الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 193 |  |  |
| | | from | 193 | | |
Abstract
’Multimodality’ is of crucial importance to ’communication’, since our interpretation of any ’communicative event’ depends not only on the ’verbal modes’ (written or spoken), but on the interaction between various ’modes’, such as ”images, gazes, gestures, movements, speech, sound-effects”. Therefore, a key concept of theories of ’multimodality’ is that all ’communication’ is ’multimodal’. from this perspective, it is difficult to understand how we mean and learn by language unless we attend to other ’model resources’ including ’image’, ’gaze’, ’gesture’, ’movement’, ’music’, ’speech’ and ’sound-effects’.
Research on ’multimodality’ influences societies and education in various ways, and has the potential to serve a central role in ’language learning’ and ’teaching’. Scholars begin to challenge the primacy of language as the ’object of study’, and argue for a view of all ’communication’ as ’multimodal’. They assert that we live in a world in which different forms of ’visual communication’ play an important role (Van Leeuwen, 2004; Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006; Crafton, Silvers and Brennan, 2009; Jewitt, 2009; Kress, 2010; Price and Jewitt, 2013). According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006), ’multimodality’ can be defined as ”the use of several semiotic modes in the design of a semiotic product or event” (p.20). They claim that a better understanding of ’communication’ requires the addressing of various ’semiotic resources’ or ’modes’ used within a community or society. They also assert that making sense of our ’communication’ requires attending to how cultures select and develop particular ’modal resources’ from learning and communication. According to Kress (2010), ’mode’ can be conceived of as “a socially and culturally shaped resource for meaning-making”, and adds that ”Different modes offer different potentials for making meaning”(p.79).
The current study consists of six chapters. They are as follows:
Chapter One is an introduction to the study. It discusses the concept of ’multimodality’, its origin and development, and its relation to some other domains, such as ’social semiotics’, ’modern literacy’ and ’multimodal literature’. Furthermore, chapter one includes objectives of the study, research questions, rationale of the study, data sources and definition of terms.
Chapter Two is a review of the previous literature, which tackles the concept of ’multimodality’ in a variety of ’discourses’ and ’genres’, such as ’educational discourse’, ’media discourse’, ’literary discourse’, ’academic discourse’, ’advertising discourse’ and ’media discourse’, among others”.
Chapter Three elucidates the general theoretical framework that is used for the analysis of the selected data in Arabic and English. The models adopted are some aspects of Halliday and Mattheissen’s (2004) ’Systemic Functional Grammar’, and some features of Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) ’Visual Grammar’.
Chapter Four focuses on the analysis of the selected data where English is the medium. It spotlights the utilization of various ’multimodal devices’ deployed by the author and illustrator for the comprehension of the selected children’s narratives written in English.
Chapter Five tackles the analysis of the data where Arabic is the medium. It mainly focuses on the interaction between both the ’verbal’ and ’visual’ components in understanding some selected children’s narratives written in Arabic.
Chapter Six is devoted for the discussion of the results obtained from the analysis of the selected children’s narratives in both Arabic and English. It also includes some concluding remarks, suggestions for further research and pedagogical implications.