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Mary Kalantzis

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Education, Dean and Professor

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http://marykalantzis.com
Phone: (217) 333-0960
Address: College of Education
1310 S. 6th St.,
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ILLINOIS 61820
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Papers by Mary Kalantzis

Genre in practice

The powers of literacy: A genre approach to …, 1993

El papel de Internet en las cambiantes ecologías del conocimiento

To a greater extent than is often acknowledged, the modern scientific and university-based knowle... more To a greater extent than is often acknowledged, the modern scientific and university-based knowledge system is a creature of the society of the printing press. Until the turn of the twentyfirst century, print was the medium of scholarly communication. Then, quite suddenly at the turn of the twenty-first century, digital text begins to displace print as the primary means of access to the knowledge of academicians. This article explores some of the consequences of this change. To what extent do digital technologies of representation and communication reproduce the knowledge systems of the half-millennium long history of the modern university or do they disrupt and transform them? To answer this question, this article will explore key aspects of contemporary transformations, not just in the textual forms of digital representation, but the emerging social forms that digitisation reflects, affords and supports. This we call the “social web”, a term we use to describe the kinds of relatio...

Literacies, An Introduction

Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2017

New Learning: Introduction

Visualizing Revision: Leveraging Student-Generated Between-Draft Diagramming Data in Support of Academic Writing Development

Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 2015

Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prio... more Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prioritize what to revise. Yet, this process can be both daunting and difficult. This study looks at how students used a semantic concept mapping tool to represent the content and organization of their initial draft of an informational text. We examine the processes of students at two different schools as they remediated their own texts and how those processes impacted the development of their rhetorical, conceptual, and communicative capacities. Our analysis suggests that students creating visualizations of their completed first drafts scaffolded self-evaluation. The mapping tool aided visualization by converting compositions into discrete persistent visual data elements that represented concepts and connections. This often led to students' meta-awareness of what was missing

White Noise: The Attack on Political Correctness and the Struggle for the Western Canon

Language Education and Multiliteracies

Encyclopedia of Language and Education

In September 1994, the Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture at James Cook University of... more In September 1994, the Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture at James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia, initiated an international project to consider the future of literacy teaching: what would need to be taught in a rapidly changing near future, and how it would be taught. The Centre invited some of the world&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s leaders in the field of literacy pedagogy to come together for a week in the small town of New London, New Hampshire, USA, in order to consider the &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;state of the art&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;.

With the rise of new technologies and media, the way we communicate is rapidly changing. Literaci... more With the rise of new technologies and media, the way we communicate is rapidly changing. Literacies provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy pedagogy within today's new media environment. It focuses not only on reading and writing, but also on other modes of communication, including oral, visual, audio, gestural and spatial. This focus is designed to supplement, not replace, the enduringly important role of alphabetical literacy. Using real-world examples and illustrations, Literacies features the experiences of both teachers and students. It maps a range of methods that teachers can use to help their students develop their capacities to read, write and communicate. It also explores the wide range of literacies and the diversity of socio-cultural settings in today's workplace, public and community settings. With an emphasis on the 'how-to' practicalities of designing literacy learning experiences and assessing learner outcomes, this book is a contemporary an...

“Multiliteracies”: New Literacies, New Learning

Pedagogies: An International Journal, 2009

Big change question—Taking into account mainstream economic and political trends, can/should school have a role in developing authentic critical thinking?

Journal of Educational Change, 2006

The Teacher as Designer: Pedagogy in the New Media Age

E-Learning and Digital Media, 2010

This article outlines a learning intervention which the authors call Learning by Design. The goal... more This article outlines a learning intervention which the authors call Learning by Design. The goal of this intervention is classroom and curriculum transformation, and the professional learning of teachers. The experiment involves the practical application of the learning theory to everyday classroom practice. Its ideas are grounded in pedagogical principles originally articulated in the Multiliteracies project, an approach to teaching and learning that addresses literacy and learning in the context of new media and the globalizing knowledge economy. The need for a new approach to learning arises from a complex range of factors — among them, changes in society and the economy; the potential for new forms of communication made possible by emerging technologies; and rising expectations amongst learners that education will maximize their potential for personal fulfillment, civic participation and access to work. The authors first brought together the Learning by Design team of researche...

E-Learning and Digital Media, 2004

What is the nature of the change represented by digital communications technologies? How will the... more What is the nature of the change represented by digital communications technologies? How will the impact of the digital compare with the massive changes spawned in its time by print and books? These are the two key questions addressed in this article. The authors answer the first of these questions by comparing the emergence of the printed book with the emergence of the digital communications technologies. The next section of this article, ‘Transformations in Ways of Meaning: the case of print’, discusses the technological nature and textual consequences of the printing press. The following section, ‘Transformations in Ways of Meaning: designing text digitally’, does the same for digital connectivity. Several themes emerge.

Technology-Mediated Writing Assessments: Principles and Processes

Computers and Composition, 2011

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

El papel de Internet en las cambiantes ecologías del conocimiento

To a greater extent than is often acknowledged, the modern scientific and university-based knowle... more To a greater extent than is often acknowledged, the modern scientific and university-based knowledge system is a creature of the society of the printing press. Until the turn of the twentyfirst century, print was the medium of scholarly communication. Then, quite suddenly at the turn of the twenty-first century, digital text begins to displace print as the primary means of access to the knowledge of academicians. This article explores some of the consequences of this change. To what extent do digital technologies of representation and communication reproduce the knowledge systems of the half-millennium long history of the modern university or do they disrupt and transform them? To answer this question, this article will explore key aspects of contemporary transformations, not just in the textual forms of digital representation, but the emerging social forms that digitisation reflects, affords and supports. This we call the “social web”, a term we use to describe the kinds of relatio...

Literacies, An Introduction

Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2017

New Learning: Introduction

Visualizing Revision: Leveraging Student-Generated Between-Draft Diagramming Data in Support of Academic Writing Development

Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 2015

Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prio... more Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prioritize what to revise. Yet, this process can be both daunting and difficult. This study looks at how students used a semantic concept mapping tool to represent the content and organization of their initial draft of an informational text. We examine the processes of students at two different schools as they remediated their own texts and how those processes impacted the development of their rhetorical, conceptual, and communicative capacities. Our analysis suggests that students creating visualizations of their completed first drafts scaffolded self-evaluation. The mapping tool aided visualization by converting compositions into discrete persistent visual data elements that represented concepts and connections. This often led to students' meta-awareness of what was missing

Heritage Language Policies in the Context of Australian Cultural Diversity

http://education.cambridge.org/eu/subject/cross-curricular/rethinking-heritage-language-education

White Noise: The Attack on Political Correctness and the Struggle for the Western Canon

This paper provides a critical overview of the debate about political correctness and the status ... more This paper provides a critical overview of the debate about political correctness and the status of the Western Canon in education. The paper analyses a number of critical themes in the debate: Who is it under attack? What is the Canon which is to be defended? Why does it need to be defended? And what notions of knowing and learning underlie the arguments of the proponents of the Canon? After outlining the ways in which the arguments of those attacking political correctness and defending the Canon are profoundly flawed, the paper suggests that the case for multiculturalism and diversified curriculum needs to be substantially strengthened if it is to present a viable alternative.

Language Education and Multiliteracies

Encyclopedia of Language and Education

In September 1994, the Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture at James Cook University of... more In September 1994, the Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture at James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia, initiated an international project to consider the future of literacy teaching: what would need to be taught in a rapidly changing near future, and how it would be taught. The Centre invited some of the world&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s leaders in the field of literacy pedagogy to come together for a week in the small town of New London, New Hampshire, USA, in order to consider the &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;state of the art&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;.

Genre in practice

The powers of literacy: A genre approach to …, 1993

El papel de Internet en las cambiantes ecologías del conocimiento

To a greater extent than is often acknowledged, the modern scientific and university-based knowle... more To a greater extent than is often acknowledged, the modern scientific and university-based knowledge system is a creature of the society of the printing press. Until the turn of the twentyfirst century, print was the medium of scholarly communication. Then, quite suddenly at the turn of the twenty-first century, digital text begins to displace print as the primary means of access to the knowledge of academicians. This article explores some of the consequences of this change. To what extent do digital technologies of representation and communication reproduce the knowledge systems of the half-millennium long history of the modern university or do they disrupt and transform them? To answer this question, this article will explore key aspects of contemporary transformations, not just in the textual forms of digital representation, but the emerging social forms that digitisation reflects, affords and supports. This we call the “social web”, a term we use to describe the kinds of relatio...

Literacies, An Introduction

Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2017

New Learning: Introduction

Visualizing Revision: Leveraging Student-Generated Between-Draft Diagramming Data in Support of Academic Writing Development

Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 2015

Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prio... more Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prioritize what to revise. Yet, this process can be both daunting and difficult. This study looks at how students used a semantic concept mapping tool to represent the content and organization of their initial draft of an informational text. We examine the processes of students at two different schools as they remediated their own texts and how those processes impacted the development of their rhetorical, conceptual, and communicative capacities. Our analysis suggests that students creating visualizations of their completed first drafts scaffolded self-evaluation. The mapping tool aided visualization by converting compositions into discrete persistent visual data elements that represented concepts and connections. This often led to students' meta-awareness of what was missing

White Noise: The Attack on Political Correctness and the Struggle for the Western Canon

Language Education and Multiliteracies

Encyclopedia of Language and Education

In September 1994, the Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture at James Cook University of... more In September 1994, the Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture at James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia, initiated an international project to consider the future of literacy teaching: what would need to be taught in a rapidly changing near future, and how it would be taught. The Centre invited some of the world&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s leaders in the field of literacy pedagogy to come together for a week in the small town of New London, New Hampshire, USA, in order to consider the &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;state of the art&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;.

With the rise of new technologies and media, the way we communicate is rapidly changing. Literaci... more With the rise of new technologies and media, the way we communicate is rapidly changing. Literacies provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy pedagogy within today's new media environment. It focuses not only on reading and writing, but also on other modes of communication, including oral, visual, audio, gestural and spatial. This focus is designed to supplement, not replace, the enduringly important role of alphabetical literacy. Using real-world examples and illustrations, Literacies features the experiences of both teachers and students. It maps a range of methods that teachers can use to help their students develop their capacities to read, write and communicate. It also explores the wide range of literacies and the diversity of socio-cultural settings in today's workplace, public and community settings. With an emphasis on the 'how-to' practicalities of designing literacy learning experiences and assessing learner outcomes, this book is a contemporary an...

“Multiliteracies”: New Literacies, New Learning

Pedagogies: An International Journal, 2009

Big change question—Taking into account mainstream economic and political trends, can/should school have a role in developing authentic critical thinking?

Journal of Educational Change, 2006

The Teacher as Designer: Pedagogy in the New Media Age

E-Learning and Digital Media, 2010

This article outlines a learning intervention which the authors call Learning by Design. The goal... more This article outlines a learning intervention which the authors call Learning by Design. The goal of this intervention is classroom and curriculum transformation, and the professional learning of teachers. The experiment involves the practical application of the learning theory to everyday classroom practice. Its ideas are grounded in pedagogical principles originally articulated in the Multiliteracies project, an approach to teaching and learning that addresses literacy and learning in the context of new media and the globalizing knowledge economy. The need for a new approach to learning arises from a complex range of factors — among them, changes in society and the economy; the potential for new forms of communication made possible by emerging technologies; and rising expectations amongst learners that education will maximize their potential for personal fulfillment, civic participation and access to work. The authors first brought together the Learning by Design team of researche...

E-Learning and Digital Media, 2004

What is the nature of the change represented by digital communications technologies? How will the... more What is the nature of the change represented by digital communications technologies? How will the impact of the digital compare with the massive changes spawned in its time by print and books? These are the two key questions addressed in this article. The authors answer the first of these questions by comparing the emergence of the printed book with the emergence of the digital communications technologies. The next section of this article, ‘Transformations in Ways of Meaning: the case of print’, discusses the technological nature and textual consequences of the printing press. The following section, ‘Transformations in Ways of Meaning: designing text digitally’, does the same for digital connectivity. Several themes emerge.

Technology-Mediated Writing Assessments: Principles and Processes

Computers and Composition, 2011

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

El papel de Internet en las cambiantes ecologías del conocimiento

To a greater extent than is often acknowledged, the modern scientific and university-based knowle... more To a greater extent than is often acknowledged, the modern scientific and university-based knowledge system is a creature of the society of the printing press. Until the turn of the twentyfirst century, print was the medium of scholarly communication. Then, quite suddenly at the turn of the twenty-first century, digital text begins to displace print as the primary means of access to the knowledge of academicians. This article explores some of the consequences of this change. To what extent do digital technologies of representation and communication reproduce the knowledge systems of the half-millennium long history of the modern university or do they disrupt and transform them? To answer this question, this article will explore key aspects of contemporary transformations, not just in the textual forms of digital representation, but the emerging social forms that digitisation reflects, affords and supports. This we call the “social web”, a term we use to describe the kinds of relatio...

Literacies, An Introduction

Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2017

New Learning: Introduction

Visualizing Revision: Leveraging Student-Generated Between-Draft Diagramming Data in Support of Academic Writing Development

Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 2015

Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prio... more Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prioritize what to revise. Yet, this process can be both daunting and difficult. This study looks at how students used a semantic concept mapping tool to represent the content and organization of their initial draft of an informational text. We examine the processes of students at two different schools as they remediated their own texts and how those processes impacted the development of their rhetorical, conceptual, and communicative capacities. Our analysis suggests that students creating visualizations of their completed first drafts scaffolded self-evaluation. The mapping tool aided visualization by converting compositions into discrete persistent visual data elements that represented concepts and connections. This often led to students' meta-awareness of what was missing

Heritage Language Policies in the Context of Australian Cultural Diversity

http://education.cambridge.org/eu/subject/cross-curricular/rethinking-heritage-language-education

White Noise: The Attack on Political Correctness and the Struggle for the Western Canon

This paper provides a critical overview of the debate about political correctness and the status ... more This paper provides a critical overview of the debate about political correctness and the status of the Western Canon in education. The paper analyses a number of critical themes in the debate: Who is it under attack? What is the Canon which is to be defended? Why does it need to be defended? And what notions of knowing and learning underlie the arguments of the proponents of the Canon? After outlining the ways in which the arguments of those attacking political correctness and defending the Canon are profoundly flawed, the paper suggests that the case for multiculturalism and diversified curriculum needs to be substantially strengthened if it is to present a viable alternative.

Language Education and Multiliteracies

Encyclopedia of Language and Education

In September 1994, the Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture at James Cook University of... more In September 1994, the Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture at James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia, initiated an international project to consider the future of literacy teaching: what would need to be taught in a rapidly changing near future, and how it would be taught. The Centre invited some of the world&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s leaders in the field of literacy pedagogy to come together for a week in the small town of New London, New Hampshire, USA, in order to consider the &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;state of the art&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;.

Livro Letramentos - Introdução

by Mary Kalantzis, Bill Cope, and Petrilson Pinheiro

Introdução do livro Letramentos, de Mary Kalantzis, Bill Cope e Petrilson Pinheiro, publicado em ... more

Towards a Semantic Web: Connecting Knowledge in Academic Research

by Liam Magee, Mary Kalantzis, and William Cope

Chapter 1: Conceptualizing e-Learning 1

by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis

E-Learning Ecologies, 2017

This book explores a phenomenon we call "e-learning ecologies". We use this metaphor because a le... more This book explores a phenomenon we call "e-learning ecologies". We use this metaphor because a learning environment is in some senses like an ecosystem, consisting of the complex interaction of human, textual, discursive and spatial dynamics. These take a coherent, systemic form. Traditional classrooms, with their linear arrangement of seating and desks, their lecturing teachers, their textbooks, their student workbooks, their classroom discussions are also learning systems. Moving from one of these classrooms to another, the modes of interaction are familiar and predictable because they are so systematically patterned. After a while, they seem "normal". However, these are strange human artifacts that were not put together into this configuration until the nineteenth century. They quickly became universal and compulsory sites of socialization of massinstitutionalized education. In terms of the long arc of human history, it was not until our the time of about our great, great grandparents that we first encountered these modern educational systems. But will these institutional forms survive long into the twenty-first century? Is it time for them to be reformed? And if change is to come, what will be the role of new technologies of knowledge representation and communication in bringing about change? This book explores transformations in the patterns of pedagogy that accompany elearning, or the use of computing devices to mediate or supplement the relationships between learners and teachers, to present and assess learnable content, to provide spaces where students do their work, and to mediate peer-to-peer interactions. Our thesis is this: e-learning ecologies may play a key part in the largest shift in the systems of modern education since their rise to dominance in the nineteenth century. Everything may change-configurations of space, learner-to-teacher and learner-tolearner relationships, the textual forms of knowledge to which learners are exposed, the kinds of knowledge artifacts that students create, and they way their outcomes of their learning are measured. Or, we may introduce a whole lot of technology into schools, and nothing changes in institutional or epistemic senses. Technology is pedagogically neutral. So our questions of e-learning ecologies becomes these: how can they be different? And, why should they be different? About this Book This book is a collaborative work, written by the members of the "new learning" research group coordinated by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, including colleagues, postdocs and graduate students at the University of Illinois, some of whom have authored the chapters in this book. The work of the group has been in part conceptual, to create an analytical

Learning and New Media

by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis

The Sage Handbook of Learning, 2015

Meaning without Borders: From Translanguaging to Transposition in the Era of Digitally- Mediated, Multimodal Meaning

by Bill Cope, Mary Kalantzis, and Anastasia-Olga (Olnancy) Tzirides

Multifaceted Multilingualism, 2020

"Translanguaging" is a concept that connects with older traditions of analysis in linguistics and... more "Translanguaging" is a concept that connects with older traditions of analysis in linguistics and practices in language pedagogy, while at the same time making some distinctions that justify the creation of a new word. In this chapter, we set out to extend the terms of this discussion by introducing another term, "transposition," a concept designed to cast the net wider than language. Transposition captures the restless fluidity of multimodal meaning making. In their constant movement, meanings are both translatable and to an extent untranslatable-across different forms and functions of meaning that must be conceived more broadly than distinct "languages" or even "language" itself. Digital media precipitate a renewed urgency to reconsider the terms of our theoretical discussions and pedagogical practices. They raise challenges, at once deeply concerning and potentially productive, for the job of language teaching and its professional practices. Our theme in this chapter is "meaning without borders," or the project of supplementing traditional analyses of meaning-through-language and developing a widened repertoire of pedagogical practice for language teachers.

Multiliteracies: Meaning-Making and Learning in the Era of Digital Text

by Sandra Schamroth Abrams, Bill Cope, and Mary Kalantzis

Remixing Multiliteracies: Theory and Practice from New London to New Times, 2017

Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis were the original organizers of the New London Group meetings and ha... more Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis were the original organizers of the New London Group meetings and have been the most actively involved in further developing the concept of Multiliteracies. In this chapter, they are joined by Sandra Schamroth Abrams to review two decades of work, to explore emerging directions in the era of the digital creation, and to address the seminal questions: What is the contemporary relevance of Multiliteracies, and what can we do to leverage the social affordances of new technologies in the service of improving learning opportunities for all students?

Maps of Medical Reason: Applying Knowledge Graphs and Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education and Practice

by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis

This chapter explores the connections between the bio and the digital in the construction of 'bio... more This chapter explores the connections between the bio and the digital in the construction of 'bioinformation' and 'biodigital convergence'. The site of examination of these connections is medical understandings of the body. Its focus is the notion of ontology in two, related senses, philosophical and technical. Philosophically, the chapter considers the connections between the immaterial understanding reflected in medical knowledge, in philosophical terms, 'the ideal' or ideational on the one hand, and on the other, the material, biological realities of bodies. In a technical sense, the chapter discusses medical ontologies in a computer science frame of reference, and the emergence in recent years of 'knowledge graphs' for their representation. On these philosophical and technical bases, the chapter goes on to discuss a research and development project in which the authors have been engaged, to develop a web-based knowledge graphing environment, with a wide range of potential sites of applications, one to support medical students in clinical case analysis, and the other to build medical logic visualizations to supplement electronic health records.

Pedagogies for Digital Learning: From Transpositional Grammar to the Literacies of Education

by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis

The Changing Dynamics of Online Education: Five Theses on the Future of Learning 1

by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis

These are times of unprecedented change in education. Digitally-mediated online education looms l... more These are times of unprecedented change in education. Digitally-mediated online education looms large as one of the most significant harbingers change. Potentially, for better or for worse, no classroom and no formal or informal learning process will be left unchanged. Immediately, this statement demands complication. On the one hand, online education is a classical technological disruption of traditional practices of teaching and learning. Yet on the other hand, some of the technological changes represent in pedagogical terms, little or no change at all. In fact, worse than that, we will argue some forms of online learning can serve to ossify anachronistic practices, to a point at times where they almost become back-to-the future parodies of their past selves. On the disruptive side of change, business theorists Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen speak to technology in general when they analyze "disruptive innovation" (Bower and Christensen 1995). This is a variation on an older theme of technological and social change where Joseph Schumpeter famously called capitalism a system of "creative destruction" (Schumpeter 1950 [1976]: 81). Applying their analysis to education, Christensen and colleagues predict enormous change in which some old education institutions and teaching practices die while others thrive (Christensen, Horn and Johnson 2008). In pedagogical terms, implementing technology need not produce reform. We can video our lectures, but the didactic form of the lecture does not change. We can move from print to e-textbooks, but the genre of the textbook as a medium of content transmission remains the same. We can deliver courses in learning management systems, but the lock-step logic of the traditional syllabus stays the same. We can deploy online tests, but the process of assessment to discriminating the few who succeed from the many who are destined to be mediocre or to fail, remains unchanged. The paradox here is that the transition to new technology-the technological infrastructures provided to teachers and learners by the decision makers in our schools and colleges-may at times force us to replicate didactic patterns of teaching and learning. In this case, technology stifles the possibility of pedagogical innovation, even when innovation is needed and perhaps within reach. Technology does not in itself determine the shape of change. We can put it to different kinds of use; it only has "affordances," or a range of possible applications. Psychologist James Gibson coined this word, capturing the idea that meaning is shaped by the materiality of the media we have at our disposal. His work is at an elemental, creaturely level: "The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill" (Gibson 1979 [2015]: 119).

Meaning without Borders: From Translanguaging to Transposition in the Era of Digitally- Mediated, Multimodal Meaning

by Bill Cope, Mary Kalantzis, and Anastasia-Olga (Olnancy) Tzirides

Multifaceted Multilingualism, edited by K. K. Grohmann, 2020

"Translanguaging" is a concept that connects with older traditions of analysis in linguistics and... more "Translanguaging" is a concept that connects with older traditions of analysis in linguistics and practices in language pedagogy, while at the same time making some distinctions that justify the creation of a new word. In this chapter, we set out to extend the terms of this discussion by introducing another term, "transposition," a concept designed to cast the net wider than language. Transposition captures the restless fluidity of multimodal meaning making. In their constant movement, meanings are both translatable and to an extent untranslatable-across different forms and functions of meaning that must be conceived more broadly than distinct "languages" or even "language" itself. Digital media precipitate a renewed urgency to reconsider the terms of our theoretical discussions and pedagogical practices. They raise challenges, at once deeply concerning and potentially productive, for the job of language teaching and its professional practices. Our theme in this chapter is "meaning without borders," or the project of supplementing traditional analyses of meaning-through-language and developing a widened repertoire of pedagogical practice for language teachers.