Multimodal Literacy

On the forms of communicating

Abstract

On the quest to extend literacy research findings into other creative fields, this article studies the reciprocal relationship between communication and literacy from a historical perspective, highlighting the relationship between media technologies, and the social and cognitive processes by which we perceive, learn and transform the word.

Through different case studies, the text illustrates the continuity between modes of expression and the versatility of the compositional tools through which we write messages in multiple languages, and in turn account for specific reading competences. Graphical models are used to explore communication based on the complementarity of different modes of expression, the same that are discussed to reflect about its elements, forms and relationships.

Finally, the conclusions point towards the study of communication from a phenomenological and material way, as a field that shapes and evidences culture, which allows us to see beyond disciplines and crafts, to approach it from complexity, as an intelligible and peculiar phenomenon by which we make sense of our reality.