What Is a Multimodal Text?
A picture book
A webpage
The Power of the Image
Jones and Hafner (2012) further explained that in a multimodal text, images and text have a reciprocal, interactive relationship framing each other and providing contextualized information to help clarify the intended meaning of the message.
- Concurrence is where the message of the text and the image reinforce each other and share the same meaning.
- Complementary is where the message of the text or the image gives slightly different information. This new information helps to complete the details of the other mode clarifying the meaning. Images can complement a text by explaining the how and why of a text, by providing additional information, or by restating or specifying what is in the text.
- Divergence is where the mood and tone of an image differs from the mood and tone of the text. This technique is often meant to create a message of irony or humor.
The authors continued by sharing how images can be very powerful in eliciting strong emotions from the viewer and creating an interpersonal relationship greatly affecting the viewer’s attitude towards the subject matter. Photographers or creators of images employ certain techniques for their purpose.
- The first technique is involvement. They may engage or involve the viewer based on the subject’s gaze, the distance of the shot from the viewer, or the particular camera angle. Demand images have the subject looking directly at the viewer demanding their attention. An offer image has the subject looking away and makes a request more for reflection or thought.
- The second technique is power relations which specifically focuses on the angle of the camera. A shot taken from above makes the viewer feel more dominant, but a shot taken from below may make the subject of the image more powerful and dominant than the viewer.
- The third technique is modality which focuses on color saturation, contextualization, representation, depth, illumination, brightness, etc. which can all be used to create tone and mood.
Videos incorporate the same design principles as images listed above but with the addition of pacing, sound effects, and music.
A New Frontier
In the video “How Is the Internet Changing Language Today?” (2010), linguist David Crystal enumerated the various methods used to communicate electronically in the 21st century. Cell phones, email, instant messaging, social networking sites, webpages, and blogs are examples of the modern technology people use to keep in touch. He made the point that any time in history that there have been advances in technology, changes have been seen in the way that the English language is used. The same is true now as new forms of electronic communication become a part of daily routines and social culture. New styles of the English language are evolving for each new mode of communication. In the video Crystal stated, “Language has become expressively richer as a result of the internet.”
David Crystal - Linguist
“Some people dislike texting. Some are bemused by it. Some love it. I am fascinated by it, for it is the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adapt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. In texting, what we are seeing, in a small way, is language in evolution.” (Crystal, 2008, p. 11)
Andrea Lunsford - Stanford University
" 'I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization,' she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions." (Thompson, 2009, para. 3)
John Humphrys - BBC
"It is the relentless onward march of the texters, the SMS (Short Message Service) vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped. This, I grant you, is a tall order. The texters have many more arrows in their quiver than we who defend the old way." (Humphrys, 2007, para. 15-17)
Digital Native or Digitally Deprived?
Just because a child has been born into the digital world does not automatically make him or her a digital native. In her article, “Shrek Meets Vygotsky: Rethinking Adolescents’ Multimodal Literacy Practices in Schools”, Mills (2010) explained the important role of socioeconomic class and ethnicity in a child’s digital literacy development. Mills shared research that supports the findings that children of middle class families have more exposure to the Internet and family digital tools; therefore, they have better online and digital skills than children of working class families or low-income families. Research supports the same is true of children of Caucasian families. Caucasian families ranked the highest in Internet usage surpassing Hispanics, African Americans, Native Americans, and Asians.
So, assuming a 21st century learner is inherently a digital native can be a gross misjudgment of a student’s digital skills. It is the same as assuming that a student from any English-speaking family will inherently have a vast, rich, formal vocabulary. Teachers know that the socioeconomic background of the family and often ethnicity play a huge role in the development of a student’s vocabulary and language skills. Mills’ article supports that the same is true with digital literacy skills.
