Multimodality and systemic functional analysis [encyclopaedia entry]

Multimodality is the study of how multiple communication modes combine to make meaning (e.g., language, gesture, and proxemics; language, image, and layout). But multi-modality is not a discipline or a theory; it is "a field of application" (Jewitt, 2009, p. 2) which transcends and draws on different disciplines and theories. The recognition that all communication is multimodal has profound implications for applied linguistics, and questions long-standing assumptions about the nature of language, and how it should be learned, taught, researched, and theorized.7 page(s