Multimodality and Translanguaging in Video Interactions

This Element presents and critically discusses video-mediated communication by combining theories and empirical methods of multimodal studies and translanguaging. Since Covid-19 gained momentum, video-based interactions have become more and more ingrained in private and public lives and to the point of being fully incorporated in a wide range of community practices in personal, work and educational environments. The meaning making of video communication results from the complex, situationally based and culturally influenced and interlaced components of different semiotic resources and practices. These include the use of speech, writing, translingual practices, gaze behaviour, proxemics and kinesics patterns, as well as forms of embodied interaction. The Element aims at unpacking these resources and at interpreting how they make meanings to improve and encourage active and responsible participation in the current digital scenarios.