Researching Multimodality in Language and Education

Abstract

Multimodality has emerged out of relative obscurity over the past two decades as a term that has purchase in language and literacy research, theory, and practice. This chapter is concerned with research methods and approaches to the study of multimodality in language and education. Origins, early developments, and current uses of multimodality are discussed. Research methods that examine multimodal meaning-making operate across varied contexts and use diverse heuristics and research tools. Multimodality explains communication as a combination of modes of representation and expression within text designs (with the term text referring to communicative acts beyond but including print or writing). The various multiple modes of expression can be visual (e.g.