and use of textbooks. The volume makes the case for textbook discourse studies to go beyond studies of textual representation and critically consider the ways in which textbook discourse is situated within wider social practices. Each chapter considers a different social semiotic practice in which textbook and textbook discourse is involved: representation, communication, interaction, learning, and recontextualization. In bringing together this work with contemporary ethnography scholarship, the book offers a comprehensive toolkit for further research on textbook discourse and pushes the field forward into new directions. This innovative book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in discourse analysis, multimodality, social semiotics, language and communication, and curriculum studies.

This book brings together social semiotics, cultural studies, multiliteracies, and other approaches in order to theorize very different learning environments, giving visibility to the modal effect in a range of disciplines. It highlights the ideological nature of discursive practices, examines questions of access, and argues for transformation of these practices, with a constant eye on issues of social justice and equity. Contributors argue that we can harness learners’ representational resources through making these resources visible, and creating less regulated spaces in the curriculum in which they can be used. Examples from primary education through to adult continuing education are used throughout the text.

This textbook provides the first foundational introduction to the practice of analysing multimodality, covering the full breadth of media and situations in which multimodality needs to be a concern. Readers learn via use cases how to approach any multimodal situation and to derive their own specifically tailored sets of methods for conducting and evaluating analyses. Extensive references and critical discussion of existing approaches from many disciplines and in each of the multimodal domains addressed are provided. The authors adopt a problem-oriented perspective throughout, showing how an appropriate foundation for understanding multimodality as a phenomenon can be used to derive strong methodological guidance for analysis as well as supporting the adoption and combination of appropriate theoretical tools. Theoretical positions found in the literature are consequently always related back to the purposes of analysis rather than being promoted as valuable in their own right. By these means the book establishes the necessary theoretical foundations to engage productively with today’s increasingly complex combinations of multimodal artefacts and performances of all kinds.