Multimodality and superdiversity: evidence for a research agenda

In recent years, social science research in superdiversity has questioned notions such as multiculturalism and pluralism, which hinge on and de facto reproduce ideological constructs such as separate and clearly identifiable national cultures and ethnic identities; research in language and superdiversity, in translanguaging, polylanguaging and metrolingualism have analogously questioned concepts such as multi- and bi-lingualism, which hinge on ideological constructs such as national languages, mother tongue and native speaker proficiency. Research in multimodality has questioned the centrality of language in everyday communication as well as its paradigmatic role to the understanding of communicative practices. While the multimodality of communication is generally acknowledged in work on language and superdiversity, the potential of a social semiotic multimodal approach for understanding communication in superdiversity has not been adequately explored and developed yet – and neither has the concept of superdiversity been addressed in multimodal research. The present paper wants to start to fill this gap. By discussing sign-making practices in the superdiverse context of Leeds Kirkgate Market (UK), it maps the potentials of an ethnographic social semiotics for the study of communication in superdiversity and sketches an agenda for research on multimodality and superdiversity, identifying a series of working hypotheses, research questions, areas of investigations and domains and fields of enquiry.