Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Something may be an entire commonplace and yet barely be understood. The con-
temporary media of communication are an instance: used everywhere, by nearly
everyone (even if only in the most rudimentary fashion as in automated check-
outs at the supermarket), and yet they remain just about opaque in terms of their
present social effects and future consequences. In terms of the thematic remit of
this journal, the increasingly insistent presence of multimodal texts is another
such instance: at a different level, though with related profound consequences.
This special issue will not delve into the more far-reaching, more profound,
social consequences; it will confine itself to exploring lesser questions, such as
how do we think about text in a world where multimodal semiotic entities are
beginning to dominate the semiotic landscape? For a journal that has, enshrined
in its title, the aim to expand the notion of text to include talk, what develop-
ments, threats, challenges does the appearance of the notion of multimodality
foreshadow for its field of enquiry?
Here we make a quick list of some of the issues which go to the core of work
represented in this journal; we discuss each one briefly, in turn. The list is meant
neither as a definitive nor as an exhaustive list, but to prompt debate and possibly
further work.
Most of all, the phenomenon of multimodality shifts the center of gravity from
linguistic to semiotic concerns. When all the resources which matter in meaning
are at issue, then the tools of one discipline linguistics and its satellite (sub-)
disciplines can no longer be sufficient to provide satisfactory accounts of the
materials to hand and the questions they pose.
To make this somewhat concrete, consider the screenshot shown in Figure 1.
Assume just for the sake of argument that we wanted to give some account
of this (now entirely usual kind of) semiotic entity we might want to say some-
thing about its genre; maybe about the audience and the kinds of imagined sub-
jectivities of its members; or maybe describe its style; etc. The kinds of tools which
(different kinds of) linguistics offers will not allow us even to begin making any
Fig. 1: (Part of) Homepage of the website www.visitlondon.com (accessed 15 December 2013)
inroads. Two alternatives offer themselves at once: we might invent ad hoc cate-
gories, which we bolt onto the linguistics of our choice, and see where we get to;
or we might say: this is not the sort of thing we have an interest in; it is not (a)
text.
Members of a wide and disparate audience who come to this website do make
meaning from and with the resources offered here. They have no difficulty noting
and interpreting in various ways the difference between this web page and the
one shown in the screenshot of Figure 2.
This would introduce a further problem: some web pages, such as the one in
Figure 2, seem amenable, at least in part, to a linguistic analysis of some kind;
while others, like the one in Figure 1, are not. Clearly there are problems here;
turning away from them may not be the perfect response. We can say that the ex-
ample in Figure 1 requires us to take account of the fact that there are images; that
the images unlike the one in Figure 2 are in color; that is, color as well as
image seems to be a resource drawn on in the construction of that semiotic entity.
And of course there is writing. We might need to comment on the varying pro-
portions of writing and image (and color) in the two cases; and we might wish to
hypothesize what might be motivating that differential use of the three modes.
We might further wish to comment on the startlingly different forms of layout of
the two sites a relatively traditional linearity in the one case (Figure 2) and
a relatively strong modularity in the other (Figure 1) and speculate about the
origins and meanings of these different principles of composition: are they effects
remain as a resource to draw on, though they might, given the social semiotic
framing, need to be modified and extended.
As one seemingly slight example, take the realization of URLs, as in the
case here (taken at random from a thread on an article on Syria in The Guardian
newspaper:
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2013/12/15/sy-hershs-chemical-misfire/#utm_source=
feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SabbahsBlog+
%28Sabbah+Report%29
We are unable to say whether this is writing in any conventional sense. We are
able to say as any of our readers will agree that such kinds of elements are
entirely usual in contemporary semiotic entities. In an up-to-date theory of text
making it ought to be possible to account for any semiotic entity which the ordi-
nary man and woman in the street encounters constantly, and treats as usual.
There are two further issues which are distinct and closely connected. The
first is that multimodality is an approach is not a theory. It stakes out major
aspects of the domain in which meaning is made. Different theories pose differ-
ent questions within this domain, questions which are central to that theory. The
theory invoked here is social semiotics (Hodge and Kress 1988; Kress 2010; Van
Leeuwen 2005) and, generally speaking, it is used by all the contributors in this
volume. It asks questions, broadly about all aspects of meaning and meaning
making. We are aware of the limits of applicability of that theory; and where we
come to its margins, we are happy to enlist the services of other theories. The
second matter is that meaning is brought into being in particular sites, by those
who make meanings. Some of those sites are those of the new media, so called.
In using two websites as our examples, we have made some slight reference to
such sites already. Yet multimodality as such does not concern itself with sites
of appearance whether these are the material sites of everyday social inter-
action, or the differently material sites of digitally produced and instantiated
media. Quite clearly the potentials and limitations of sites in their material,
technological, social aspects cannot simply be ignored when we think about
meaning. For us, it is social semiotics which supplies hypotheses, descriptions,
frames, and principles here. Multimodal composition as an issue is at once inde-
pendent of sites, and, at the same time, entirely shaped by the characteristics of
the sites.
Above all, we feel there is a strong claim to be made that the issues raised
here and developed in particular ways in the rest of this special volume are issues
which are now central to the domain of work of this journal.
References
Hodge, R. & G. Kress. 1988. Social semiotics. Cambridge: Polity.
Kress, G. 2010. Multimodality. A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication.
London: Routledge.
Van Leeuwen, T. 2005. Introducing social semiotics. London: Routledge.
Bionotes
Elisabetta Adami is a researcher in English Language and Translation at the
Department of Modern Languages, Literature and Cultures at the University G.
DAnnunzio of Chieti-Pescara, Italy. Her research focuses on language, multi-
modal representation and communication in digital environments. Her recent
publications use a social semiotic framework for the analysis of text production
in social media, the affordances of mobile phones (with G. Kress), and the use of
copy and paste.