Building on CERCLL’s Digital Literacies Project and the associated Second Language Digital Literacies symposium (L2DL), the Second Language Multimodal Literacies symposium (L2ML) will bring together educators, practitioners, and researchers, who share common interests in exploring the role of multimodality in contexts of second or multiple language and culture learning. This free, virtual event will include a series of digital presentations and discussions, including three invited talks by experts in the fields of multimodal language and literacy education. Recorded presentations will be available to view from April 17th, with asynchronous discussion leading up to the live events on April 21st and 22nd.
Invited Speakers:Denise Newfield, University of the Witwatersrand, South AfricaAna Oskoz, University of Maryland Baltimore County, USJennifer Rowsell, University of Sheffield, UK
In recent years, studies of multimodal communication and composition from education, literacy studies, and applied linguistics have fueled intense discussions about the place of non-verbal modes in the historically lingua-centric field of second language teaching and learning. These conversations and the research that supports them have been motivated by innovations in digital technologies, which encourage and enable the ready use of images, videos, and sounds in everyday acts of communication (e.g., Lankshear & Knobel, 2006; Lotherington & Jenson, 2011); but interest in second language multimodal literacies has also found theoretical buttressing in recent work in applied linguistics where language is conceptualized within a broader semiotic repertoire for meaning making (e.g., Busch, 2012; Li, 2017). Increasingly, there is a shared understanding that “In a profound sense, all meaning-making is multimodal” (New London Group, 1996, p. 81). However, there continues to be a need for research on the multimodal practices of multilingual speakers, and for the development of research-based practices for educators to integrate and assess multimodality into their language classes.The organizers of the L2ML symposium saught proposals that address these themes; the deadline to submit a proposal was January 12, 2023.
Visit the L2ML website for all the details and to register for this event.