Multimodal Communication in an Early Childhood Bilingual Education Setting: A Social Semiotic Interaction Analysis

Abstract

Bilingual learners often integrate semiotic resources and communicative modes across the languages they speak. Unfortunately, current approaches to researching such a phenomenon assign pragmatic functions to individual discourse moves at best or to isolated utterances at worst. Thus, using a social semiotic multimodal interaction analysis, this study examined actions in interactions of a group of six transnational students participating in a second-grade literacy circle at a school in western New York, USA. The purpose of this was to account for the complex reciprocities among their multimodal ways of communicating, their learning climate , and ultimately their learning as mediated and evidenced in their integrated multimodal communicative action. Data included four audio recordings of four literacy circle reading activities that took place during a four-day period. Findings sug gest that, first, learning results from communication. Second, learning can only be evidenced through communication in interaction. Finally, communication is always multimodal and emergent while, at the same time, culturally governed. This presents direct implications for instruction and learning regarding the social conditions afforded to students to access their full repertoire of semiotic resourc es and modes to participate and act on their own behalf and in pursuit of their learning.

Full text

85
Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 27 issue 1 (January-april, 2022), pp. 85-106, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
Received: 2021-03-05 / Accepted: 2021-08-05 / Published: 2022-02-09
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.v27n1a05
Editor: Doris Correa, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia
Some rights reserved Universidad de Antioquia 2022. is is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons License -- 4.0 International.
Wilder Yesid Escobar-Alméciga
Director, Licenciatura en Bilingüismo,
Facultad de Educación, Universidad
El Bosque, Bogotá, Colombia.
escobarwilder@unbosque.edu.co
https://orcid.
org/0000-0002-5082-6236
Janina Brutt-Grifer
Associate Dean of International
Education and Language Programs
Director, Center for Comparative
and Global Studies in Education,
University at Buffalo, Buffalo, ny, usa
bruttg@buffalo.edu
https://orcid.
org/0000-0001-7250-5444
A
Bilingual learners oen integrate semiotic resources and communicative modes
across the languages they speak. Unfortunately, current approaches to researching
such a phenomenon assign pragmatic functions to individual discourse moves at
best or to isolated utterances at worst. us, using a social semiotic multimodal
interaction analysis, this study examined actions in interac tions of a group of six
transnational students participating in a second-grade literacy circle at a school
in western New York, USA. e purpose of this was to account for the complex
reciprocities among their multimodal ways of communicating, their learning cli-
mate, and ultimately their learning as mediated and evidenced in their integrated
multimodal communicative action. Data included four audio recordings of four
literacy circle reading activities that took place during a four-day period. Find-
ings sug gest that, rst, learning results from communication. Second, learning
can only be evidenced through communication in interaction. Finally, commu-
nication is always multimodal and emergent while, at the same time, culturally
governed. is presents direct implications for instruction and learning regarding
the social conditions aorded to students to access their full repertoire of semiotic
resourc es and modes to participate and act on their own behalf and in pursuit of
their learning.
Keywords: bilingual education; dual-language instruction; early childhood edu-
cation; literacy; multimodal communication; social semiotics.
M C   E
C B E
S: A S S I
A
C        :
  -   
C      
:      
C        :
  -  

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www.udea.edu.co/ikala
R
Los aprendices bilingües muchas veces integran recursos semióticos y
comunicativos entre las lenguas que hablan. Desafortunadamente, las actuales
investigaciones sobre dicho fenómeno asignan funciones pragmáticas a formas
de discurso individual en el mejor de los casos o a expresiones aisladas en el peor de
ellos. Por ende, utilizando modelos de la interacción multimodal sociosemiótica,
este estudio analizó acciones en las interacciones de un grupo de seis estudiantes
transnacionales que participaron en un círculo de literacidad de segundo grado
en una escuela al oeste de Nueva York, Estados Unidos. El propósito era explicar
las complejas reciprocidades entre sus formas de comunicación multimodal, su
ambiente de aprendizaje y, en última instancia, su aprendizaje como algo mediado
y evidenciado en su acción comunicativa multimodal integrada. Los datos
incluyeron cuatro grabaciones de audio obtenidos en cuatro círculos de lectura
llevados a cabo en cuatro días. Los hallazgos indican que, en primer lugar, el
aprendizaje se deriva de la comunicación. En segundo lugar, que el aprendizaje
solo puede evidenciarse mediante la comunicación en la interacción. Finalmente,
la comunicación es siempre multimodal y emergente, pero, al mismo tiempo, está
determinada por la cultura. Esto plantea implicaciones directas para la enseñanza y
el aprendizaje en relación con las condiciones sociales al alcance de los estudiantes
para acceder a su repertorio pleno de recursos semióticos y modos de participación
y acción en nombre propio y en pos de su aprendizaje.
Palabras clave: educación bilingüe; enseñanza en dos idiomas; educación inicial;
literacidad; comunicación multimodal; sociosemiótica.
R
Les apprenants bilingues intègrent souvent des ressources sémiotiques et
communicatives entre les langues qu'ils parlent. Malheureusement, les recherches
actuelles sur ce phénomène attribuent des fonctions pragmatiques à des formes
individuelles de discours dans le meilleur des cas ou à des expressions isolées
dans le pire des cas. Par conséquent, en utilisant des modèles d'interaction socio-
sémiotique multimodale, cette étude a analysé les actions dans les interactions
d'un groupe de six étudiants transnationaux qui ont participé à un cercle
d'alphabétisation de deuxième année dans une école de l'ouest de New York,
aux États-Unis. Le but était d'expliquer les réciprocités complexes entre leurs
formes de communication multimodale, leur environnement d'apprentissage
et, nalement, leur apprentissage tel qu'il est médiatisé et mis en évidence dans
leur action communicative multimodale intégrée. Les données comprenaient
quatre enregistrements audio obtenus dans quatre cercles de lecture réalisés sur
quatre jours. Les résultats indiquent que, tout d'abord, l'apprentissage découle
de la communication. Deuxièmement, cet apprentissage ne peut être mis en
évidence que par la communication dans l'interaction. Enn, la communication
est toujours multimodale et émergente, mais, en même temps, elle est déterminée
par la culture. Cela soulève des implications directes pour l'enseignement et
l'apprentissage en ce qui concerne les conditions sociales oertes aux étudiants
pour accéder à leur répertoire complet de ressources sémiotiques et de modes
de participation et d'action pour leur propre compte et dans la poursuite de leur
apprentissage.
Mots-clefs : éducation bilingue ; enseignement en deux langues ; formation
initiale; alphabétisation ; communication multimodale ; socio-sémiotique.

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Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 27 issue 1 (January-april, 2022), pp. 85-106, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
R
Os aprendizes bilíngues geralmente integram recursos semióticos e comunicativos
entre os idiomas que falam. Infelizmente, as pesquisas atuais sobre esse fenômeno
atribuem funções pragmáticas a formas individuais de discurso no melhor dos
casos ou a expressões isoladas no pior deles. Portanto, utilizando modelos de
interação multimodal sociossemiótica, este estudo analisou ações nas interações
de um grupo de seis estudantes transnacionais que participaram de um círculo
de alfabetização de segunda série em uma escola no oeste de Nova York, Estados
Unidos. O objetivo foi explicar as complexas reciprocidades entre suas formas de
comunicação multimodal, seu ambiente de aprendizagem e, em última análise,
sua aprendizagem mediada e evidenciada em sua ação comunicativa multimodal
integrada. Os dados incluíram quatro gravações de áudio obtidas em quatro rodas
de leitura realizadas em quatro dias. Os achados indicam que, antes de tudo, a
aprendizagem deriva da comunicação. Segundo, que a aprendizagem só pode
ser evidenciada por meio da comunicação em interação. Por m, a comunicação
é sempre multimodal e emergente, mas, ao mesmo tempo, determinada pela
cultura. Isso traz implicações diretas para o ensino e a aprendizagem em relação
às condições sociais disponíveis para os alunos acessarem todo o seu repertório de
recursos semióticos e modos de participação e ação em nome próprio e na busca
de sua aprendizagem.
Palavras chave: educação bilíngue; ensino em duas línguas; educação inicial;
alfabetização; comunicação multimodal; sócio-semiótica.

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questions in their literacy circles. Two questions
guided this study: (1) How do students configure
their L1 with other semiotic resources and modes
for meaning-making in communicative action?
and (2) what implications may the integration
of the students’ L1 with other semiotic resources
have for instruction?
Theoretical Framework
The intricate, complex and reciprocal relationship
that communication, teaching, and learning hold
with each other in a bilingual school environment
can be better explained in light of social semiot-
ics. Hence, this section delves into the concept of
social semiotics to, subsequently, discuss bilingual
education approaches.
Social Semiotics in Education
Social semiotics is concerned with the ways in
which meaning-making is or fails to be accom-
plished in enironments of communication
(Fairclough, 2011; Kress, 2011). It offers a view
where meaning-making in communication is com-
plex, multimodal, and socio-culturally governed.
That is, communication is comprised of far more
elements than just the spoken or written linguis-
tic codes. Rather, communication encompasses
countless resources and modes with which semi-
otic systems are created, configured, and deployed
(Franks & Jewitt, 2001; Goldin-Meadow, 2000;
Norris, 2014; Roth, 2001), including the bilin-
gual child’s two languages. In that sense, semiotic
resources are the materials, elements, actions
available to create meaning, while communica-
tive modes are the ways inwhich such resources
are configured, organized, and deployed to cre-
ate, shape, and reshape meaning in interaction.
Consistently, meaning here is unevenly distrib-
uted among different resources and modes—mode
complexity, intensity and density (Norris, 2004).
While some episodes may exhibit numerous
modes and resources (a high-level density), oth-
ers may display fewer modes (a low-level density).
Consistently, the importance that a particular
Introduction
Schools in the U.S. resemble the diversity of their
broader national context and are left with the
charge of educating students from different socio-
cultural backgrounds (Castles et al., 2013; Flores,
2010) and to determine the extent to which the
students’ linguistic and sociocultural heritage has
a place in the education process (Goldenberg &
Coleman, 2010).
Current approaches to researching the instances
in which such sociocultural aspects surface the
school contexts focus heavily on examining iso-
lated instances of the use of the students’ L1
(García & Nava, 2012; Jaffe, 2007; Macswan,
2013) or on the implementation of pedagogical
approaches that treat languages separately creating
learning environments where the coexistence of
the two languages is not possible (García-Mateus
& Palmer, 2017). Such views deviate greatly from
a social semiotic perspective in that they (1) do
not explain learning on the basis of communica-
tion and (2) that they fail to recognize that the
languages a person speaks and their sociocultural,
historical, and semiotic resources and modes are
interconnected as one integrated repertoire for
communicative action (Cenoz & Gorter, 2017;
Kress, 2010, 2011; Norris, 2004, 2014). Thus,
there still exists a pressing need for a social-semi-
otic multimodal communication-based approach
where the use of the students’ L1 and any other
semiotic resource or communicative mode can be
interpreted in relation to each other and in light
of the communicative action being pursued and
the social climate being promoted (Fairclough,
2011; Norris, 2014).
As such, we relied on multimodal interactional
analysis (; Norris, 2004) to investigate com-
municative episodes of six second-grade Puerto
Rican-US transnational students and their teacher
during reading tasks to inquire into the way in
which the students’ L1 (inter)acted with other
semiotic resources for meaning-making in com-
munication as they grappled with text-related

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Íkala MultiModal coMMunication in an early childhood bilingual education setting: a social seMiotic interactional analysis
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 27 issue 1 (January-april, 2022), pp. 85-106, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
mode has in unlocking meaning as opposed to
all other modes in the communicative episode is
referred to as mode intensity.
In Kress’ (2011) terms, the sign is the sociocultural
work of the agent to make, interpret, negotiate,
and sometimes, struggle over meaning in inter-
action. It results from the person’s representation
system which is formed and transformed by their
sociocultural surroundings and background. In
this sense, Kress’ sign is an act(ion)—a word, a
gesture, body postures—which, through time, is
populated with sociocultural properties that form
and transform its meaning into something that
could be socially recognized, reconciled, or nego-
tiated in interaction and that has the potential to
change and be changed by the semiotic work of
others (Kress, 2010, 2011).
Thus, social semiotics in education represents a
comprehensive perspective that, first, acknowl-
edges that learning comes as a result of multimodal
communication, second, values different waysof
knowing, and third, accepts multimodal ways
of accounting for such types of knowledge and
ways of knowing (Kress, 2010, 2011). In doing so,
it establishes a clear, strong, and direct association
between multimodal communication and learn-
ing. Learning, within this framework, “happens
in complex social environments; always in inter-
action with ’the world’, often in interaction with
(members of ) distinct social groups and their dis-
tinct and related interests” (Kress, 2011, p. 214).
In this perspective, the sign makers are active agents
in communication acting collectively in pursuit of
learning. Their histories, cultural knowledge, expe-
riences, idiosyncrasies, personal/social relations,
perspectives of the world, identities, interests, etc.,
are always brought to bear in the construction of
knowledge within the similarities and across the
differences of the interactants. Hence, the sign can
be taken as evidence of the learner’s sociocultural
knowledge, their engagement with what is being
addressed, their response to other signs, their epis-
temological commitment to the subject at hand,
and the formation and transformation of their
identities through their participation (Franks &
Jewitt, 2001; Kress, 2010, 2011).
Consistently, the extent to which participation is
allowed and supported determines the degree to
which social cohesion and communication are
achieved. Reciprocally, such degree of social cohe-
sion and communication regulates access to and
distribution of semiotic, cultural, social, affective,
and economic resources needed for full participa-
tion and, hence, for learning (Kress, 2010). In his
words, “members of communities [should] have
access to the semiotic and other cultural resources
essential to act in their social world on their own
behalf and for their benefit” (Kress, 2010, p. 18).
As such, analyzing multimodal interaction in bilin-
gual education from a social semiotic perspective
offers means of unveiling the extent to which (semi-
otic, cultural, affective, cognitive, etc.) resources
work together in communication and learning and
are made evenly or unevenly available to students
for a fair or unfair share of participation in the com-
mon goal of accessing and constructing knowledge
in the classroom.
Bilingual Education Approaches
The literature advocates for bilingual approaches
to children’s education and to their home upbring-
ing with a wide-ranging scope of arguments.
At a cognitive level, Ben-Zeev (1977) explained
the mental strategies that bilingual children use in
communication in order to cope with the broader
range of communicative possibilities that draw-
ing on two linguistic resources pose. Not only do
such strategies involve extremely complex men-
tal processes like intensified scanning of language
inputand careful self-monitoring of their output,
but they are also highly demanding in regards to the
time afforded to the speakers to perform such pro-
cesses. As a result of mental activities of this sort,
cognitive skills are enhanced and cognitive devel-
opment is expedited (Graf Estes & Hay, 2015;

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Poepsel & Weiss, 2016). In a similar way, Graf
Estes and Hay (2015) argued that early bilingual-
ism fosters extended flexibility in early lexical
development. Bilingual children need to iden-
tify and differentiate the boundaries of their two
phonological and morphological systems as well
as comprehend the underlying principles that
determine the adequate use of each system in
communication.
In terms of the reciprocal relationship that exists
between identity and learning, for instance,
García-Mateus and Palmer’s (2017) analysis of the
classroom discourse practices of a group of stu-
dents and their teacher found that the teacher had
an approach to instruction where the students’
languages were fluidly and dynamically used.
This increased student-metalinguistic awareness,
offered fair opportunities for students to take part
in class activities, fostered identity construction
processes, and empowered minoritized students
to pursue their learning interests.
In reference to the role that families play in the
emotional, cognitive, and social development of
children and in regard to the disproportionate
social status that immigrant languages have in rela-
tion to English in the U.S., Leung and Uchikoshi
(2012) studied the ideologies, attitudes, and prac-
tices that parents of Cantonese and English early
bilinguals had concerning their children’s acqui-
sition and use of their heritage language and the
effects of such attitudes, practices, and ideolo-
gies on their academic achievement. Parents were
asked about the reasons for enrolling their kids in
bilingual programs and whether they believed that
their children should maintain their Cantonese
language. The parents’ responses unveiled (1) a
concern for maintaining the heritage language,
(2) an appreciation for the opportunity that these
Cantonese/English bilingual schools afforded
them to get involved as they did not speak English,
and (3) their awareness about what their chil-
dren’s enhanced linguistic capital would represent
for their future. The findings of this study showed
that, on the one hand, these Cantonese-English
bilinguals’ communicative and academic perfor-
mance was significantly improved by the bilingual
school environment available to them, and on the
other, the students’ motivation and high achieving
outcomes in the acquisition of Cantonese came as
a direct result of their parents’ positive attitudes
and ideologies about their heritage language.
From an opposing view, Flores and García (2017)
explored the negative effect that certain approaches
to bilingual education are bringing about. They
found that, overtime, bilingual education programs
shifted their focus from attending to the learning
needs of culturally diverse children from minori-
tized communities to serving marketing objectives
and catering primarily to middle-class Caucasian
families. While acknowledging the progress that
this educational matter has made over the years,
they attested to the need for bilingual education
approaches that empower minoritized students
and provide them with equitable opportunities
to learn like translanguaging. This concept pro-
motes the integrated, strategic, and designed use
of more than one language for classroom instruc-
tion. While translanguaging is not grounded in
social semiotics, it does begin to acknowledge that
the two languages that a bilingual child speaks
represents one linguistic repertoire for commu-
nication. It also seeks to foster the development
of bilingual identities and to empower culturally
diverse students to use their two languages to act
on their own behalf and in pursuit of their ben-
efit (Ascenzi-Moreno, 2018; Cenoz & Gorter,
2017; Collins, 2014; García-Mateus & Palmer,
2017; Hamman, 2018; MacSwan, 2017, 2020;
Rodríguez, 2015).
The study at hand, however, has the ambitious
intention of taking the premises under which
translanguaging operates one step beyond. It seeks
to complement the idea that bilingual students
have their two languages integrated as one com-
municative repertoire by arguing that in addition
to speech, such a communicative repertoire is also

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Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 27 issue 1 (January-april, 2022), pp. 85-106, issn 0123-3432
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composed of other semiotic resources and com-
municative modes like gestures, gaze, proxemics,
performance, and so on, which are historically and
socio-culturally governed. As such, these semiotic
resources and communicative moods need to be
assessed in light of one another and in their inter-
play in multimodal communication rather than in
isolated instantiations of a communicative phe-
nomenon. In other words, bilingual pedagogy can
be well served by studies that frame learning as an
effect of multimodal communication to inquire
into the ways in which such communication is
configured in instruction and the extent to which
these configurations increase or limit learning
possibilities for bilingual students. Such studies
would inform instructional designs that welcome,
value, and include the students’ linguistic, socio-
cultural, and semiotic resources in class activity to
ensure ample opportunities to fully participate in
school life.
Method
Within the area of social semiotics, Norris (2004)
proposes an analytical framework that addresses
communication from a multimodal perspective.
She delineates a methodology which g uides inqui-
ries into the ways in which people create, form,
transform, and use their social, semiotic, cultural,
emotional, and cognitive resources to (inter)act,
(inter)represent, and (inter)be in social contexts
and to unveil how such arrangements grant or
deny access to, for instance, social participation.
As such, this is an  (Kress, 2010, 2011; Norris,
2004) which reports its findings on the basis of
communicative episodes (Aukerman et al., 2017).
In this framework, Norris (2004) takes the action as
an interactional meaning unit and, hence, the unit
of analysis to investigate the way in which semiotic
resources and modes are configured and deployed
in communicative action. In this sense, actions can
be (1) lower-level—the smallest interactional unit
of meaning or (2) higher-level—bracketed by an
opening and closing and composed of lower-level
and sometimes other higher-level actions. Actions,
in this model, are what the students and teacher do
in pursuit of communicative aims using the semi-
otic resources and modes that they have at their
disposal. This model offers two main categori-
cal themes: mode density and mode intensity to
explain mode complexity (how semiotic resources
like words, movement, color, and silences are con-
figured into communicative action and deployed
through modes like speech, gestures, and lay-
out for meaning-making in the learning process).
As such, mode density refers to the amount of
modes involved in communicative action, and the
framework seeks to graphically delineate the intri-
cate interactions among them. Similarly, mode
intensity refers to the varying degrees to which
particular resources or modes play greater or lesser
roles in meaning-making, and in the framework,
it is usually represented with oval-shaped graphs
which through their overlapping show relations
and through size illustrate the degree of impor-
tance in a particular communicative act. Finally,
episodes are those activities that take place within
speech situations and are governed by the collec-
tive social norms shared among the participants.
It can consist of one or more actions, and it is con-
tained within a culturally organized and thematic
sequenced of actions bounded by its communica-
tive interrelations.
Context, Participants and Data Collection
In western New York,  is a school with
95% of Spanish speaking children of Latino eth-
nicity, mainly transnationals between Puerto Rico
and The United States of America. That is, stu-
dents are mainly from Puerto Rico; however, their
lives happen fluidly between these two countries
which have close political ties. The students have
different levels of proficiency in both English and
Spanish and come from diverse socioeconomic
backgrounds.
This institution is of particular value for under-
standing the role that L1 plays in communication
and learning, as this is a bilingual program whose

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curriculum is taught in both English and Spanish
(a dual language immersion program) and whose
students, holistically speaking, need to have a
functional command of the two languages in
order to fully participate in the contexts between
which they regularly move.
In , the second-grade group resem-
bles the characteristics of the broader institutional
context as shown in Table 1. The teacher was a
Caucasian woman formed as a bilingual educa-
tor with vast experience in the United States as
well as abroad (Spain). For the literacy-circles, the
students were divided into three groups based on
the student’s assumed reading level. The students’
reading level andplacement in groups was largely
influenced by factors like the length of time that
the student had lived inthe United States, profi-
ciency in the English language, interrupted school
time and so forth. For this study, it was impor-
tant that the students participating had a fairly
good command of English and reading so that the
explanation for phenomena like the use of addi-
tional modes of communication or the use of
their L1 in their interactions would not merely be
about their lack of proficiency in English.
Additionally, in trying to understand collectively
constructed norms and patterns of interaction,
it was also essential to examine students who had
attended the school for a significant period of time
where the classroom culture and their collectively
constructed communal conventions could be con-
sidered within the analysis of such interactions. As
such, the green group, the focus of the communica-
tive episodes under discussion here, was composed
of six students. These students had attended -
 for at least an entire school year, and the
school had placed them at their grade level in terms
of proficiency in English and reading.
Recordings were collected twice a week for two
class periods of 50 minutes each during an entire
semester. The focal data for this article, however,
Table 1 Demographics and Linguistic Characteristics
N Percent Mean SD Min Max
Gender
Girls 10 50%
Boys 10 50%
Birth Place
Puerto Rico 14 70%
US 6 30%
Free/reduced lunch 20 100%
Special education
Yes 4 21%
No 16 79%
ESL Status (School
Record)
ESL 18 90%
Non- ESL 2 10 %
Age (months) 20 93.95 9.31 84 112
Time in the US (months) 20 48.21 34.86 1 112
Time in school (months) 20 23.89 14.95 1 45
Time in ESL program (years) 20 3.37 1.16 1 5

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is composed of the audio recordings from the lit-
eracy events that took place in Lesson 21, which
were transcribed following the Jefferson tran-
scription system (Jefferson, 2004). Lesson 21’s
structure closely resembled the general structure
for all the lessons for the literacy circles. Its main
theme was Animal Development. This lesson was
captured in four audio recordings of four literacy
circle reading activities during a four-day period.
The length of these literacy circles ranged from 41
to 53 minutes. Lesson 21, the focal data, became
of interest for this particular inquiry because of
the quality of multimodal interaction that it gen-
erated among the students of the green group in
the second-grade classroom.
Data Analysis
This is an  which examined the forms and func-
tions that students’ communicative action took in
communicative episodes as they grappled with text
related questions in literacy circles (Aukerman et
al., 2017; Norris, 2004). An initial level of analy-
sis identified episodes in which the students’ L1
assisted student communication as they read and
dealt with concepts. To this end, we employed the
following five-item criterion to guide the selection
of the focal episodes (see Table 2).
In a subsequent stage, we coded the way the
participants used resources and modes in com-
municative action. Table 3 shows the codes that
emerged in this stage, and Table 4 shows a code
example.
Finally, we drew connections across codes and epi-
sodes to identify patterns and brought them into
categorical themes to gain a broader understand-
ing of the way resources and modes interacted
and what this could unveil about communicative
action and learning. Table 5 shows the categorical
themes and Table 6 presents an example.
Findings
The following three episodes were illustrative of the
concept of mode complexity discussed by Norris
(2004). Each episode exhibited a multiplicity of
Table 2 Five-Item Criterion
Item Criterion
1In the episode, a question about a word or a concept related to the text was asked.
2 Students’ L1 assisted communication in the process of answering the question.
3 Additional semiotic resources and/or modes were integrated for meaning making in the episode
4The answering process exhibited collective effort (two or more students grappled with the question or concept at hand)
5 The use of students’ L1 was validated and conducive to a resolution in the meaning making process.
Table 3 Mode-Related Codes and Explanation
Code Explanation Analysis
Gestures Body movements that convey meaning Type of action, semiotic resources, semiotic
representations, intended meaning, and communicative
outcome
Speech Talk Talk, semiotic resources like paralinguistic prosody i.e.,
tone of voice, silence, semiotic representations…, and
communicative outcome
Performance The integration of many body movements,
gestures and other modes to represent a
meaningful scene or situation.
Type of action, semiotic resources, semiotic
representations, intended meaning, and communicative
outcome

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semiotic resources and communicative modes
intricately integrated in communicative action. In
each episode, meaning was distinctly distributed
across different modes (density), and each epi-
sode had a different mode taking on prevalence in
meaning-making (intensity).
Modal Complexity: Intensity in Performance
The first episode, The Brood Patch!, shows the way
in which the group deployed collective action inte-
grating a vast array of semiotic resources and modes
and the multimodal way in which students took part
in interaction in the literacy circles (see Table 7).
Contrary to the common assumption that speech
is the communicative mode at the core of meaning-
making, in this particular instance, performance,
took greater importancein communication.
In the quest to teach brood patch, the book drew
a connection to something that was assumed to
be culturally-shared knowledge among children
of the second group age—a sleeping bag. The
teacher, checked to make sure that the association
that the book made was understood in Turn 25.
Even though Andrea demonstrated that she knew
the meaning of the word sleeping by gesturing and
making a sound that resembled snoring in Turn26,
the teacher realized that the students did not fully
know the concept of this compound word.
Table 4 Mode-Related Code and Example
Data Code Analysis
EPS.1.26. Andrea: ((Andrea took her right hand up and
slightly twisted it palm-up to the right, then her left hand
followed her right which she, then, rested palm-down on top
of her right hand putting her two palms together. Then, she
leaned her head softly onto the right resting her right chick
on the back of her left hand (the dorsal side of her left hand).
Simultaneously, Andrea mimicked the sound of snoring.))
Performance Higher-level action.
Andrea uses culturally constructed elements
like the gesture with the hands on her chick to
represent the action of going to sleep.
Table 5 Categorical emes and Explanation
Code Explanation
• Communicative actions that served to draw
semiotic associations across languages for
meaning negotiation
• Examined the ways actions were configured
and what they indicated about semiotic
associations across languages for meaning
negotiation.
• Communicative actions that validated and
supported the students’ use of their L1
• Discussed the possibilities that were offered
to students to resort to all their semiotic
resources in interaction.
• Communicative actions that formed and
transformed their social environment
• Addressed and described the type and
properties of the social environments that was
being created by the sort of communication
being promoted in the classroom.
Table 6 Categorical emes Example
Data Code
EPS.2.
Mrs. Clair: Ok, so ↓their webbed ↑fee:::t…= what, ↑what are the ↓toes ↑joined
by ↓there? (4.0)
Diego: >The... the… the:::…< la chancl↑eta ↓thing! (.)
Communicative actions that served to draw
semiotic associations across languages for
meaning negotiation

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Episode transcription English translation of L1 instances
1. Mrs. Clair: ↑In↓to (.)
2. SS[chorus]: ↑In↓to (.)
3. Mrs. Clair: ↓A >spec↑ial ↓place< (.)
4. SS[chorus]: ↓A spec↑ial ↓place (.)
5. Mrs. Clair: ↑Ca:::ll↓ed (.)
6. SS[chorus]: ↑Ca:::ll↓ed (.)
7. Mrs. Clair: ↓A ↑brood ↓patch (.)
8. SS [chorus]: ↓A ↑brood ↓patch (.)
9. Mrs. Clair: ↓The ↑e:::gg (.)
10. SS[chorus]: ↓The ↑e:::gg (.)
11. Mrs. Clair: ↑Will ↓be::: (.)
12. SS[chorus]: ↑Will ↓be::: (.)
13. Mrs. Clair: ↓As ↑snug (.)
14. SS[chorus]: ↓As ↑snug (.)
15. Mrs. Clair: ↓And ↑wa:::r↓m (.)
16. SS[chorus]: ↓And ↑wa:::r↓m (.)
17. Mrs. Clair: ↑The:::↓re::: (.)
18. SS[chorus]: ↑The:::↓re::: (.)
19. Mrs. Clair: ↑As ↓if (.)
20. SS[chorus]: ↑As ↓if (.)
21. Mrs. Clair: ↑It ↓were::: (.)
22. SS[chorus]: ↑It ↓were::: (.)
23. Mrs. Clair: ↑In ↓a >↑sleeping ↓bag< (.)
24. SS[chorus]: ↑In ↓a >↑sleeping ↓bag< (.)
25. Mrs. Clair: ↑Who ↓knows what a ↑sleeping ↓bag is? (.)
26. Andrea: ↓Like ↑THIS gaaugggzzzZZZ ((Andrea took her
right hand up and slightly twisted it palm-up to the right,
then her left hand followed her right which she, then, rested
palm-down on top of her right hand putting her two palms
together. Then, she leaned her head softly onto the right
resting her right chick on the back of her left hand (the dorsal
side of her left hand). Simultaneously, Andrea mimicked the
sound of snoring.)) (.)
27. Mrs. Clair: Camila Karla, ↑what is ↓a ↑sleeping ↓bag? (.)
28. Camila Karla: ¿En la ↑cam↓a, durm↑iendo? (.)
29. Mrs. Clair: ↓Ángel do ↑you ↓know? (.)
30. Ángel: Es algo muy ↑sua:::↓ve que es como un ↑círcu↓lo
que ↑tú ↓te ↑sien↓tas enc↑i↓ma (.)
31. Andrea: ¡NO:::! [es un …] (.)
32. Mrs. Clair: [Ok], (.) if ↑you ↓go camp↑ing, you might need
a sleeping bag. <↓If you ↓go to your ↑friend’s house ↓for a
sleepo↓ver> you might need a ↑sleeping ↓bag (.)
33. (SS: penguins … unintelligible background talk) (.)
28. Camila: In bed, sleeping?
30. Ángel: Something very soft which is round and you sit on it.
31. Andrea: Nooo! It’s a …
Table 7 Episode 1: e Brood Patch!

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Episode transcription English translation of L1 instances
34. Ángel: ¡↑Miss, ↓es as↑í! ((he stood up from his chair. Once he
had Ms. Clair’s attention, he lowered his body to the grown and sat
on the floor. Then, he lifted his two legs up into the air. He closed his
wrists as if was holding something in them and stretched his two
arms out in front of him reaching for the tip of his feet. Then, he
slowly pulled his arms toward his body tracing back the side of his
legs with his hands on each side, passing by his waist and continuing
up towards his upper body as if he was covering himself.)) (.)
35. Mrs. Clair: YE:::S! Look what… Ángel, ↑show ↓them what you
↑do! (2.0)
36. Ángel: ↑I ↓got on the ↑floor ↓and it ↑keeps ↓ you ↑warm (.)
37. Mrs. Clair: ↑ye:::s, and it keeps you ↑warm (.)↓it’s ↑like
(.)↓un ↑sac↓o =like a sa:::c ↑right? (1.0)
38. Ángel: on ↑T↓V ↑they ↓show different ↑animals that… (.)
39. Mrs. Clair: ↑Yeah, ↓so, that’s ↑sleeping ↓bag!
34. Ángel: Miss, is like this!
37. Mrs. Clair: yes, and it keeps you warm… it’s like… a
sac … like a sac, right?
Table 7 Episode 1: e Brood Patch! (Cont.)
As sleeping bag was a more commonly used expres-
sion than brood patch, the teacher’s efforts shifted
directions to give priority to the teaching of sleep-
ing bag. This higher-level action is bracketed by an
opening (Mrs. Clair’s question “Who knows what
a sleeping bag is?” in Turn 25) and a closing (Mrs.
Clair’s validation and ratification of the question’s
resolution “↑Yeah, ↓so, that’s ↑sleeping ↓bag!” in
Turn 39). It is also made up of a chain of lower-
level actions. In Turn 30, for instance, Ángel used
the description of a cushion to define sleeping bag
and Andrea immediately refuted Ángel’s defini-
tion. Subsequently, Mrs. Clair provided examples
of where a sleeping bag maybe used to lead the stu-
dents to a resolution of the question (Turn 32).
In addition to being composed of a sequence of
lower-level actions, this higher-level action (the con-
versation about the meaning of sleeping bag) also
contained other higher-level actions embedded
within. For instance, in Turn26, Andrea provided an
explanation which did not only contain a sequence
of lower-level actions, but that it also integrated
a multiplicity of modes. As a response to Mrs.
Clair’s question, Andrea opened her higher-level
action (her grappling with Mrs. Clair’s question)
with the announcement that her answer was going
to be demonstrated by saying “Like this” in Turn
26. Then, she gestured and performed going to
sleep and made a sound that resembled snoring as
a part of her performance.
In a similar way, when Angel’s understanding was
enhanced by Mrs. Clair’s examples, he gestured as
if he were getting into a sleeping bag on the floor.
This higher-level action combined multiple modes
in its development. Initially, Angel opened the
higher-level action with the request for the teach-
er’s attention which he accomplished combining
Spanish and English in the expression “¡Miss, es
así!” (Miss, it’s like this!). Simultaneously, this
expression also signaled that Angel’s contribution
was not going to be in the spoken mode, rather
there was going to be a demonstration. His dem-
onstration of getting into a sleeping bag was both
gestured and performed. Mrs. Clair acknowl-
edged the value of Angel’s act with a prolonged
and accentuated “Yeees!,” and then she drew the
rest of the students’ attention to Ángel’s perfor-
mance. Subsequently, Mrs. Clair used Spanish to
relate the concept of sleeping bag with the word
sac reinforcing Ángel’s performed explanation
and providing the closing bracket for the previous

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Íkala MultiModal coMMunication in an early childhood bilingual education setting: a social seMiotic interactional analysis
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two higher-level actions. Collectively, they con-
structed the concept of sleeping bag. Figures 1 and
2 illustrate the complex configuration of semiotic
resources and modes in the communicative action
described above.
Looking at this episode from a social semiotic per-
spective highlights the intricate interplay in the
interaction. Performance, gestures, speech, and
tone of voice in Andrea and Angel’s responses
unveiled ways in which meaning was negotiated
and achieved through cultural referents illustrating
the high mode-complexity therein. Figure 2 below
illustrates the mode complexity in the episode.
Figure 1 Illustration of Mode Density
Figure 2 Mode Complexity of Episode 1

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Modal Complexity: Intensity in Speech
The following episode (Table 8), The Flip-Flops
Thing!, instantiates intensity in speech and exem-
plifies the way in which this group integrated
their L1 with other semiotic resources in commu-
nication and in pursuit of their learning.
On the topic of penguins, Mrs. Clair introduced
the expression webbed feet with questions about
what joined the toes together. In Turn 2, Diego
signaled that he had an answer by saying “the” mul-
tiple times in an attempt to hold the floor while
the right word was retrieved. Unable to come up
with an appropriate term, Diego appealed to the
resemblance that flip-flops shared with the con-
cept being presented and replied by saying “la
chancleta thing” (the flip-flops thing), evenly
combing Spanish and English.
Similar to the way in which Diego was drawing
associations and moving fluidly across languages,
Andrea also found a common feature shared by
the penguins in the text and the mermaids in clas-
sic children’s literature tales which allowed her to
reveal her understanding of the concept at hand.
From Turn 3, Andrea showed eagerness to tell the
teacher her discovery: that mermaids had some-
thing similar joining their legs! Her contribution
is entirely in Spanish, but it perfectly fits the topic
and directionality of the conversation being held.
Mrs. Clair, in turn, made use of this opportunity
to reinforce the expression thin skin, particularly
teaching Andrea the word skin in turn four pro-
viding the equivalent versions of the expression in
Spanish and, subsequently, in English to draw a
clear connection between the two.
Deviating from the first episode, this new act did
not exhibit high-mode complexity ; however, many
resources were combined for communication. For
starters, Mrs. Clair opened the higher-level action,
the episode, with a question. Then, in Diego’s
intervention in the second turn of talk, there was a
sequence of lower-level actions. He first announced
that he had an answer and used English (semiotic
system of resources) to hold the floor. He then pro-
vided an answer in both English and Spanish. There
was also a higher-level action embedded within the
episode. Andrea opened this higher-level action
requesting attention in Turn 4; then, it was inter-
rupted in Turn 5, and in Turn 6, Andrea resumed
her higher-level action which then came to a reso-
lution in Turn 7. For such a resolution, Mrs. Clair
combined English and Spanish to acknowledge
and validate Andrea’s contribution. This suggests
that not only were many resources used but that
Episode transcription English translation of L1 instances
3. Mrs. Clair: Ok, so ↓their webbed ↑fee:::t…= what, ↑what are
the ↓toes ↑joined by ↓there? (4.0)
4. Diego: >The... the… the:::…< la chancl↑eta ↓thing! (.)
5. Mrs. Clair: <↑Thin::: ↓skin!> ↑Every ↓one say <↑thin:::
↓skin> […] (21:6)
6. Andrea: Missy, missy… (.)
7. Mrs. Clair:↑ven ↓conmigo (5.0) este es tu ↑grup↓o o leer con
miss Crist↑in↓a, (.) leer con miss Crist↑in↓a. (4.0) ¿No ↑quier↓es
↑aprend↓er cómo ↑le↓er? ((talking to a boy in the background)) (1.0)
8. Andrea: ¡Missy y también (3.0) missy missy, missy missy también
la sirena tiene cosa por a↑quí pagada ↓así, la sirena! (.)
9. Mrs. Clair:↑Sí, ¡eso es el ↑piel… ↓Fin↑it↓o! It’s ↑thin ↓skin,
yeah, it’s ↑skin. Piel ↓is ↑skin.
2. Diego: The... the… the… the Flip-flops thing!
5. Mrs. Clair: come with me, this is your book or read
with miss Cristina. Don’t you want to learn how to read?
[talking to a boy in the background]
6. Andrea: Miss and also… miss, miss, miss, miss the
mermaid also has the thing joining [their feet] together
like this, the mermaid!
7. Mrs. Clair: That’s thin skin! It’s thin skin, yeah, it’s
skin. Skin, is skin.
Table 8 Episode 2: e Flip-Flops ing!

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they also did not always have clear cut beginnings
and endings. Often, they surfaced back up in later
turns of talk in conversation. Figure 3 illustrates
the episode’s mode complexity.
The spoken mode exhibited the highest level of
intensity with no other modes being saliently
evidenced in the conversation. Within the spo-
ken mode, however, the two linguistic codes
were strategically and creatively combined by
both the teacher and the students to accom-
plish a number of functions (e.g., hold the floor,
get others’ attention, express knowledge, validate,
and so on). However spontaneously, this practice
closely resembles translanguaging in that it makes
room for the students’ L1 to surface in inter-
action and in the interest of learning valuing
their pre-exiting knowledge that students have
(Ascenzi-Moreno,2018; Cenoz & Gorter, 2017;
García-Mateus & Palmer, 2017; Hamman, 2018;
MacSwan, 2017, 2020).
Modal Complexity: Combined Intensity
in Speech and Performance
Social semiotics argues that learning is an effect
of communication, which is, in turn, populated
with the social, cultural, and historical resources
thatthe students are encouraged to draw on. The
following episode, The Wolves Howl, illustrates
such an argument (Table 9).
In Turn 11, Mrs. Clair checked for understanding
of the word howl. Mia confirmed that the concept
was not altogether clear when she asked for clar-
ification in Turns 14 and 17. Then, the teacher
gave examples of animals that howled, and Angel
complemented the teacher’s list of examples add-
ing the wolf into it. The teacher validated Angel’s
contribution, but Mia was unable to draw the
connection straightaway. The teacher then per-
formed the sound wolves make (onomatopoeic
sound), and Diego immediately associated it with
the word lobo in Spanish for wolf in Turn 19. The
teacher energetically ratified that that was what
howl meant. As a product of the combination of
Angel bringing in additional examples, Mrs. Clair
making the sound, and her peers saying the world
wolf in Spanish, Mia came to understand what
howl meant and compared it to the hoot of an owl.
Mia displayed her knowledge of the word owl in
both languages. Even though two distinct animals
were used to draw associations to the concept at
Figure 3 Mode Complexity of Episode 2

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hand, they also shared similarities that suggested
that Mia understood the concept (the sign). The
students learned the word howl while simultane-
ously being exposed to the word wolf in English
through direct association to the Spanish word
lobo accompanied by the howling sounds that the
teacher made. Figure 4 below illustrates the mode
complexity of the episode.
Discussion and Conclusions
Spanish and English were not used in isolation
from one another. On the contrary, they were
integrated in broader systems of semiotic repre-
sentations (resources and modes) to collectively
make meaning. Such resources and modes had
different levels of complexity, density, and inten-
sity in communication. That is, they exhibited
different degrees of importance in meaning-mak-
ing according to the situation. Such complex and
dense configuration of modes mediating these
young learners’ actions in communication in the
episodes above had implications in three signif-
icant ways: (1) they helped establish semiotic
associations across languages; (2) they validated
Table 9 Episode 3: e Wolves Howl!
Episode transcription English translation of L1 instances
1. Mrs. Clair: I L:::ove that you want to ↑read! (.) ↓Ok, rea↑dy? (.)
2. Mrs. Clair: ↓A ↑fierce (.)
3. Students: ↓A ↑fierce [chorus] (.)
4. Mrs. Clair: ↑wind ↓howls (.)
5. Students: ↑wind ↓howls [chorus] (.)
6. Mrs. Clair:>Do you ↑know< what <↓howl ↑means?> (.)
7. Students: No [chorus] (.)
8. Diego: Like, ↑snow:::? (.)
9. Mrs. Clair:Alondra (.)
10. Alondra: like, like, like this ↑miss? (.)
11. Mrs. Clair:Do you ↑know what <↓howl ↑means?> (.)
12. Diego: ↓the ↑snow ↓ahh (1.0) blows a↑way? ahh… (.)
13. Mrs. Clair: ↓it’s blowing ar↑ound a ↓lot … (.)
14. Mrs. Clair: you know ↑who ↓howls? <Coy↑ot↓es howl, ↑dogs
[↓howl]. [Mia: ¿Qué eso? overlap]. ↑Some ↓dogs howl at the
↑moo:::n::: ↓or when (.) they ↑howl like when ↓the (.) ↑sir↓ens
go by and the police car (.) sometimes... (.)
15. Angel: the ↑wolves? (.)
16. Mrs. Clair: the wolf, <↑wolves how↓l> (.)
17. Mia: ¿Qué es ↑es↓o? (.)
18. Mrs. Clair:they go ↑like ↓this Howllei::: ((actually howling)) (.)
19. Diego: AH el ↑lobo, el ↓lobo … howl (.)
20. Mrs. Clair: ↑that’s how ↓the (.)↑dogs (.)↓or the ↑Lo↓bo (.)
21. Diego: ¡lobo! (.)
22. Mrs. Clair: or the <↓coy↑ot↓e> (.)
23. Mia: ¡ah como los ↑owl↓s! (.)
24. Mrs. Clair: the ↑wolf ↓howls auuu ↑right? (.)
25. Mia: ¡Igual que ↑los (.) búh↓os! (.)
26. Mrs. Clair: this ↑here talks ↓about the fierce wind, the
<↑stro:::ng ↓wind> when the wind is whipping ↓ar↑ound ↓it
makes ↑noi↓ce (.)
Mrs. Clair: you know who howls? Coyotes howl,
dogs howl. Some dogs howl [Mia: What’s that?
overlap] some dogs howl at the moon or when they
howl like when the ... when the sirens go by and the
police car sometimes...
Mia: What´s that?
Diego: ah the wolf, the wolf … howl
Miss Ms. Clair: That’s howl! The dogs or the wolf.
Mia: ah like the owls!
Mia: Exactly like the owls!

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directly drawing a connection between the semi-
otic representation that Angel and his peers may
have of un saco in Spanish with a new representa-
tion (the word sleeping bag in English).
Similarly, in Episode 2, while “the Flip-flops
thing” in line two is not exactly the answer Mrs.
Clair was looking for, it certainly does reveal a
semiotic association that Diego made between
the concept of webbed feet and flip-flops, expos-
ing some sort of understanding that the learner
possessed about the concept. This semiotic asso-
ciation is charged with Diego’s sociocultural
identity (García-Mateus & Palmer, 2017) and
was articulated in a phrase that evenly distributed
Spanish and English—la chancleta thing.
Moreover, in Lines 6-7 in Episode 2, Andrea also
found a connection between the concept introduced
and her life experiences. Influenced by literature, fic-
tion, and fantasy, Andrea made sense of the webbed
feet expression by accurately associating what holds
the toes in webbed feet together with what holds the
mermaid’s tail together.
Similarly, in Episode 3, Angel and Diego bridged
their associations across languages by using
Spanish and English to talk about the same ani-
mal. In Line 15 of Episode 3, Angel introduced
the example of the wolves in English, and Mrs.
Clair validated his intervention. A couple of turns
later, this information was taken up by Diego
who re-established the connection between el
lobo (Spanish for wolf ) and howling using the
two languages and the information that his peer
had previously offered (the semiotic work of the
group). This served a twofold purpose: first, it
allowed Diego and Mrs. Clair to confirm Diego’s
level of understanding of the word howl; and
second, it provided Mrs. Clair with the opportu-
nity to reinforce the equivalent word for lobo in
English—wolf.
Not surprisingly, the types of associations that
the students made were significantly different one
from the other revealing different life experiences
Figure 4 Mode Complexity of Episode 3.
and supported the students’ use of their L1 in pur-
suit of their learning; and (3) they established the
norms of interaction that collectively constructed
a safe social environment for learning.
Drawing Semiotic Associations
Across Languages for Meaning Negotiation
In Episode 1, both Andrea and Angel’s responses
used metaphoric gestures which conveyed
abstract concepts (Norris, 2004). These meta-
phoric gestures can be thought of as signs (Kress,
2010, 2011) which were charged with the maker’s
cultural knowledge (e.g., their language, experi-
ence, and so forth) and which were evidence of
knowing. That is, they unveiled some sort of com-
prehension that the sign makers had about the
topic and were created by the makers, Andrea
and Angel, with the express purpose of relating to
the social situation at hand (e.g., getting people’s
attention), signaling that they had knowledge
about the topic (Kress, 2010, 2011).
Initially, Angel’s use of Spanish in the expression
Miss, es así! in Turn 34 served to bridge the gap
between Angel’s knowledge and the way he chose
to represent it and make it known to others. It
served to announce his response and initiated a
series of performed actions that were to be taken
as a part of Angel’s semiotic representation of the
word sleeping bag (semiotic work). Similarly, in
Turn 37, Mrs. Clair says “Yes, and it keeps you
warm… it’s like… un saco … like a sac, right?”

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and epistemic commitments (Kress, 2010, 2011).
Whereas for Angel and Diego, the howling of
the wind was more closely related to the sound
that wolves made, for Mia the sound of the wind
resembled more closely the hoot of an owl. Mia
used both Spanish and English to talk about the
animal she was associating the sound to—owl in
English and búho in Spanish.
In short, the students drew associations across
their two languages and made use of their lived
experiences to grapple with unfamiliar concepts.
The possibility afforded to them of integrat-
ing the languages they spoke and the semiotic
resources they had access to in communication
created a positive social and emotional climate for
learning. Such a climate provided the conditions
for students to draw associations with previ-
ously acquired cultural and linguistic knowledge
to mediate their immediate learning needs while
reaffirming their sociocultural identity as emer-
gent bilinguals (Ascenzi-Moreno, 2018; Cenoz
& Gorter, 2017; García-Mateus & Palmer, 2017;
Hamman, 2018; MacSwan, 2017, 2020).
Validating the Students’ Use of their L1
to Support their Learning
A first step in creating a safe environment includes
permitting students to act and interact in their
own unique ways without sanctions of any shape
or form (Aukerman et al., 2017; Boyd et al., 2018).
Even though Mrs. Clair’s intervention in Turn 30
ofEpisode 1 did not clearly suggest a full valida-
tionof Camila’s response, it did unveil Mrs.
Clair’s acceptance of the forms and patterns of
Camila’stalk. That is, rather than demanding stu-
dents to speak in English, for instance, she allowed
the integration of L1 into the communication
practice to occur; and in doing so, the students’
identities, experiences, and knowledge were allowed
to surface in interaction (Ascenzi-Moreno, 2018;
Cenoz & Gorter, 2017; García-Mateus & Palmer,
2017; Hamman, 2018; MacSwan, 2017, 2020).
A more explicit instance of validation in Episode1
is evidenced when Angel used Spanish to bring
the teacher’s attention to his response. Then,
on the floor, Angel performed the act of get-
ting inside a sleeping bag. Mrs. Claire validated
his response with a prolonged and accentuated
“Yeees” in Turn13 (tone of voice). Subsequently,
Mrs. Clair also validated Angel’s contribution
by bringing everybody’s attention to what Angel
was doing. Because Angel was able to create signs
that unveiled his knowledge about the topic being
addressed, Mrs. Clair was also able to welcome,
value, and use Angel’s contribution in the collec-
tive negotiation of meaning at hand and in the
interest of learning (Kress, 2010, 2011).
In Episode 2, validation was evidenced when, in
Turn 6, Andrea used Spanish to contribute to the
co-construction of the understanding of webbed
feet. In this particular instance, Mrs. Clair’s
intervention fulfilled a number of functions in a
multiplicity of ways. First, it acknowledged that
the student’s response was listened to, under-
stood, and taken up when she said “That’s thin
skin!” Second, Mrs. Clair’s statement “That’s
thin skin!” also validated Andrea’s knowledge
about the topic under discussion as it acknowl-
edged its accuracy. Third, by integrating Spanish
in this utterance, Mrs. Clair was also validating
the use of Spanish in the classroom. Finally, by
stating “That’s thin skin!” repetitively in the two
languages, Mrs. Clair conveyed a sense of accom-
plishment and excitement.
Validation is also instantiated in Episode 3.
Initially, Angel offered an example of an animal
that howls, and Mrs. Clair validated his contri-
bution in Turn 16 by reiterating that “the wolves
howl” and later in Turn 18 by performing the
onomatopoeic sound that wolves make. A second
instance in which validation took place occurs
when Diego, connecting the dots between what
his classmate Angel and his teacher, Mrs. Clair,
collectively offered on the topic, concluded that
they were talking about lobos (wolves). Mrs. Clair

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validated his conclusion by saying “That’s howl!
The dogs or the lobo.” Mrs. Clair used Spanish in
this instance of validation to draw a direct and
strong connection between her reiteration of
what howling meant and Diego’s semiotic repre-
sentation (el lobo).
Defining the Norms of Interaction
and Constructing a Safe Social
Environment for Learning
In the episodes, Mrs. Clair’s use of the students’
L1 did not only fulfil the function of drawing
semiotic connections across languages to enhance
her students’ understanding, but, as the classroom
teacher, she was also establishing norms of inter-
action (Hymes, 1994). When Mrs. Clair did not
use Spanish, she still responded coherently and
consistently in English to the contributions that
her students made in Spanish, validating the stu-
dents’ discursive practices. When Mrs. Clair did
use Spanish, she often drew semiotic associations
across languages to enhance her students’ compre-
hension. Similar to the effects discussed in Leung
and Uchikoshi (2012), the fact that the teacher
exhibited a positive attitude toward the use of
both Spanish and English and moved fluidly across
the two languages sent the message that speaking
Spanish was not only valued but often appropri-
ated to enhance meaning-making in the learning
process promoting such communicative practices
in the classroom.
Moreover, in Episode 1, for instance, Andrea’s per-
formance of someone sleeping and snoring heavily
influenced the interventions that followed. This
suggests that an environment was created where,
first, the expression of students’ ideas was not
strictly limited to the use of the spoken mode
of communication in English or Spanish, but
rather communication was encouraged to take on
a multiplicity of modes. Second, the students and
the teacher were encouraged to grapple with each
other’s ideas to collectively construct knowledge
with the bits and pieces from everybody’s multi-
modal participation.
Similarly, in Episode 2, la chancleta and la sirena
represented building blocks that the students col-
lectively wrestled with in the construction of the
concept of webbed feet. The use of Spanish and
English in these interventions also suggests that
the communication of students’ ideas was not lim-
ited to English but that the two languages were
welcomed and that they worked together in the
negotiation of meaning.
An even more explicit example of the type of social
environment being created in the literacy circles of
the second-grade classroom is evidenced in episode
three when Angel offered an example (wolves)
which initially received a simple confirmation and
acknowledgement from the teacher in Turn 16
(the wolves howl). Later, however (Turn18), the
teacher took the student’s example a little further
and used it as the foundation to enact her perfor-
mance of a wolf howling. The teacher’s actions of
using two languages and multiple modes of com-
munication set the tone for a multimodal and
inclusive classroom environment essential for the
learning process of minoritized bilingual students
(Ascenzi-Moreno, 2018; García-Mateus & Palmer,
2017; MacSwan, 2017, 2020).
In essence, the teacher displayed remarkable abil-
ity in identifying and seizing the opportunities
afforded to teaching and learning when the stu-
dents’ L1 was integrated in communication. Such
ability benefited the students’ processes provid-
ing additional semiotic resources for them to
make sense of their literacy practices. Rather than
being fragmented, the students’ flow of commu-
nication was fueled by the use of their L1 as, to
different degrees, the members of this speech
community shared the two languages being spo-
ken. Additionally, students integrated the use of
Spanish and English to wrestle with each oth-
er’s ideas, perspectives, and identities in the
conversations about the literacy pieces they read
configuring a safe social environment and creat-
ing a dialogic classroom climate (Aukerman et
al., 2017; Hamman, 2018; Norris, 2004). Should

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the norms of interaction and interpretation have
precluded the second graders from making the inte-
grated use of Spanish, English, and other resources
and modes discussed above, the communication
would have also been truncated and learning out-
comes would have been limited to the extent to
which participation in communication was made
available to them through the use of only a small
portion of their semiotic repertoire.
The lack of understanding about the role that
the students’ L1 plays in enjoying (full) partici-
pation in the classroom may lead to processes of
inequality, marginalization, and social injustice
(Ascenzi-Moreno, 2018; Cenoz & Gorter, 2017;
García-Mateus & Palmer, 2017; Hamman, 2018;
MacSwan, 2017, 2020).
In short, understanding that learning is an effect
of multimodal communication brings new con-
siderations when striving for instructional
designs that seek to create communicative envi-
ronmentsthat do not only cater to middle-class
children (Flores & García, 2017) but that also
empower minoritized students to act on their own
behalf and in pursuit of their learning through
the use of all their semiotic resources and modes.
Mrs. Clair created a social environment where
Spanish and English were not treated in isolation
one from the other, but rather, where they coex-
isted in harmony with each other and with other
socio-cultural capital that the students had sup-
porting the teaching and learning processes therein.
As such, this poses pedagogical implications for
the creation of social climates for learning that do
not only respect the students’ sociocultural back-
ground but also value it and take advantage of it to
foster their intellectual development, cognitive flex-
ibility, and bilingual identities (Ascenzi-Moreno,
2018; Cenoz & Gorter, 2017; García-Mateus &
Palmer, 2017; Graf Estes & Hay, 2015; Hamman,
2018; MacSwan, 2017, 2020; Poepsel & Weiss,
2016). Finally, it also poses research implications
for bilingual communication and learning present-
ing a comprehensive approach to researching their
reciprocities in the quest for fair, inclusive, respect-
ful, and empowering bilingual pedagogies.
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How to cite this article: Escobar-Alméciga, W. Y. & Brutt-Griffler, J. (2022). Multimodal communi-
cation in an early childhood bilingual education setting: A social semiotic interactional analysis. Íkala,
Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura, 27(1), 85-106. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.v27n1a05