A Multimodal and Ethnographic Approach to Textbook Discourse

Book excerpt: This book offers a new framework for analysing textbook discourse, bridging the gap between contemporary ethnographic approaches and multimodality for a contextually sensitive approach which considers the multiplicity of multimodal resources involved in the production and use of textbooks. The volume makes the case for textbook discourse studies to go beyond studies of textual representation and critically consider the ways in which textbook discourse is situated within wider social practices. Each chapter considers a different social semiotic practice in which textbook and textbook discourse is involved: representation, communication, interaction, learning, and recontextualization. In bringing together this work with contemporary ethnography scholarship, the book offers a comprehensive toolkit for further research on textbook discourse and pushes the field forward into new directions. This innovative book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in discourse analysis, multimodality, social semiotics, language and communication, and curriculum studies.