Continuity and change: semiotic relations across multimodal texts in surgical education
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Jeff Bezemer
Jeff Bezemer is Reader in Learning and Communication and Co-Director of the Centre for Multimodal Research at University College London, Institute of Education. His main interest is to develop and apply semiotic approaches to researching clinical practice. Recent book publications include
Multimodality, Learning and Communication: A Social Semiotic Frame (with Gunther Kress, 2016) andIntroducing Multimodality (with Carey Jewitt and Kay O’Halloran, 2016), both published by Routledge.
and
Gunther Kress
Gunther Kress is Professor of Semiotics and Education at University College London, Institute of Education. His interests are in communication and meaning (-making) in contemporary environments. His two broad aims are to continue developing a social semiotic theory of multimodal communication; and, in that, to develop apt means for the “recognition” and “valuation of learning.” He is the author of
Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication (2009),Literacy in the New Media Age (2003) and other books published by Routledge.
Abstract
In this paper we develop a social semiotic account of continuity and change across texts. Our aims are to make a theoretical contribution to scholarly work on inter-textual relations by adopting a multimodal perspective; and to develop a framework for understanding how texts mediate knowing, learning and agency in education and beyond. We achieve this through a case study of surgical education. We present and analyze, first, a collection of pedagogic texts designed for surgeons learning to perform a common surgical procedure. Second, we look at a series of texts that culminated in a pedagogic text on surgery for the general public. We conclude that a multimodal, social semiotic framework provides essential means for the recognition, documentation and understanding of continuities and changes in text production and engagement.
Funding statement: The research was supported by grants from the United Kingdom’s Economic and Social Research Council (RES-576-25-0027 and RES-062-23-3219).
About the authors
Jeff Bezemer is Reader in Learning and Communication and Co-Director of the Centre for Multimodal Research at University College London, Institute of Education. His main interest is to develop and apply semiotic approaches to researching clinical practice. Recent book publications include Multimodality, Learning and Communication: A Social Semiotic Frame (with Gunther Kress, 2016) and Introducing Multimodality (with Carey Jewitt and Kay O’Halloran, 2016), both published by Routledge.
Gunther Kress is Professor of Semiotics and Education at University College London, Institute of Education. His interests are in communication and meaning (-making) in contemporary environments. His two broad aims are to continue developing a social semiotic theory of multimodal communication; and, in that, to develop apt means for the “recognition” and “valuation of learning.” He is the author of Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication (2009), Literacy in the New Media Age (2003) and other books published by Routledge.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: the dynamics of textual trajectories in professional and workplace practice
- Textual trajectories: Theoretical roots and institutional consequences
- Recruiting Frontstage Entextualization: drafting, artifactuality and written-ness as resources in police – witness interviews
- Text bite news: the metapragmatics of feature news
- Imagined, prescribed and actual text trajectories: the “problem” with case notes in contemporary social work
- Continuity and change: semiotic relations across multimodal texts in surgical education
- Tracing trajectories as units of analysis for the study of social processes: addressing mobility and complexity in sociolinguistics
- Analyzing textual trajectories: Tensions in purpose and power relations
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: the dynamics of textual trajectories in professional and workplace practice
- Textual trajectories: Theoretical roots and institutional consequences
- Recruiting Frontstage Entextualization: drafting, artifactuality and written-ness as resources in police – witness interviews
- Text bite news: the metapragmatics of feature news
- Imagined, prescribed and actual text trajectories: the “problem” with case notes in contemporary social work
- Continuity and change: semiotic relations across multimodal texts in surgical education
- Tracing trajectories as units of analysis for the study of social processes: addressing mobility and complexity in sociolinguistics
- Analyzing textual trajectories: Tensions in purpose and power relations
