Meaning Making and Communication in the Multimodal Age: Ideas for Language Teachers

Contemporary societies are grappling with the social changes caused by the current communication landscape and complex textual habitats. To account for this complexity in meaning-making practices, some scholars have proposed the multimodal approach. This paper intends to introduce the core concepts of multimodality including semiotic resources, modes of communication, and intersemiotic relationships. I provide practical applications of multimodal analyses by examining printed and digital pages of educational materials. The final section proposes a set of recommendation to integrate the multimodal perspective in language classes, highlighting the need to make students aware of the new dynamics of meaning making, negotiation and distribution of meanings.