# Glossary

cline – a continuum showing the progression from one extreme to the other, often drawn on the diagonal.

composing – what happens when we produce written, spoken or visual texts. Composing typically involves:

- the shaping and arrangement of textual elements to explore and express ideas, emotions and values

- the processes of imagining, organising, analysing, drafting, appraising, synthesising, reflecting and refining

- knowledge, understanding and use of the language forms, features and structures of texts

- awareness of audience and purpose.

convention - an accepted language practice that is generally used and understood, for example use of punctuation.

digital texts - audio, visual or multimodal texts produced through digital or electronic technology which may be interactive and include animations and/or hyperlinks. Examples of digital texts include DVDs, websites, e-literature (e-books) and app.

genre - the categories texts are grouped into. Genre can be used to distinguish texts on the basis of, for example, their subject matter (detective fiction, romance, science fiction, fantasy fiction) and form and structure (poetry, novels, short stories).

media - means of communication, for example print, digital. Plural of medium.

multimedia - texts that use more than one medium, for example combining visual media, such as words and images, with sound. Multimedia texts now generally feature moving images, sophisticated and complex graphics, and interactivity. Examples of multimedia texts include texts delivered on personal digital devices, music videos, cartoons, video games and internet texts.

multimodal – made up of more than one mode. A multimodal text uses a combination of two or more communication modes, for example, print, image and spoken text as in film or computer presentations.

narrative - a story of events or experiences, real or imagined. Narrative includes the story (what is narrated) and the discourse (how it is narrated).

perspective - a way of regarding situations, facts and texts. It shapes what we see and the way we see it. Perspective includes the values that the responder and composer bring to a text.

point of view - the particular perspective brought by a composer, responder or character within a text to the text or to matters within the text. Narrative point of view refers to the ways a Host may be related to the story. The Host, for example, might take the role of first or third person, omniscient or restricted in knowledge of events, reliable or unreliable in interpretation of what happens.

positioning - the composing technique of causing the responder to adopt a particular point of view and interpret a text in a particular way. Composers position responders to accept particular views by the choices they make in telling their story.

representation - the way ideas are portrayed and represented in texts, using language devices, forms, features and structures of texts to create specific views about characters, events and ideas. Representation applies to all language modes: spoken, written, visual and multimodal.

representing - the language mode that involves composing images in visual or multimodal texts. These images and their meaning are composed using codes and conventions. The term can include such activities as graphically presenting the structure of a novel, making a film, composing a web page or acting out a dramatic text.

responding - the activity that occurs when we read, listen to or view texts, including the personal and intellectual connections we make with texts.

texts - communications of meaning produced in any media that incorporates language, including sound, print, film, electronic and multimedia representations. Texts include written, spoken, non-verbal, visual or multimodal communications of meaning. They may be extended unified works, a series of related pieces or a single, simple piece of communication.