Focusing on how children acquire spelling skills, Gunther Kress examines their early literacy development through the lens of their writing and drawing. By presenting various examples, he emphasizes children as 'makers of meaning,' highlighting their initial attempts at writing and the significance of these early expressions in understanding literacy.
Kress explores critical challenges to conventional beliefs surrounding language, literacy, thought, and action. He contextualizes these challenges by speculating on the essential abilities and dispositions that children need to develop, offering insights into the interplay between communication and cognitive development.
Focusing on multimodality, Gunther Kress offers a robust theoretical framework that enhances the understanding of this field. The book includes sample analyses that illustrate key concepts and provides recommendations for further reading, making it a valuable resource for scholars and students interested in the interplay of different modes of communication. Kress's expertise and insights contribute significantly to the ongoing discourse in multimodal studies.
Examining the transformative impact of the Internet on communication, this influential work draws parallels to the historical significance of the printing press. It delves into the political implications of these changes and contemplates their potential effects on the future of literacy, highlighting the evolving landscape of information dissemination and its societal consequences.
Focusing on the learning process of writing, this classic text explores what children acquire when they learn to write and the insights gained about children, society, and ourselves through this analysis. It offers a detailed examination of children's writing, shedding light on their developmental stages and the broader implications of writing in understanding human growth and societal dynamics.
Originally published in 1979. This book studies language variation as a part of social practice - how language expresses and helps regulate social relationships of all kinds. Different groups, classes, institutions and situations have their special modes of language and these varieties are not just stylistic reflections of social differences; speaking or writing in a certain manner entails articulating certain social meanings, however implicit. This book focuses on the repressive and falsifying side of linguistic practice but not without recognising the power of language to reveal and communicate. It analyses the language used in a variety of situations, including news reporting, interviews, rules and regulations, even such apparently innocuous language as the rhymes on greetings cards. It argues for a critical linguistics capable of exposing distortion and mystification in language, and introduces some basic tools for a do-it-yourself analysis of language, ideology and control.