Abstract

This chapter explores the concept of multimodality and examines different approaches to it, including the New London Group, systemic-functional linguistics, social semiotics, and critical discourse studies. It places particular emphasis on questions of education and literacy, in terms of not only the role of modes other than language, but also the ways in which multiple modes interact through intersemiosis, and the impact of all this on fundamental notions such as genre. Issues of terminology and claims are addressed, and the chapter argues that an understanding of multimodality is fundamental to our understandings of what ‘language’ is.