In the social sciences and humanities, researchers often qualify the period in which we are living as ‘late-modern’, ‘post-modern’ or ‘superdiverse’. These terms seek to capture changing conditions and priorities brought about by a new social order. This social order is characterized, among other traits, by an increased visibility of social, cultural and linguistic diversity, arising out of unprecedented migration and mobility patterns. It is also associated with the development of information and communication technologies, which in the digital era transform communication patterns, identities, relationships and possibilities for action. For education, these late-modern conditions create numerous interesting challenges, given that they are of course reflected in the classroom and other sites of learning. Conditions of ‘superdiversity’ mean that, in educational institutions, varied practices, linguistic repertoires, and symbolic resources come into contact, posing questions about how institutions and actors choose to deal with this diversity. Likewise, digital technologies with their possibilities for assembling and using multimodal texts in new ways transform the learning experience, redefining what counts as teaching, learning, knowledge, or assessment. By providing careful analyses of policies and interactions in superdiverse, technologically complex, educational contexts, the authors of this volume contribute something important: they give a shape – a semiotic form – to some of the issues raised by transnational migration, sociocultural diversity, and digital complexity. They construct a framework for reflecting about the new social order and its impact on education. They also reveal the kinds of new questions and new terrains that can and must be explored by linguistic research if it wants to stay relevant for education in these times of change.

This book provides a forum for theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to research on language(s), multimodality and public space, which will advance new ways of understanding the sociocultural, ideological and historical role of communication practices and experienced lives in a globalised world. Linguistic Landscape is viewed as a metaphor and expanded to include a wide variety of discursive modalities: imagery, non-verbal communication, silence, tactile and aural communication, graffiti, smell, etc. The chapters in this book cover a range of geographical locations, and capture the history, motives, uses, causes, ideologies, communication practices and conflicts of diverse forms of languages as they may be observed in public spaces of the physical environment. The book is anchored in a variety of theories, methodologies and frameworks, from economics, politics and sociology to linguistics and applied linguistics, literacy and education, cultural geography and human rights.

This book shares the recent debates by systemic functional linguistics and other linguistic forums. Its principal focus is on how we use language to make meaning of the world, on how the systems and structures of the ideational function of language represent the realisation of our experiences of the world around us. The volume captures the endeavours of scholars working in different contexts, disciplines and languages around the world. Their contributions explore what underlies experiential and logical meaning-making through specific analyses of recently-created, contextually diverse, single texts or collections of texts, from mono- to multimodal texts. The issues addressed are: layers of meaning through the transitivity system; agency and subjectivity; what kinds of participants and circumstances are associated with various processes and how these vary across languages; new ways of researching and capturing the interaction of the experiential function with the other functions of language - interpersonal, textual and logical - in communicative contexts; how multimodality and new ways of modelling experience semiotically influence the work of linguists, linguistic description and application. The book displays the dynamic dialogue on theoretical and applied interests of scholars interested in functional linguistics and working in a wide range of academic contexts. At post-graduate level advanced students will benefit from new perspectives, the innovative thinking and research accounts that make up the collection. The papers highlight the flexibility of systemic functional linguistic approach and exemplify how it can offer deeper and further insights into potential ways of exploring meaning-making by drawing on recent seminal developments in ideation.

This book offers a comprehensive view of multimodal composing and literacies in multilingual contexts for ESL and EFL education in United States of America and globally. It illustrates the current state of multimodal composing and literacies, with an emphasis on English learners' language and literacy development. The book addresses issues concerning multilinguals' multimodal composing and reflects on what the nexus of multimodality, writing development, and multilingual education entails for future research. It provides research-driven and practice-oriented perspectives of multilinguals' multimodal composing, drawing on empirical data from classroom contexts to elucidate aspects of multimodal composing from a range of theoretical perspectives such as multiliteracies, systemic functional linguistics, and social semiotics. This book bridges the gap among theory, research, and practice in TESOL and applied linguistics. It serves as a useful resource for scholars and teacher educators in the areas of applied linguistics, second language studies, TESOL, and language education.

This volume is an up-to-date, concise introduction to bilingualism and multilingualism in schools, in the workplace, and in international institutions in a globalized world. The authors use a problem-solving approach and ask broad questions about bilingualism and multilingualism in society, including the question of language acquisition versus maintenance of bilingualism. Key features: provides a state-of-the-art description of different areas in the context of multilingualism and multilingual communication presents a critical appraisal of the relevance of the field, offers solutions of everyday language-related problems international handbook with contributions from renown experts in the field

This volume promotes a thought-provoking discussion on contemporary issues surrounding the teaching of language and literacy based on first hand experiences and research. Drawing on the authors’ experiences as teacher educators, language and literacy teachers, and researchers on literacy issues it brings together the multiple traditions. What makes the proposed volume unique is the common theme that runs through all the chapters: the examination of the term literacy, the complexity of this term and the importance of having a wide understanding of what it is before tackling educational issues of pedagogy, assessment and student engagement. What is more, as the editors argue, it is necessary to join up the dots and explore the commonalities that form the core of the literacy spectrum.

The way speakers in multilingual contexts develop own varieties in their interactions sheds light on code switching and multimodal dynamic co-constructions of grammar in use. This volume explores the intersection of multimodality and language use of multilingual speakers. Firstly, theoretical frames are discussed and empirical studies involving Catalan, German and Spanish as L1, L2 or FL are presented interconnecting verbal and gestural modalities into grammar description or exploring actions as sources for gestures, which may nonverbally represent the argument in German dynamic motion verbs. Other chapters focus on positionings in interviews, lexical access searches or proxemics in greetings and farewells. The contributions secondly focus on verbal features of language use in multilingual contexts related to self-representation and co-construction of identity through code-switching, deixis or argumentative reasoning in different communicative events based on multilingual data of languages including Croatian, English, Italian, Brazilian-Portuguese and Polish. The findings call for a reviewed conception of grammar description with implications also for the conceptualization of deixis, for L2/foreign language acquisition and language teaching policies.