History

The origins of the Multimodal Analysis Lab in the Interactive Digital Media Institute (IDMI) date back to Kay O’Halloran’s Semiotics Research Group (SRG) (1999-) based in the Laboratory for Research in Semiotics (LRS) in the Department of English Language & Literature, National University of Singapore. After studying systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and multimodal discourse analysis, SRG members completed Honours, MA and PhD research projects in the multimodal analysis of museum exhibitions, web pages, video clips, educational CD ROMs, digital games, biology textbooks, National Day songs, campaigns, branding on the internet, children’s picture books, print and television advertisements, newspapers and Singapore as a city. The constraints of using page-based methodologies and commercial software applications for the research projects became apparent. The Multimodal Analysis Lab research team aims to develop new approaches to multimodal analysis using computer-based techniques of multimedia analysis, social semiotic theory and other interdisciplinary perspectives.