Genres are not what they used to be. They are both more and less. More in the sense that today many genres of interest are increasingly multimodal, making their meanings through the co- deployment of resources from both language and other semiotic systems. Less in the sense that as people cross institutional and genre boundaries on shorter and shorter timescales (surfing across television channels from genre to genre, across websites from institution to institution, and living their lives between as well as within multiple jobs, tasks, and institutions), we in- creasingly not only hybridize formerly insulated genres, but we now also make meaning along our traversals across traditional genres. Genres are becoming units, raw material, for flexible trans-generic constructions: resources for meaning in a new, externally-oriented sense. Looking at genre from these contemporary viewpoints provides insights into the phenomenon of genre from new functional perspectives,
ABSTRACT: The increasingly integrative use of images with language in many different types of texts in electronic and paper media has created an urgent need to go beyond logocentric accounts of literacy and literacy pedagogy. Correspondingly there is a need to augment the genre, grammar and discourse descriptions of verbal text as resourcesfor literacy pedagogy to include descriptions of the meaning-making resources of images. Some augmentation along these lines has involved the articulation of Hallidayan systemic functional descriptions of language, mainly focussed on verbal grammar, with the social semiotic descriptions of the meaning-making resources of images described in a grammar of visual design proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen. However, current research indicates that articulating discrete visual and verbal grammars is not sitfficient to account for meanings made at the intersection of language and image. This paper adopts a systemic functional semiotic perspective in outlining a range of different types of such meanings in different kinds of texts, suggesting the significance of such meanings in comprehending and composing contemporary multimodal texts, and the importance of developing an appropriate metalanguage to enable explicit discussion of these meaning- making resources by teachers and students.
Literacy cannot be seen as only a linguistic accomplishment anymore and there is no longer the close association between print and learning Multimodality can be seen as an eclectic approach modal affordances: what is possible to express easily. The metalanguage of multimodalities must be taught and understood, as choice of mode can affect pedagogic design and interpretation: the teacher's choice of mode shapes the knowledge or even interpretation. New possibilities.
New types of texts should encourage new approaches, and the digital multi-modal tools need to be used appropriately, new affordances, new opportunities for negotiation for meaning.
Jewtii describes approaches to using multimodality , specifically cdrom in a classroom. Description of approach, genre and mode . technical terms ot analyse the images: inclusion of various types of multimodal images. Transformation of original text.
Description of some of the semiotic resources students use in decoding multimodal texts, in this case the graphic novel. Students seem unaware of the but uses a range of resources (colour, angle, panels, perspective text) in decoding the texts
Bezemer,J. and Kress.G.(2008) consider the changing roles of image and writing in the representation of knowledge in secondary school English, Science and Mathematics texts published between 1930 and 2005.
Jewitt, C. (2008) ‘Multimodality and Literacy in school classrooms’, AERA Review of Research in Education, vol. 32, pp. 241–67.
In this article, Jewitt reviews research into multimodality and literacy in the classroom, and asks what these changes mean for being literate in contemporary society, where digital media are embedded in everyday literacy practices. Jewitt argues that the time for associating learning primarily with language and print literacy is over.
Unsworth applies Halliday's SFL analysis to multimodal texts. Brings together from a range of studies concepts for describing the semiotics of image and word and crucially how these modes make meaning in combination with each other. Cases mostly drawn from books for children.
New technologies are being used in schools.This article reports on a case study of one teacher’s work to integrate an interactive whiteboard (IWB) into a primary classroom.
Hallidayan systemic functional descriptions of language, mainly focussed on verbal grammar, with the social semiotic descriptions of the meaning-making resources of images described in a grammar of visual design proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen. However, current research indicates that articulating discrete visual and verbal grammars is not sufficient to account for meanings made at the intersection of language and image. This paper adopts a systemic functional semiotic perspective in outlining a range of different types of such meanings in different kinds of texts, suggesting the significance of such meanings in comprehending and composing contemporary multimodal texts, and the importance of developing an appropriate metalanguage to enable explicit discussion of these meaning-making resources by teachers and students
The article explores the changes in digital technology over the years and considers how these changes have impacted on the meaning making resources of multimodal ensembles.
A comparison of texts through the decades looking at how multimodal tools for textual analysis can explain changes from a social, pedagogic and semiotic perspective.
In this paper
A focus on the reshaping of the entity „character‟ in the transformation of the novel Of
Mice and Men (Steinbeck, 1937), to CD-ROM (1996)- interesting but not as relevant to primary
The characteristics of contemporary societies are increasingly theorized as global, fluid, and networked. These conditions underpin the emerging knowledge economy as it is shaped by the societal and technological forces of late capitalism. These shifts and developments have significantly affected the communicational landscape of the 21st century. A key aspect of this is the reconfiguration of the representational and communicational resources of image, action, sound, and so on in new multimodal ensembles. The terrain of communication is changing in profound ways and extends to schools and ubiquitous elements of everyday life, even if these changes are occurring to different degrees and at uneven rates. It is against this backdrop that this critical review explores school multimodality and literacy and asks what these changes mean for being literate in this new landscape of the 21st century.
In this article, Jewitt reviews research into multimodality and literacy in the classroom, and asks what these changes mean for being literate in contemporary society, where digital media are embedded in everyday literacy practices. Jewitt argues that the time for associating learning primarily with language and print literacy is over.
Multimodality, “Reading”, and “Writing” for the 21st Century.
Authors:
Jewitt, Carey1 c.jewitt@ioe.ac.uk
Source:
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. Sep2005, Vol. 26 Issue 3, p315-331. 17p.
The move from page to screen: the multimodal reshaping of school English.
Authors:
Jewitt, Carey1
Source:
Visual Communication; Jun2002, Vol. 1 Issue 2, p171-195, 25p
Towards a Metalanguage for Multiliteracies Education: Describing the Meaning-Making Resources of Language-Image Interaction
Author(s):
Unsworth, Len
Source:
English Teaching: Practice and Critique, v5 n1 p55-76 May 2006. 22 pp.
One of my main areas of interest/despair is the way in which the National Literacy Strategy has led to a narrow conception of what literacy actually is and how
Jewitt comments on the use of image and writing in a CD-ROM version of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men". She also discusses the inherent tension in schools as they promote new technology but test students through traditional technology.
Relevant for MS teachers. Notion of intellectually challenging EAL students. Transformation of information impacts register. Scaffolding to encourage thinking.
R. Utescher, and S. Zarrieß. Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Beyond Vision and LANguage: inTEgrating Real-world kNowledge (LANTERN), page 53--60. Kyiv, Ukraine, Association for Computational Linguistics, (April 2021)