ABSTRACT
The ‘multimodal turn’ is a reflection of the shift away from logocentric perspective of knowledge-building to the recognition that meaning is always made multimodally. This chapter focuses on the multimodal turn in higher education and discuss the key trends that have influenced teaching, learning and assessment of students’ learning, with reference to the English Medium Instruction (EMI) context. We review the development of multimodality as a methodological approach in the field of linguistics and discourse analysis and trace how scholars have taken Hallidayan systemic functional linguistics and developed it further in multimodal studies. The multimodal turn has also led to curricular changes in language and literacy education. This includes the expanded notion of literacy and the evolving role of teachers from authority of knowledge to designers of learning. In terms of assessment, the traditional focus on representing learning through writing has also been expanded to include students’ creation of multimodal representations, both in print and digitally. The chapter concludes with a discussion on future directions by reflecting on the signs in the maturation of multimodal studies beyond a methodological approach into an emergent transdiscipline in higher education.
