Meaning Patterns: An Introduction to Multimodal Semiotics

About this course

What is meaning, and how does it work, not just in language but in images, spaces, objects, bodies, sounds, and gestures? This course offers a powerful framework for answering that question: a transpositional grammar of multimodal meaning, developed by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis. Rather than treating language as the center of meaning, the course explores how meaning is made across seven forms and analyzed through five functions: reference (what something is about), agency (how it patterns action), structure (how meanings cohere), context (how surroundings shape meaning), and interest (the purposes and cross-purposes we bring to meaning). Running through all of them is transposition, the constant movement by which meaning is remade as it shifts across forms and contexts. Through engaging videos and in-depth readings, optional AI-guided dialogues and discussions, and applied peer-reviewed essays, you will learn to parse real artifacts of meaning, from a painting or a building to a digital interaction, and see how they work. Designed for educators, communicators, creators, and anyone curious about how meaning works, this course requires no specialist background.e.g. This is primarily aimed at first- and second-year undergraduates interested in engineering or science, along with high school students and professionals with an interest in programming.

Course objectives

• explore the interaction of language, images, and other means of communication
• develop skills to parse and interpret varied forms of meaning
• examine how context impacts the creation of meaning