Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

324 Part 4: Language and Literacy
Figure 12.1 Complementary typological and topological meaning- making
strategies using electronic slideshow software
stretched so that it occupies more space on the slide. By contrast, the word
‘smaller’ is represented in a smaller font with no emphasis and greater
compression to convey diminutiveness. For this slide to be successful as a
teaching resource, its creator must be aware not only of the work done by
images and words but also how these modes can be used distinctively to
prompt linguistic production. 1
Transformation, transduction and resemiotization in
multimodal design
Kress (2003: 36) asserts that a theory of multimodal literacy must
account for the complementary processes of transformation, which ‘operates
on the forms and structures within a mode’ and transduction, which
‘accounts for the shift of semiotic material . . . across modes’. Taken
together, these processes can account for and motivate new forms of
meaning – making through the interaction between modes. Moreover, for
Kress (2003: 169), the creative use of semiotic resources is ‘normal and
unremarkable in every instance of sign-making’ because it is considered
to be a natural outcome of designing something that is new or innovative.