WHAT IS MULTIMODAL LITERACY?
Multimodal literacy is defined as the ability to use and integrate different semiotic modes together in ways that are appropriate to the given context. It demands an ability to respond creatively to the unique demands of specific situations and knowledge of the affordances and potential of each semiotic mode (Djonov, Tseng, & Lim, 2021).
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Also perceived as a form of critical literacy, being multimodally literate requires adherence to the norms governing communication in different authorial decisions and contexts, while acknowledging the social values that are reflected. This is congruent to Halliday’s (1978) theory of language as a social semiotic, which fixates social semiotics as the foundation for a broader critical theory of multimodality. In mastering multimodal literacy, students will gain proficiency in manipulating language for meaning making in society, while modelling of the dynamic relation between social context and language (Djonov, Tseng, & Lim, 2021).
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In this media age, literacy encompasses human, bodily, cultural and cognitive/affective engagement with the world and on the shapes and forms of knowledge. The emergence of the multimodal turn recognizes that language is often used cohesively with other semiotic modes and that meanings can be multimodally constructed. Language has now evolved to become complex sets of interconnecting forms of human semiosis, as opposed to merely a discreetly independent entity (Lim, 2018).