Introducing Multimodality

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.

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.

Introduction to Multimodal Analysis is a unique and accessible textbook that critically explains this ground-breaking approach to visual analysis. Now thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition reflects the most recent developments in theory and shifts in communication, outlining the tools for analysis and providing a clear model that students can follow. Chapters on colour, typography, framing and composition contain fresh, contemporary examples, ranging from product packaging and website layouts to film adverts and public spaces, showing how design elements make up a visual language that is used to communicate with the viewer. The book also includes two new chapters on texture and diagrams, as well as a helpful image index so students can clearly understand how images and multimodal texts can be analysed from different perspectives. Featuring chapter summaries, student activities and a companion website hosting all images in full colour, this new edition remains an essential guide for students studying multimodality within visual communication in linguistics, media and cultural studies, critical discourse analysis or journalism studies.

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.

Introducing Researching English for Specific Purposes is an accessible and practical guide to research in ESP. It’s for novice researchers, graduate students and for ESP practitioners who want to do some research themselves. The author takes the reader step by step through the stages of research, starting with choosing a topic and reviewing the literature through to writing up research findings. Examples are taken from academic journals and dissertations to highlight aspects of the research process. The book covers the following areas: developing a research project research design theoretical approaches to ESP research choosing a research topic quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods in ESP research validity, reliability and ethics writing up research in ESP The book includes recommendations for further reading and tasks. There is also a glossary and a chapter providing advice, templates and links to useful research sources. Introducing Researching English for Specific Purposes is essential reading for anyone wanting to conduct research in ESP.

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.

Multimodality’s popularity as a semiotic approach has not resulted in a common voice yet. Its conceptual anchoring as well as its empirical applications often remain localized and disparate, and ideas of a theory of multimodality are heterogeneous and uncoordinated. For the field to move ahead, it must achieve a more mature status of reflection, mutual support, and interaction with regard to both past and future directions. The red thread across the disciplines reflected in this book is a common goal of capturing the mechanisms of synergetic knowledge construction and transmission using diverse forms of expressions, i.e., multimodality. The collection of chapters brought together in the book reflects both a diversity of disciplines and common interests and challenges, thereby establishing an excellent roadmap for the future. The contributions revisit and redefine theoretical concepts or empirical analyses, which are crucial to the study of multimodality from various perspectives, with a view towards evolving issues of multimodal analysis. With this, the book aims at repositioning the field as a well-grounded scientific discipline with significant implications for future communication research in many fields of study.

This collection responds to the need for theoretically informed and methodologically grounded empirical research on the global transformations in multimodal human communication and social practices in light of recent widespread change. The volume highlights the need to expand on the established approaches--Social Semiotics, Multimodal Discourse Analysis, and Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis--by complementing them with other analytical frameworks to better understand the impact of unprecedented global challenges, such as Covid-19, on the way humans communicate and make use of meaning-making resources. Bringing together established and emergent scholars from a variety of geographical, cultural, and linguistic contexts, the collection presents studies from both the Global North and Global South, including South Africa, Latin America, Brazil, and the Caribbean, to showcase new perspectives in multimodality research. This innovative book will be of interest to students and scholars in multimodality, social semiotics, and discourse analysis.