Handbuch Sprache im multimodalen Kontext

Jeff Bezemer/Gunther Kress

21.The Textbook in a Changing Multimodal Landscape

Abstract: In this chapter we explore communication and learning in the contemporary social world.Taking the textbook as a ‘case study’ we identify changes in multimodal text making – in the use of writing, image, layout and typography – and highlight their social pedagogic significance. The theoretical frame of our account is Social Semiotics. Drawing on a corpus of English, Science and Maths textbooks and digital learning resources published between 1930 and now we render visible profound shifts in the semiotic landscape of education. Teachers and designers of learning resources have always drawn on a range of different ‘modes’ – writing and image foremost among them, ...