Language Value
November 2018, Volume 10, Number 1 pp. 89-93
ISSN 1989-7103
BOOK REVIEW
Multimodality in Higher Education
Arlene Archer and Esther Odilia Breuer
Brill: Leiden, Boston, 2016. 270 pages.
ISBN: 978-90-04-31205-0
Reviewed by Lucía Bellés-Calvera
IULMA / Universitat Jaume I, Spain
Multimodality in Higher Education, by Archer and Breuer
(2016) deals with
multimodal writing practices and pedagogies in tertiary education. With the boost of
new technologies in the field of education, studies on modes of communication (e.g.
writing) have focused on their evolution throughout the years, particularly in the
learning process.
This book is aimed at educators and researchers who are interested in the writing
communication practices required in a variety of domains, namely architecture,
engineering or cultural studies among others. It is true that Multimodality has become
quite complex in the past few years given that writing is regarded as a means of
knowledge even in practical fields, such as science and media production. In this sense,
this volume could be used as a resource book for those educators who want to reflect on
the relevance of multimodal competencies when conveying a message, especially when
they want to suit students’ needs in the near future. At the same time, the content of the
book is precise and easy to follow as it includes interviews and pictures that can help
readers understand the changes that have taken place in the communication landscape.
Within the introductory chapter, Bezemer and Jewitt (2010: 180) state that the field of
multimodality is one “of application rather than a theory”. This concept has been
present in higher education through pedagogies and texts that involve the use of pictures
and new information and communication technologies (ICTs). Throughout the book,
issues such as academic genres, verbal and non-verbal communication are reviewed.
Other relevant topics are related to teaching writing practices taking into account
Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors
89
Book Review
students’ linguistic and social backgrounds, since these elements will aid them to
construct their academic identities.
The volume consists of 11 chapters grouped in three main sections that explore a
specific theme:
Part 1 accounts for Multimodality in Academia (Chapters 1-4).
Part 2 involves Multimodality in Text Composition (Chapters 5-8).
Part 3 delves into Multimodality across Domains (Chapters 9-11).
The focal point of the first chapter is an interview with Gunther Kress, a well-known
international researcher whose fields of expertise involve education, genre studies, and
multimodality, among others. Kress accounts for four challenges that higher education
is facing at the moment from a multimodal approach, those of knowledge, social,
agency and non-native researchers/students. All of them have to do with what he calls
Umbruch, a German word that stands for a period of change and transition. He points
out the notion of knowledge should be re-examined in higher education institutions,
since writing in the academic field has been the source traditionally accepted. The
“social” has varied, that is, academic disciplines have developed over time, thereby
having an impact on recent research. Chapter 2 illustrates the evolution of the lecture
from a historical point of view. In fact, it presents the different written and spoken
communication practices taking the Middle Ages as a starting point. Hence, it shows
how the role of authority and learners in lectures has adapted to the contemporary era,
which is characterized by the “triumph of the eye over the ear” (Clark, 2006: 36), due to
the introduction of ICTs. In other words, this genre has proven to be flexible in terms of
academic identity and authority as suggested by Thesen (2007, 2009a, 2009b). Lectures
are regarded as a multimodal teaching practice where modes (written, spoken, gaze,
image) interact with each other. The chapter that follows (Chapter 3) departs from a
multimodal analysis of the research monograph. Despite being highly influenced by
written language, figures, tables and other graphic elements are traits of a research
monograph. According to Bateman (2008), its dominant mode is text-flow, which may
vary depending on the discipline. So far, the author delves into two additional concepts
in the chapter: medium and genre, which help to identify multimodal genre patterns
within the Genre and Multimodality model (GeM) (Bateman, 2008). Focusing on this
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Multilingual Higher Education. Beyond English Medium Orientations
GeM model, several aspects concerning content play a significant role in a research
monograph, such as layout, visuals, cohesive devices and recontextualisation. The first
part of the volume closes with Chapter
4 where the author discusses academic
arguments, paying attention to non-verbal communication (i.e. visuals). Even though
scholars state that images can convey messages on their own, limitations need to be
acknowledged given that these visuals probably need to be supported by some kind of
linguistic content. Hence, the chapter concludes that visuals depend on spoken or
written communication to avoid ambiguous statements.
The second part of the volume is based on text composition from a multimodal
perspective. Chapter 5 reviews the notion of multimodal academic argument, previously
mentioned in Chapter 4. The author looked at the multimodal assignments of first year
undergraduate students enrolled in a History and Theory of Architecture module. By
means of pedagogical implications, the author remarks the need for a multimodal
pedagogy to train educators. Chapter 6 introduces a discussion on how the use of digital
media has not only influenced the emergence of new genres, but also the
reconsideration of the existing ones. Moreover, being familiar with popular culture can
help students produce multimodal texts at university. So far, the social relations
generated by ICTs leads the author to reflect on this issue. Chapter 7 reinforces the idea
that all texts are multimodal to some degree. The author focuses on six art and design
writing projects, carried out by students who were free to combine text and imagery.
However, in this multimodal texts a balance between freedom and restriction as well as
between content and innovation was required. Part 2 of the book ends with Chapter 8,
which emphasizes the need to share one’s voice in academic writing. As it stresses the
ability to display one’s critical thinking as an author, writer identities are key.
According to Clark and Ivanič’s
(1997:
137), there are three identities: a) the
autobiographical self, in which the writer tells his/her life story; b) the discoursal self,
which can be found in higher education and is related to the writer’s field of expertise;
and c) the authorial self, which corresponds to “the writer’s sense of authority or
authorial presence in the text” (p.137). The author claims that providing students with
Image Theatre techniques in writing courses can encourage them to express their
authorial and discoursal selves equally.
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Book Review
Part 3 of the volume includes Chapters 9, 10 and 11. Chapter 9 analyses intersemiotic
relationships in undergraduate science textbooks, particularly American ones, which
display text and images to make meaning. Including explicit instruction of these
features in academic courses allows students to improve their writing and reading
strategies effectively. Chapter
10 has to do with a case study carried out with
postgraduate international accounting students. Following Halliday’s Systemic
Functional Linguistics (1985), the author describes participants’ multimodal practices in
a Management Accounting module. The fact that international students may have grown
with a different linguistic and cultural background may affect their comprehension in
higher education contexts. Therefore, issues like language (EFL/ESL) and culture need
to be borne in mind. The last chapter
(Chapter
11), based on the Integrative
Multisemiotic Model proposed by Lim (2004), goes into the specific functions of the
written components of Civil Engineering drawings, which are said to carry contextual
meaning. These written components combined with pictures contribute to the overall
meaning-making process.
All things considered, the volume is a good reference to think about the dissemination
of knowledge in higher education from a multimodal approach. The authors do not only
review traditional communication practices in academic settings, but they also include a
variety of texts and visuals explaining the changes they have undergone in our society,
more specifically in higher education institutions.
REFERENCES
Bateman, J. A. 2008. Multimodality and Genre: A Foundation for the Systematic
Analysis of Multimodal Documents. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bezemer, J. and Jewitt, C. 2010. “Multimodal analysis: Key issues”. In Litosseliti, L.
(Ed.), Research Methods in Linguistics. London: Continuum, 180-197.
Clark, W. 2006. Academic charisma and the origins of the research university.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Clark, R. and Ivanič, R. 1997. The Politics of Writing. London: Routledge.
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Multilingual Higher Education. Beyond English Medium Orientations
Halliday, M. 1985. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
Lim, F. V. 2004. “Developing an integrative multi-semiotic model”. In O’Halloran, K.
L. (Ed.), Multimodal Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum, 220-246.
Thesen, L. 2007. “Breaking the frame: Lectures, ritual and academic literacies”.
Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1, 33-53.
Thesen, L. 2009a. Lectures in transition: A study of communicative practices in the
Humanities in a South African university. Unpublished Doctor of Philosophy,
University of Cape Town, Cape Town.
Thesen, L. 2009b. “Researching ‘ideological becoming’ in lectures: Challenges for
knowing differently”. Studies in Higher Education, 34 (4), 391-402.
Received: 26 May 2018
Accepted: 23 July 2018
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