Multimodalities and hybrid texts

Abstract

We intend to address the issue of multimodality as a characteristic of contemporary texts, especially due to the popularization of the Internet. Although verbal texts have always presented multimodal characteristics - in writing, for example (diagramming, diacritics, upper and lower case, and so forth); - in orality (prosody, cadence, voice timbre, intonation, and the rest), it was from hybrid texts (produced with more than one code), made possible by digital media, that multimodality gained the interest of researchers and teachers. Therefore, as our aim has always been to improve the quality of teaching, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight some characteristics of multimodal texts that need to be observed when teaching reading. Semiotically speaking, shapes, colors, positions, dimensions, the presence or absence of speech balloons, the combination of codes (verbal, sound, still and moving images, etc.), whose articulation builds the potential meanings of texts, need to be demonstrated so that readers learn to decipher them. Our multimodal approach will be in dialog with Charles S. Peirce, Lucia Santaella, Gunther Kress, Teun Van Leeuwen, Bergen. On iconicity, Sebeok and Simões will be present at the session. We will also bring Howard Gardner and his theory of multiple intelligences into the conversation, which is very relevant to the approach of multiple codes