ABSTRACT
Drawing on sociolinguistics, elements of multimodal literacy are explored based on the ideas that our sense-making and sharing of meanings are based in language, embodied by our actions and gestures and can be represented in external forms that exist outside the moment of the context in which we create them. Elements of pragmatics and semantics, as well as sound, images and structures are presented as a way of informing thinking about language and literacy for elementary school children. The chapter also discusses how these elements are intertwined with affect and a sense of aesthetics. Vygotsky’s idea of perezhivanie in relation to affect and Maxine Greene’s and Dewey’s ideas of aesthetics are discussed.
