Introduction

The contributors in this collection question what kinds of relationships hold between narrative studies and the recently established field of multimodality, evaluate how we might develop an analytical vocabulary which recognizes that stories do not consist of words alone, and demonstrate the ways in which multimodality brings into fresh focus the embodied nature of narrative production and processing. Engaging with a spectrum of multimodal storytelling, from ‘low tech’ examples encompassing face-to-face stories, comic books, printed literature, through to opera, film adaptation and television documentary, stretching beyond to narratives that employ new media such as hypertext, performance art, and interactive museum guides, this volume examines the interplay of semiotic codes (visual, oral, aural, haptic, physiological) within each case under scrutiny, thereby exposing both points of commonality and difference in the range of multimodal narrative experiences.