ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a range of different semiotic resources in multimodal meaning-making in interpersonal interactions, print materials, and news making. It provides definitions of the key terms for multimodal analysis and the most important research perspectives and outlines selected key contributions in the field of multimodal research. The chapter describes the state of relevant research and points to the key questions raised by scholars. Existing research in the field of multimodality from three separate perspectives–social semiotic, discourse analytic, and interaction analytic–the chapter also discusses the need for closer collaboration between scholars working in the field of multimodal analysis. It explores some concern the nature of the concept of mode and its composition others focuses on the ways in which different modes interact with each other–in combination and layers–in natural communication, both in interpersonal interactions. Making assumptions leads to hasty classification and prevents scholars from discovering more fine-grained semiotic modes.
