Multimodal discourse analysis refers to a field of academic research interested in investigating the

ways in which meaning‐making practices and social interactions occur through multiple
communicative modes. Stemming from various theoretical perspectives in applied linguistics,
multimodal discourse analysis or multimodality explicitly highlights an analytical orientation
whereby language is conceptualized as only one of the many communicative modes through which
meaning‐making and social interaction are accomplished. Multimodal approaches have been
employed to understand better a broad range of communicative phenomena, from language and
literacy, to film, comics, corporate communication, and identity production. It is a rapidly growing
domain of research and this can be attributed to the fact that all communicative phenomena are
multimodal.

Much of the work in multimodal discourse draws from Halliday’s social semiotics approach to
language, a view that considers language as one among a number of semiotic resources such as
gesture, images, music that people use to communicate, or to make meaning, with each other.
Multimodal discourse analysis considers how texts draw on modes of communication such as
pictures, film, video, images and sound in combination with words to make meaning.
-how semiotic tools such as color, framing, focus and positioning elements contribute to the making
of meaning in the text.
- the meanings of the whole should be treated as the sum of themeanings of the parts, or whether
the parts should be looked on as interacting with and affecting one another.
Here,we consider what is involved in analysing multimodal discourse ‘in an integrated way’, paying
attention both to the workings of different semiotic systems and to the interactions between
them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘the special language, abbreviations, and expressions used by people when

communicating using the Internet’.
Internet vocabulary is, maybe, the most important netspeak features;
1. Abbreviation - a shortened form of a word or phrase.(TV for television, Xerox for xerographic
printer,
1.1 Clipping - the shortening of a longer word (telephone – phone, application- app, sci-fi
science fiction, ad - advertisement )
1.2 Acronymy - abbreviating a phrase by combining certain letters of words in the phrase (IT
- information technology) BTW, CWOT, LOL, ASAP, WFH, US, U.K
1.3 Combination of letters and numbers (before - b4, F2F face to face, W8 – wait, M8 –
mate, 2NITE – tonight, 2MI – too much information, 10Q –thank you, 4eva – forever)
2. Blending - combining parts of two words or a word plus a part of another
word ( net citizen - Netizen, electronic mail - e-mail )
3. Compounding - words are formed when two or more words are joined together to create a
new word (cybernation)hypertext,
4. Derivation - is the formation of new words by adding “affixes” to other words ( cyber- :
cyberspace cyberstart)
5. The use of symbols and emoji - in order to express facial expressions, gestures and
emotions( ∶-) / - regular smile,∶- D/ - laughter )

CHARACTERISTICS OF INTERNET ENGLISH

1. Popularity
 2. Creativity
3. Words with metaphorical meanings
4. Brevity

Another important characteristic of netspeak is also its typical graphology and

in general, all orthographic features are affected; an example is the random use of
capital letters (when something needs to be emphasised) and the use of small letters
almost everywhere.

DICTIONARY-MAKING BASED ON CORPUS

1) to produce and revise dictionaries very quickly, thus providing up-to-date
information about the language;
2) to give more complete and precise definitions since a larger number of
natural examples are examined;
3) to keep on top of new words entering the language, or existing words
changing their meanings;
4) to describe usages of particular words or phrases typical of particular
varieties and genres;
5) to organize easily examples extracted from corpora into more meaningful
groups for analysis and describe/present them laying special stress on their
collocation.
6) to treat phrases and collocations more systematically than was previously
possible due to the ability to call up word-combinations rather than words

due to the existence of mutual information tools which establish relationship

between co-occurring words;
7) to register cultural connotations and underlying ideologies which a language
has.