Multimodal Discourses Across the Curriculum
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MULTIMODAL DISCOURSES ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
INTRODUCTION
Multimodality approaches representation and communication as something more than language. It attends to the complex repertoire of semiotic resources and organizational means that people make meaning through—image, speech, gesture, writing, 3-dimensional forms, and so on. Strictly speaking, then multimodality refers to a field of application rather than a theory. A variety of disciplines and theoretical approaches can be used to explore different aspects of the multimodal landscape. Psychological theories can be applied to look at how people perceive different modes or to understand the impact of one mode over another on memory for example. Sociological and anthropological theories and interests could be applied to examine how communities use multimodal conventions to mark and maintain identities. The term ‘multimodality’ is, however, strongly linked with social semiotic theory and is widely used to stand for ‘multimodal social semiotics’. This is the use of multimodality in this chapter. Multimodality is concerned with signs and starts from the position that like speech and writing, all modes consist of sets of semiotic resources—resources that people draw on and configure in specific moments and places to represent events and relations. From this perspective the modal resources a teacher or student chooses to use (or are given to use) are significant for teaching and learning. In this way, a multimodal approach rejects the traditional almost habitual conjunction of language and learning. Using a multimodal approach means looking at language as it is nestled and embedded within a wider social semiotic rather than a decision to ‘side-line’ language. Examining multimodal discourses across the classroom makes more visible the relationship between the use of semiotic resources by teachers and students and the production of curriculum knowledge, student subjectivity, and pedagogy. E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S : A V I S U A L S TA R T
Multimodality is to some extent an eclectic approach. Linguistic theories, in particular Halliday’s social semiotic theory of communication (Halliday, 1978) and developments of that theory (Hodge and Kress, M. Martin-Jones, A. M. de Mejia and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 3: Discourse and Education, 357–367. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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1988) provided the starting point for multimodality. A linguistic model was seen as wholly adequate for some to investigate all modes while others set out to expand and re-evaluate this realm of reference drawing on other approaches (e.g. film theory, musicology, game theory). In addition the influence of cognitive and sociocultural research on multimodality is also present, particularly Arnheim’s work on visual communication and perception (1969). Many of the concerns that underpin multimodality also build on anthropological and social research (specifically the work of Barthes (1993); Bateson (1977); Foucault (1
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