Multiliteracies and a metalanguage of image/text relations: Implications for teaching English as a first or additional language in the 21st century

Abstract

The growing pervasiveness of image/language relations in an increasing range of paper and electronic media texts is a well-established phenomenon of the multimedia environments of many contemporary cultures. In English-speaking cultures this phenomenon has recently become a significant focus of literacy education research and has strongly influenced school curricula so that literacypedagogy and assessment emphasises the joint role of language and image in the construction of meaning. Yet many professionals involved in teaching English to speakers of other Languages (TESOL) as a second or additional language (ESL/EAL) or as a foreign language (EFL) continue to assume that language alone' fully represents the meanings that are encoded and communicated in English texts (Curry, 1999; Kress, 2000b; Petrie, 2003). "It is time to unsettle this commonsense notion" (Kress, 2000b, p.337). Since the role of language in "English-speaking" developed and developing countries today isinextricably linked with an increasingly visual dimension of communication, the interpretation of images, both separately and in combination with language, is an essential aspect of the communicative competence ESLIEAL and EFL teachers strive to achieve for their students.