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In:Innovative Qualitative Methodologies in Multilingual Literacy Development Research: Amplifying voices from immigrant, transnational, and refugee communities
Edited by Amanda K. Kibler and Fares J. Karam
[Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 11] 2025
► pp. 67–91

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Chapter 4
Communicating selves

Immigrant, emergent multilingual students’ voices and agency through their multimodal artworks

 | Northeastern Illinois University
 | Western Michigan University
Published online: 7 April 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rmal.11.04kuo
Abstract
This chapter features integrating multimodal data sources (e.g., visual-arts and associated conversations) and critical multimodal analysis as an innovative methodological approach. Through multimodal literacies, we investigated how two immigrant, emergent multilingual students communicated their dialogical self with their multimodal artworks. This study is then used as a basis for the methodological discussion about multimodal data sources to give immigrant students agency to articulate their developing identities as a part of their complex, transnational lived experiences, which would have been missed by the researchers if only monomodal, verbal data sources were utilized. Implications are drawn around researchers’ professional learning of multimodal research design and future research directions to create more equitable engagement for emergent multilingual participants.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Overview of the study
    • Theoretical framework
    • Research context and participants
    • Data collection and analysis
    • Artworks and sketches
    • Brief overview of the research findings
  • Methodological discussion
    • Rethinking research data sources: Issues about equity and integrating multimodal data
    • Critical multimodal analysis
    • Ethical considerations: Anonymity and ownership
  • Implications
  • Notes
  • References
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