ABSTRACT
The chapter argues for the need to better situate textbook discourse research by articulating two fields: multimodality and ethnography. By integrating contributions in the fields of: multimodal social semiotics, critical discourse analysis, (contemporary) ethnography, and ethnographic approaches to discourse, the proposal accounts for the textbook as both text (i.e. semiotic product) and practice (i.e. semiotic process), calling for research to capture the complex, fragmentary, and multifaceted processes of textbook discourse production, circulation, and consumption/use. To outline this approach, the chapter defines three key concepts: discourse, multimodality, and ethnography and discusses their implications for textbook studies and textbook discourse analysis.
