Introduction

Abstract

The papers in this issue were first presented at a meeting of critical discourse analysts, held at the University of Birmingham in April 1999. Critical discourse analysts are interested in the processes and products of discourse and their impact on social practices. Although its theoretical framework is eclectic and interdisciplinary, critical discourse analysis has for the most part focused on language and ignored other semiotic modes. The Birmingham meeting sought to remedy this by instigating a discussion about the interface between social semiotics and critical discourse analysis, putting multimodality on the agenda as essential to the practices of discourse analysts and social theorists, and examining the ways in which our 'professional vision' has been affected by the advances of postmodernity.For us, ‘semiotics’ indicates in the first place an interest in modes of communication other than language. This does not of course exclude language. We are also, and especially, interested in how language and other modes of communication combine in multimodal texts and communicative events.The ‘social’ in ‘critical social semiotics’ indicates that we are not interested in semiotics for its own sake. We relate semiotic theory to key sociological themes (see article by R. Scollon) and apply semiotic analysis to areas such as education (article by L. M. T. Menezes de Souza), cross-cultural communication (see the articles by S. Scollon and R. Martinec) and popular culture (see article by Caldas-Coulthard and Van Leeuwen).The ‘critical’ in ‘critical social semiotics’ finally indicates that social semiotics takes part in the enterprise of critical discourse analysis. It does not stop at description, but analyses multimodal texts as playing a vital role in the production, reproduction and transformation of the social practices that constitute the society in which we live.Although the approaches of some schools of semiotics derive principally from philosophy and cultural studies, others have a firm basis in linguistics. The contributors to this special issue are linguists and educators who apply linguistic and social theories and methods to their work. For them, therefore, ‘critical social semiotics’ explores differences among current relations and meanings, historicises and contextualises them, and finally has the main objective of acting on and altering political forces.