Books by Elisabetta Adami
Routledge Handbook of Translation Theory and Concepts, 2023
Multimodal Communication in Intercultural Interaction, 2023
CFRIDIL is a comprehensive set of guidelines to systematically describe levels of proficiency for... more CFRIDIL is a comprehensive set of guidelines to systematically describe levels of proficiency for students and European citizens across Europe and other countries.
It describes what a successful digital literate European citizen must be able to do and understand in transnational digital environment.
CFRIDiL is divided into broad level groups, sub-divided into further levels, from breakthrough to proficiency. For each level, it includes descriptors which tells what a learner is supposed to be able to do in receptive and productive skills, in terms of digital literacy in international and intercultural contexts.
These systematic descriptors deal with the comprehension, production, and interpretation of the contemporary digital textuality for international and intercultural communication.
If CEFR descriptors illustrate language skills, and DigComp 2.0 descriptors illustrate digital skills as such, CFRIDiL descriptors focus on skills that include consideration of visual and auditory resources afforded in digital environments in relation to their meaning-making potential in international and intercultural contexts instead, hence including more comprehensive multimodal, sociosemiotic and critical skills that take into consideration the expectations of socioculturally diverse audience and contexts.
Multilingual Matters, 2018
This book is the beginning of a conversation across Social Semiotics, Translanguaging, Complexity... more This book is the beginning of a conversation across Social Semiotics, Translanguaging, Complexity Theory and Radical Sociolinguistics. In its explorations of meaning, multimodality, communication and emerging language practices, the book includes theoretical and empirical chapters that move toward an understanding of communication in its dynamic complexity, and its social semiotic and situated character. It relocates current debates in linguistics and in multimodality, as well as conceptions of centers/margins, by re-conceptualizing communicative practice through investigation of indigenous/oral communities, street art performances, migration contexts, recycling artefacts and signage repurposing. The book takes an innovative approach to both the form and content of its scholarly writing, and will be of interest to all those involved in interdisciplinary thinking, researching and writing.
Special issue: Social media and the visual. Visual Communication 15: 3
The book offers a social semiotic take on contemporary communication, by providing a thorough des... more The book offers a social semiotic take on contemporary communication, by providing a thorough description of video-interaction, a new form of communication started on YouTube thanks to the introduction of the 'Video Response' option. A multimodal analysis of over 2,000 videos responding to one another explores the affordances of the medium and the way these are used creatively in the interactants' practices. It highlights how, in contemporary sign-making practices, traditional patterns of coherence are often disregarded and successful communication is driven by new principles, as the result of representations produced through the selection, copy-and-paste and recontextualization of other texts. The book offers insights to those interested in communication, language and semiotics. At an empirical level, its original contribution consists in providing a description of a new form of communication. At a theoretical level, it highlights the inadequacies of traditional theories to the description of contemporary forms of communication and points to new analytical tools that seem more apt to the task.
Papers by Elisabetta Adami
Intercultural communication in YouTubers' gameplay video
Routledge eBooks, Jan 18, 2023
Introducing Multimodality Multimodality is a concept introduced and developed in the last two dec... more Introducing Multimodality Multimodality is a concept introduced and developed in the last two decades to account for the different resources used in communication to express meaning. The term is used both to describe a phenomenon of human communication and to identify a diversified and growing field of research. As a phenomenon of communication, multimodality defines the combination of different semiotic resources, or modes, in texts and communicative events, such as still and moving image, speech, writing, layout, gesture, and/ or proxemics. As a field of inquiry, research in multimodality is concerned with developing theories, analytical tools, and descriptions that approach the study of representation and communication considering modes as an organizing principle. As a phenomenon of communication, the term is used not only by multimodal analysts, but also, and increasingly so, by works in disciplines concerned with texts and meaning, such as linguistics and communication studies, all of which, however, tend to devote their analytical focus on language. Within the field of "multimodal studies" (O'Halloran and Smith, 2011), the phenomenon of multimodality is approached through different theoretical perspectives (Jewitt, 2009a; O'Halloran, 2011), all hinging on four key assumptions (Jewitt, 2014a), namely that (1) all communication is multimodal; (2) analyses focused solely or primarily on language cannot adequately account for meaning; (3) each mode has specific affordances arising from its materiality and from its social histories, which shape its resources to fulfill given communicative needs; and (4) modes concur together, each with a specialized role, to meaning-making; hence relations among modes are key to understand every instance of communication. Multimodality as a field of research conceives of representation and communication as relying on a multiplicity of modes, all of which have been socially developed as resources to make meaning. Modes such as gesture, sound, image, color, or layout, for example, are conceived as sets of organized resources that societies have Published in O. Garcìa, N. Flores and M. Spotti (2016) Oxford Handbook of Language and Society. Oxford University Press. pp. 451-472 7 452 Elisabetta Adami developed-each to a greater or lesser level of articulation in different social groups-to make meaning and to express and shape values, ideologies, and power relations. When in combination with speech and/ or writing, they are not a mere accompaniment of, or support to verbal language, as labels such as para-/ extra-linguistic or non-verbal might suggest; rather, each concur with a specific functional load to the meaning made by the overall text-and as such they deserve attention. All communication is, and has always been, multimodal (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996). Be it either face to face or distant, synchronous or asynchronous, every instance of communication relies on more than one mode to make meaning. This might sound today like a commonplace; yet historically, the dominant role attributed to verbal language, and the mode of writing especially, has overshadowed the multiplicity of resources shaped socially to communicate. This has meant not only that societies have developed the resources of speech and writing at a particularly high level of articulation, but also that research and education have focused their almost exclusive attention to the development of descriptions and the teaching of prescriptions and conventions for the use of language. As a result, the investigation of other modes has been restricted to specialized fields, such as musicology, the arts, and so on. In recent years, the social impact of digital technologies for text production, among other factors, has made more visible the fact that texts are multimodal and hence that language alone cannot suffice to explain meaning made through them. Digital technologies have reduced costs for the production of printed images and the use of color. Their (market-led) widespread use has made available-to an unprecedented number of sign-makers-forms of text production that afford modes other than speech and writing. Online environments have provided sign-makers with platforms and easy-to-use interfaces for publishing their multimodal texts and distributing them to diversified audiences, thus making the phenomenon of multimodality visible to an unprecedented extent. The digital texts we daily engage with make meaning through the combined use of color, writing, sound, images, and layout, at least. It is not only the case of texts that we encounter on the web, but also of "texts" that we interact with daily, to fulfill ordinary tasks in our offline environments, such as the interfaces displayed on the screens of ATM machines or those for purchasing a train ticket, for instance. This holds also for the texts that we produce; everyday communication in digital environments faces signmakers with a wide range of modal options. The multimodal character of digital texts is also redefining the use of the resources of language (van Leeuwen, 2008); writing itself is changing its functions, as lexis integrated in visual ensembles/ syntagms (van Leeuwen, 2004), or as something to be acted upon rather than read, as in the case of URLs used as hyperlinks (Adami, 2015); writing is also increasingly developing resources for meaning-making, like those of font (van Leeuwen, 2005b, 2006), which are generally disregarded in linguistic studies. While speech is changing its functional load in the online homologue of face-to-face interaction (i.e., video-chats; for the phenomenon of "mode-switching" in video-chats, see Sindoni, 2013), the mode of image is being used for new interactive functions, as in Facebook comments, for example. Such a changed
Reshaping Identities Online: Towards a Social Semiotic Multimodal Analysis of Digital Remediation
Th e paper focuses on crossposting, as a form of digital remediation con-sisting in the productio... more Th e paper focuses on crossposting, as a form of digital remediation con-sisting in the production and distribution of multimodal texts in multi-ple online spaces through embedding and sharing. Th e study sketches the analytical steps to approach the phenomenon, applying them on a UK food blogger’s activity spanning her blog, her Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts. In the instance exam-ined, recontextualized texts are re-genred; genre assignment is given by the combination of the multimodal confi guration in each space and the blogger’s use of these aff ordances to her aims. Th rough minimum new text creation, by recontextualizing her texts in diff erent spaces, the blogger can shape diff erently her relation with the audience. Th e analytical framework is intended as a fl exible tool that, adjusted as ap-propriate, can be used for a broader in-depth analysis of crossposting.
This chapter shows how social semiotic multimodal analysis can contribute to understanding the so... more This chapter shows how social semiotic multimodal analysis can contribute to understanding the social dynamics beyond, and reflected by, the regulatory practices shaping the aesthetics of the visual landscapes of public spaces. The visual and material landscape of our urban environments has semiotic and social significance. The chapter examines the case of Kirkgate Market, in Leeds (UK), focusing on the changes in sign-making practices deriving from the undergoing renovation of the place, which is affected by increasing semiotic regulation in the institution's attempts to brand its image. It provides background information on Kirkgate Market. The chapter then introduces the semiotically unregulated character of the place before it underwent renovation, and analyses the changes in its visual landscape following renovation. It concludes by identifying the gains and losses produced in the change, in terms of semiotic practices and related social effects.
Translation and Multimodality, 2019
18 Transhistoricizing multimodality: Reflections on the how-to
Message and Medium, 2020
Visual Communication, 2018
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2016
Introducing Multimodality Multimodality is a concept introduced and developed in the last two dec... more Introducing Multimodality Multimodality is a concept introduced and developed in the last two decades to account for the different resources used in communication to express meaning. The term is used both to describe a phenomenon of human communication and to identify a diversified and growing field of research. As a phenomenon of communication, multimodality defines the combination of different semiotic resources, or modes, in texts and communicative events, such as still and moving image, speech, writing, layout, gesture, and/ or proxemics. As a field of inquiry, research in multimodality is concerned with developing theories, analytical tools, and descriptions that approach the study of representation and communication considering modes as an organizing principle. As a phenomenon of communication, the term is used not only by multimodal analysts, but also, and increasingly so, by works in disciplines concerned with texts and meaning, such as linguistics and communication studies, all of which, however, tend to devote their analytical focus on language. Within the field of "multimodal studies" (O'Halloran and Smith, 2011), the phenomenon of multimodality is approached through different theoretical perspectives (Jewitt, 2009a; O'Halloran, 2011), all hinging on four key assumptions (Jewitt, 2014a), namely that (1) all communication is multimodal; (2) analyses focused solely or primarily on language cannot adequately account for meaning; (3) each mode has specific affordances arising from its materiality and from its social histories, which shape its resources to fulfill given communicative needs; and (4) modes concur together, each with a specialized role, to meaning-making; hence relations among modes are key to understand every instance of communication. Multimodality as a field of research conceives of representation and communication as relying on a multiplicity of modes, all of which have been socially developed as resources to make meaning. Modes such as gesture, sound, image, color, or layout, for example, are conceived as sets of organized resources that societies have Published in O. Garcìa, N. Flores and M. Spotti (2016) Oxford Handbook of Language and Society. Oxford University Press. pp. 451-472 7 452 Elisabetta Adami developed-each to a greater or lesser level of articulation in different social groups-to make meaning and to express and shape values, ideologies, and power relations. When in combination with speech and/ or writing, they are not a mere accompaniment of, or support to verbal language, as labels such as para-/ extra-linguistic or non-verbal might suggest; rather, each concur with a specific functional load to the meaning made by the overall text-and as such they deserve attention. All communication is, and has always been, multimodal (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996). Be it either face to face or distant, synchronous or asynchronous, every instance of communication relies on more than one mode to make meaning. This might sound today like a commonplace; yet historically, the dominant role attributed to verbal language, and the mode of writing especially, has overshadowed the multiplicity of resources shaped socially to communicate. This has meant not only that societies have developed the resources of speech and writing at a particularly high level of articulation, but also that research and education have focused their almost exclusive attention to the development of descriptions and the teaching of prescriptions and conventions for the use of language. As a result, the investigation of other modes has been restricted to specialized fields, such as musicology, the arts, and so on. In recent years, the social impact of digital technologies for text production, among other factors, has made more visible the fact that texts are multimodal and hence that language alone cannot suffice to explain meaning made through them. Digital technologies have reduced costs for the production of printed images and the use of color. Their (market-led) widespread use has made available-to an unprecedented number of sign-makers-forms of text production that afford modes other than speech and writing. Online environments have provided sign-makers with platforms and easy-to-use interfaces for publishing their multimodal texts and distributing them to diversified audiences, thus making the phenomenon of multimodality visible to an unprecedented extent. The digital texts we daily engage with make meaning through the combined use of color, writing, sound, images, and layout, at least. It is not only the case of texts that we encounter on the web, but also of "texts" that we interact with daily, to fulfill ordinary tasks in our offline environments, such as the interfaces displayed on the screens of ATM machines or those for purchasing a train ticket, for instance. This holds also for the texts that we produce; everyday communication in digital environments faces signmakers with a wide range of modal options. The multimodal character of digital texts is also redefining the use of the resources of language (van Leeuwen, 2008); writing itself is changing its functions, as lexis integrated in visual ensembles/ syntagms (van Leeuwen, 2004), or as something to be acted upon rather than read, as in the case of URLs used as hyperlinks (Adami, 2015); writing is also increasingly developing resources for meaning-making, like those of font (van Leeuwen, 2005b, 2006), which are generally disregarded in linguistic studies. While speech is changing its functional load in the online homologue of face-to-face interaction (i.e., video-chats; for the phenomenon of "mode-switching" in video-chats, see Sindoni, 2013), the mode of image is being used for new interactive functions, as in Facebook comments, for example. Such a changed
Symposium on 'Multimodal Approaches to Communication
... 27 May 2009 University of Verona, Italy POLITICIANS AND THEIR DRESS CODE: THE CASE OF MARGARE... more ... 27 May 2009 University of Verona, Italy POLITICIANS AND THEIR DRESS CODE: THE CASE OF MARGARET THATCHER Elena Montagna ... In: Baldry AP (ed.) Multimodality and multimediality in the distance learning age. Campobasso: Palladino, pp. 41-89. ...
Multimodality, Meaning-making, and the Issue of \u201cText\u201d. Special issue of the journal "TEXT & TALK
- Introduction: multimodality, meaning making, and the issue of \u201ctext\u201d - \u201cWhy did ... more - Introduction: multimodality, meaning making, and the issue of \u201ctext\u201d - \u201cWhy did dinosaurs evolve from water?\u201d: (in)coherent relatedness in YouTube video interaction - Migrating literacies: multimodal texts and digitally enabled text making - \u201cYou should\u2019ve seen Luke!\u201d or the multimodal encoding/decoding of the language of postmodern \u2018webridized\u2019 TV series - \u201cThe mood is in the shot\u201d: the challenge of moving-image texts to multimodality - Through the looking glass: a social semiotic and linguistic perspective on the study of video chats - Semiotic technology and practice: a multimodal social semiotic approach to PowerPoin
The Common Framework of Reference for Intercultural Digital Literacies (CFRIDiL): Learning as Meaning-Making and Assessment as Recognition in English as an Additional Language Contexts
Multimodality in English Language Learning, 2021
Digital Research Methods: A Multimodal Approach
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Books by Elisabetta Adami
It describes what a successful digital literate European citizen must be able to do and understand in transnational digital environment.
CFRIDiL is divided into broad level groups, sub-divided into further levels, from breakthrough to proficiency. For each level, it includes descriptors which tells what a learner is supposed to be able to do in receptive and productive skills, in terms of digital literacy in international and intercultural contexts.
These systematic descriptors deal with the comprehension, production, and interpretation of the contemporary digital textuality for international and intercultural communication.
If CEFR descriptors illustrate language skills, and DigComp 2.0 descriptors illustrate digital skills as such, CFRIDiL descriptors focus on skills that include consideration of visual and auditory resources afforded in digital environments in relation to their meaning-making potential in international and intercultural contexts instead, hence including more comprehensive multimodal, sociosemiotic and critical skills that take into consideration the expectations of socioculturally diverse audience and contexts.
Papers by Elisabetta Adami