A first in multimodal/multisemiotic discourse studies this collection of original articles by international scholars focuses primarily on texts from non-English speaking contexts. The illuminating insights enhance our understanding of how language and other semiotic resources construe specific cultural and social concerns.

In the past few decades, there has been a growing interest in the benefits of linking the learning of a foreign language to the study of its literature. However, the incorporation of literary texts into language curriculum is not easy to tackle. As a result, it is vital to explore the latest developments in text-based teaching in which language, culture, and literature are taught as a continuum. Teaching Literature and Language Through Multimodal Texts provides innovative insights into multiple language teaching modalities for the teaching of language through literature in the context of primary, secondary, and higher education. It covers a wide range of good practice and innovative ideas and offers insights on the impact of such practice on learners, with the intention to inspire other teachers to reconsider their own teaching practices. It is a vital reference source for educators, professionals, school administrators, researchers, and practitioners interested in teaching literature and language through multimodal texts.

This open access book provides an introduction to multimodality and the role of multimodal texts in today’s education. Presenting a comprehensive framework for analysing and working with multimodal texts in disciplinary education, it serves as a tool for researchers and teachers alike. The second part of the book focuses on sample analyses of a variety of educational texts for different age groups and from different disciplines, including games and online resources. The authors also comment on the specific challenges of each text, and how teachers can discuss such texts with their students to enhance both their understanding of the content and their multimodal literacy. The book is intended for researchers in fields like education and multimodal studies, and for teacher educators, regardless of school subject or age group. With the combined perspectives on text analysis and implications for education, the book addresses the needs of teachers who want to work with multimodal aspects of texts in education in informed ways, but lack the right tools for such work.

The Discourse of YouTube explores the cutting edge of contemporary multimodal discourse through an in-depth analysis of structures, processes and content in YouTube discourse. YouTube is often seen as no more than a place to watch videos, but this book argues that YouTube and YouTube pages can also be read and analysed as complex, multi-authored, multimodal texts, emerging dynamically from processes of textually-mediated social interaction. The objective of the book is to show how multimodal discourse analysis tools can help us to understand the structures and processes involved in the production of YouTube texts. Philip Benson develops a framework for the analysis of multimodality in the structure of YouTube pages and of the multimodal interactions from which their content emerges. A second, and equally important, objective is to show how the globalization of YouTube is central to much of its discourse. The book identifies translingual practice as a key element in the global discourse of YouTube and discusses its roles in the negotiation of identities and intercultural learning in videos and comments. Focusing on YouTube as a key example of new digital media, The Discourse of YouTube makes a substantial contribution to conversations about new ways of producing multimodal text in a digital world.

While traditional writing is typically understood as a language based on the combination of words, phrases, and sentences to communicate meaning, modern technologies have led educators to reevaluate the notion that writing is restricted to this definition. Exploring Multimodal Composition and Digital Writing investigates the use of digital technologies to create multi-media documents that utilize video, audio, and web-based elements to further written communication beyond what can be accomplished by words alone. Educators, scholars, researchers, and professionals will use this critical resource to explore theoretical and empirical developments in the creation of digital and multimodal documents throughout the education system.

Reading the Visual is an essential introduction that focuses on what teachers should know about multimodal literacy and how to teach it. This engaging book provides theoretical, curricular, and pedagogical frameworks for teaching a wide-range of visual and multimodal texts, including historical fiction, picture books, advertisements, websites, comics, graphic novels, news reports, and film. Each unit of study presented contains suggestions for selecting cornerstone texts and visual images and launching the unit, as well as lesson plans, text sets, and analysis guides. These units are designed to be readily adapted to fit the needs of a variety of settings and grade levels.

New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse offers a comprehensive international view of multimodal discourse and presents new directions for research and application in this growing field. With contributions from top scholars around the world, this work opens up the field of multimodal discourse analysis as it covers a wide range of interests such as computational linguistics, education, ideology, and media discourse. The range and scope of the chapters in this book provide groundbreaking insights into exploring and accounting for the various facets of multimodality in a range of texts and contexts. Initial chapters specifically aim to tackle theoretical issues, while subsequent chapters focus on important research areas such as writing and graphology, genre, ideology, computational concordancing, literacy, and cross cultural and cross linguistic issues. In the final chapters, an emphasis is placed on the educational implications of multimodality in first and second language contexts, a particularly new and interesting contribution.

This collection critically considers the question of how learning and teaching should be conceived, understood, and approached in light of the changing nature of learning scenarios and new pedagogies in this current age of multimodal digital texts, practices, and communities. The book takes the concept of digital artifacts as being composed of multiple meaning-making semiotic resources, such as visuals, music, and design, as its point of departure to explore how diverse communities interact with these tools and develop and explore their understanding of digital practices in learning contexts. The first section of the volume examines different case studies in which involved participants learn to grapple with the introduction of digital tools for learning in children’s early years of schooling. The second section extends the focus to secondary and higher education settings as digital learning tools grow more complex as do students, parents, and teachers’ interactions with them and the subsequent need for new pedagogies to rethink these multimodal artifacts. A final section reflects on the implications of new multimodal tools, technologies, and pedagogies for teachers, such as on teacher training and community building among educators. In its in-depth look at multimodal approaches to learning as meaning-making in a digital world, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in multimodality, English language teaching, digital communication, and education.

Positioned within the field of linguistics and multisemiotic discourse analysis, the theme of this book is the multifaceted interaction between text and image in different discourse genres, and it offers critical views on how we talk and show our experience of the world around us.

As teachers engage with multimodal texts delivered via paper, live and more sophisticated technologies, they will find that their concepts about literacy, definitions about literacy, and their pedagogies about literacy are challenged. The authors have identified that an excellent place to start teaching about multimodal texts is with texts that are familiar and readily available to all ages: postmodern picture books. The picture book demonstrates how narrative is structured and how literary features such as theme, plot and character can be revealed using various devices. This book provides an explicit knowledge base about the semiotic systems to enable teachers to talk about and examine multimodal texts with their students.