21. The Textbook in a Changing Multimodal Landscape

Abstract

In this chapter we explore communication and learning in the contem-porary social world. Taking the textbook as a ‘case study’ we identify changes in multimodal text making – in the use of writing, image, layout and typography – and highlight their social pedagogic significance. The theoretical frame of our account is Social Semiotics. Drawing on a corpus of English, Science and Maths textbooks and digital learning resources published between 1930 and now we render visible pro-found shifts in the semiotic landscape of education. Teachers and designers of lear-ning resources have always drawn on a range of different ‘modes’ – writing and image foremost among them, yet a combination of social change and new technologies has given rise to the possibilities for an increase in the use of more modes than these, in new ‘ensembles’ of modes, and with differently distributed functions. The chapter explores what the implications of these changes are for what and how students learn. We begin the chapter by outlining the aims and background of the study, our social semiotic theoretical framework and the data and methods used. Following that we discuss changes in the modes of writing, image, typography and layout in textbooks from different eras, and explore the use of moving and dynamic image and speech in online learning resources.

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