ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how inquiry into multimodal texts might be conducted by students and teachers. It focuses on using the metalanguage of each of the semiotic systems present in a text, together with knowledge about text, purpose and context, to identify and discuss how meaning is made. Multimodal texts comprise two or more semiotic systems, and the meanings that are conveyed by them draw upon the codes and conventions of those semiotic systems and other resources. The semiotic systems and their codes and conventions have meanings that are generally accepted among a social or cultural group. The five semiotic systems are some of the major resources that will be drawn upon when producing or consuming a multimodal text. The selection and use of them will be based upon the consumers' or producers' purpose; the audience for which the text was produced; the context in which it is, or will be, used; and the technology by which it will be delivered.
