Multimodality

by Gunther Kress

The 21st century is awash with ever more mixed and remixed images, writing, layout, sound, gesture, speech, and 3D objects. Multimodality looks beyond language and examines these multiple modes of communication and meaning making. Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication represents a long-awaited and much anticipated addition to the study of multimodality from the scholar who pioneered and continues to play a decisive role in shaping the field. Written in an accessible manner and illustrated with a wealth of photos and illustrations to clearly demonstrate the points made, Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication deliberately sets out to locate communication in the everyday, covering topics and issues not usually discussed in books of this kind, from traffic signs to mobile phones. In this book, Gunther Kress presents a contemporary, distinctive and widely applicable approach to communication. He provides the framework necessary for understanding the attempt to bring all modes of meaning-making together under one unified theoretical roof. This exploration of an increasingly vital area of language and communication studies will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of English language and applied linguistics, media and communication studies and education.

Genres: Nonfiction, Research, Linguistics, Theory, Semiotics

236 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2009

Reviews

[Kevin Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this book heavily in my thesis. Kress creates language and concepts for discussing multimodality from the perspective that all signs and modes are created, constrained, and determined socially. He describes these concepts for the purpose of being further theorized and analyzed. Useful for anyone studying multimodality or who might apply some methods to his theoretical frameworks.

[Larissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a heavy dose of social semiotics, and multimodality and its core concepts only become visible in themselves halfway through the book. Sometimes it felt like I had to fast forward to different chapters or different parts of a chapter and put pieces together to make sense of concepts like mode, genre and discourse.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really hoping that I'd get more than just one page of notes out of this book. It's not nearly as good as his other (co-authored) works. Sigh.

[Suzette Kunz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this was a real pageturner, as you can tell from the title. It was for a PhD course. I expected something more groundbreaking than what it was.

[Vibara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can not download it

[S U M M E R · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.0 ⭐️

Linguistics is not for the faint-hearted.

[5H3MS]

Довольно таки сложная для понимания книга, особенно для человека не знакомого с этими "языковыми теориями" (даже не знаю как это перевести на русский). Но мысль о том, что мысль, значение, идею можно передавать различными способами (modes) и каждый способ имеет свои ограничения и плюшки, очень интересна раскрыта, особенно социальная и культурная составляющая.