Designing interpretive communities toward justice: indexicality in classroom discourse

Purpose This study aims to investigate how, through text-based classroom talk, youth collaboratively draw on and remix discourses and practices from multiple socially indexed traditions. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on data from a year-long social design experiment, this study uses qualitative coding and traces discoursal markers of indexicality. Findings The youth sustained, remixed and evaluated interpretive communities in their navigation across disciplinary and fandom discourses to construct a hybrid classroom interpretive community. Originality/value This research contributes to scholarship that supports using popular texts in classrooms as the focus of a scholarly inquiry by demonstrating how youth in one high school English classroom discursively index interpretive communities aligned with popular fandoms and literary scholarship. This study adds to understandings about the social nature of literary reading, interpretive whole-class text-based talk and literary literacies with multimodal texts in diverse, high school classrooms.

Print-based multimodal texts: Using illustrated poems for generating ideas and writing narratives

The article provides insights on how print-based multimodal texts can be utilized to generate ideas and help students to write narrative texts. A qualitative approach in research design was employed with a pre-test and a writing assignment. NAPLAN’s (2010) Writing-Narrative Marking Guide was adapted to evaluate the respondents’ narrative essays. Moreover, diary notes were used as instruments to gather data. The respondents were five Year 10 students from a suburban secondary school in Selangor, Malaysia. The findings indicated that the illustrated poem ‘Pond’ enabled the respondents to generate ideas for their writing. The narratives also fulfilled the criteria of text structure, ideas, character and setting, and vocabulary as stated in the Analytical Rubric for Narrative Marking. Therefore, the respondents were able to write narratives. However, the utilisation of picture stimulus only helped to generate ideas to a certain extent. The quality of narrative writing was also further improved through feedback provided during the teaching and learning sessions. The findings also revealed that the respondents were able to achieve the ‘can do’ statement as stated in the CEFR Assessment Format. Furthermore, the use of print-based multimodal texts encouraged multimodal and visual literacy as the respondents exploited semiotic resources within the texts. This study suggested that print-based multimodal texts could be used as instructional materials in narrative writing; thus, teachers should consider them to promote effective learning.

Political Soviet posters and modern multimodal texts: cognitive experience in the process of perception and categorization of reality

In the work, the attempt to identify the features of the interaction of signs of different semiotic systems in the context of multimodal texts, which are considered as a special information construct and are perceived through the visual communication channel, which combines verbal, graphic, iconic, color codes. The aim of the work was an attempt to make a comprehensive analysis of multimodal political texts, an important element of which is the image of the historical personality of Stalin. This analysis allows us to trace the transformation of the perception and assessment of the life activity of an ambiguous politician in the minds of Soviet and Russian people and, as a consequence, the linguistic society as a whole. The material for the study was Soviet political posters of the mid-20th century and modern multimodal texts, the total number of which was 53 and 67 examples, respectively. The set of methods systematization and generalization, continuous sampling, contextual, intertextual and comparative analysis, is due to the expediency, logic and historical retrospective of the study. This made it possible to reconstruct the cognitive past recorded in the historical consciousness of the people: the article reveals the image of Stalin, in Soviet posters and in modern political multimodal texts, the specificity of perception, categorization and attitude of Soviet / Russian society to its past and present is revealed. For example, the image of Stalin on the posters of the 1930-1953s is as idealized and metaphorical as possible, which is due to the manipulative function – the need to promote the cult of the personality: the themes of patriotism, duty and beneficence become the leading ones and are called upon to form in the mass consciousness a stable, deliberately positive idea of the bright communist future the whole country and its every single Soviet citizen. In modern multimodal texts, it can be noted that they reflect two diametrically opposed views on the personality and life of Stalin: on the one hand, a positive, idealized image of a politician, a nostalgic perception; on the other hand, there is a negative (ironic) view of the “situation of the past,” which is due to the historical context, the cult of the individual and his debunking of this cult after the death of the leader. The specificity of these types of texts is largely due to the author’s linguistic pragmatic attitude and extralinguistic factors.

Modes of subjectivation, ethos and the “Pathway of passions”: a theoretical-methodological apparatus for rhetorical analysis

The text argues for the possibility of multimodal argumentative analyses. The main objective of this essay was to speculate on how an orator's modes of subjectivation, discursively materialized by ethos, provide evidence for the persuasion of audiences. In order to do that, we use the “Pathway of passions” theory as a theoretical-methodological analysis apparatus. The object of study was the official campaign video of the current state deputy for the State of São Paulo, Arthur Moledo do Val, published on the YouTube website, in 2018. The results of the work indicate that the analysis of multimodal texts is essential at the present time, since the most varied social practices, such as politics, have been using these materialities to persuade. It is also clear that ethos gains more argumentative relevance within a virtual communicative context. Furthermore, the rhetorical perspective of argumentation, transdisciplinary since its genesis, can provide the necessary means to carry out such an undertaking

A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Pictures in ELT Textbooks: Modes of Communication in Focus

There is a tight nexus between visual literacy and textbook picture representations. This is of paramount importance when textbooks in general and ELT textbooks, in particular, are under question. To conduct a visual and verbal discourse analysis based on modes of communication, ELT textbook pictures were analyzed under the assumption that visual and verbal discourse interacts with reflected modes of communication. To this end, 50 ELT textbook pictures were used as the corpus and analyzed according to KvL's (2006) visual images analytical strategies in multimodal texts and Halliday’s (1985) transitivity system for verbal analysis of textbook pictures. The analysis of multimodal resources revealed that the analyzed visual images were used to represent non-human images; close-up images, frontal images, left-right compositions were the most frequent visual modes in the selected pictures. In the case of verbal mode, the relational main-type and verbal minor-type level with 39% and 2% were the most and least frequent verbal strategies, respectively. The findings might have significant theoretical and pedagogical implications for scholars, L2 teachers, and ELT textbook designers to consider the potential of using multimodal resources for non-pedagogical purposes while integrating textbook visual images and verbal strategies to create meanings. Keywords: Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Transitive System’s Processes, Visual Images Interpretive Strategies, Modes of Communication, ELT Textbooks.

Cultivating STEAM Literacy: Emphasizing the Implementation of the Arts through Reading Practices Supporting the Asian Diaspora

This paper explores the cultivation of STEAM literacy through the employment of practices derived from traditional reading strategies. This teaching and learning framework focuses on utilizing multimodal texts to increase exposure and opportunities for students to creatively explore diverse realms of STEM through the arts. Featuring student-centered endeavors through self-selected texts and in-class reading practices followed by tiered scaffolded discourse engagements, this framework initiates greater interest, autonomy, and culturally and linguistically authentic practices enhancing STEAM literacy. Embedded in the implications is the deconstruction of frequently aggregated STEM data that “overrepresents” the Asian demographic. Using the lens of the model minority myth, this paper attempts to disaggregate the Asian category, illuminating the actual diaspora that makes up the Asian and Asian American communities, many of which are not represented in STEM fields. Through more reading opportunities and fostering discourse practices, the arts contribute greater inclusion, cultivating STEAM literacy for all students.

Linguistic Landscape Signs in E-Textbooks: Teaching Language as a Compass for Exploring Multimodal Texts, Multilingualism, and Digital Resources

Rapid technological development and the growth of educators’ and students’ digital skills have allowed e-textbooks to take root in different school subjects’ pedagogical practices. This article’s aim is to compare two e-textbooks – A Guide for Exploring City Texts (Berra (Burr), 2020) and Linguistic Landscapes in English Language Teaching: A Pedagogical Guidebook (Solmaz & Przymus, 2021) – in terms of their technological and pedagogical frameworks and to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of using a language e-textbook which heavily utilizes linguistic landscape signs. The comparison shows that the e-textbooks’ main technological advantages are hyperlinking, bookmarking, highlighting, annotating, and searching. Their content uncovers pedagogical concepts they both share: (1) authenticity, (2) resourcefulness, (3) connectivism, (4) a focus on text genres. Language in both textbooks is understood in the context of semiotic resources, so knowledge and skills in one language are inextricably linked to awareness of other languages, semiotic consciousness, and multiliteracies. The learning process in both e-textbooks is designed in a way that students interactively create and contribute knowledge and apply them in various real-life situations. There are a few drawbacks of the e-textbooks. First, their current technological do not allow for changing the order, length, or content of chapters, subchapters, or sections. Second, a lack of space for writing answers in e-textbooks, which can be frustrating for students. Third, none of the e-textbooks provides content for the entire study year/course, language level, or national subject standard.

Implicit Teacher Theories Regarding the Argumentative Commentary of Multimodal Texts in the Teaching of Spanish as a Native and Foreign Language

The research works linked to the thinking of the teaching staff influence the relevant influence that implicit theories exert on decision-making about classroom practise and on the academic performance of students. In this sense, the present study focuses on the teaching belief system about the development of argumentation in the commentary of multimodal texts. For this, a quantitative methodology based on non-experimental or ex post facto design with semi-structured and closed survey-questionnaire-type instruments has been selected. From a target population made up of Spanish teachers, 502 respondents selected using the non-probabilistic sampling technique applied the accessibility criterion. An ad hoc questionnaire has been drawn up consisting of 28 items digitised electronically using the survey platform of the University of Murcia. It has been structured in two blocks: the first aimed at establishing the sociodemographic and professional profile of the participants and the second at collecting data related to the teachers' beliefs regarding the work of the text commentary in class. The results show five professional profiles defined based on the implicit theories and the pedagogical model to which they are associated. It is also found that the majority declare that they align themselves with non-conservative didactic trends or approaches, centred on the student body and oriented toward the construction of critical knowledge. In this regard, manifest contradictions are detected between his implicit and explicit epistemological convictions. The findings of this study offer guidelines for the design of an effective and efficient argumentative text commentary formative proposal.