Multimodal Affordances and Digital Language Practices in the Global South

Dear Colleagues,

Digital platforms have transformed how language is produced, circulated and interpreted by enabling users to combine linguistic resources with images, video, sound, emoji, typography, spatial organisation, and other semiotic modes. Meaning in digital environments increasingly emerges through the interaction of multiple semiotic resources rather than through language alone (Kress, 2010; Jewitt, Bezemer, & O’Halloran, 2016). Multimodal approaches therefore provide important tools for examining how communicative resources are assembled within technologically mediated interaction (Norris, 2004; Bateman, Wildfeuer, & Hiippala, 2017).

This Special Issue focuses on the relationship between digital affordances and situated multimodal language practices in the Global South. Affordances refer to possibilities for action provided by particular environments and technologies and to how these possibilities are perceived and taken up in practice (Osiurak, Rossetti, & Badets, 2017). Digital features such as commenting, reacting, sharing, remixing, hyperlinking, visual editing and multimodal composition shape communicative possibilities, but their meanings emerge through culturally and linguistically situated practices.

Building on computer-mediated discourse and digital sociolinguistics (Herring & Androutsopoulos, 2015; Seargeant & Tagg, 2014), the Special Issue examines how multilingual users appropriate, negotiate and sometimes resist these affordances. Its Global South orientation foregrounds contexts in Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, where digital practices illuminate locally situated multilingualism, translanguaging, identity and multimodal meaning-making (Dryden & Izadi, 2023; Galante et al., 2024).

Generative and multimodal AI are approached as emerging digital affordances rather than as separate fields of inquiry. AI-mediated writing, translation, image generation and conversational interaction introduce new possibilities and tensions concerning authorship, linguistic agency, participation and human–machine meaning-making (Floridi & Chiriatti, 2020; Bender et al., 2021). From this perspective, AI technologies are relevant insofar as their affordances become embedded in situated linguistic and multimodal practices.

Central to the Special Issue is the understanding that affordances are neither universal nor technologically predetermined. Rather, their communicative possibilities emerge through the interaction of platform design with users’ linguistic repertoires, cultural norms, social relations and local technological conditions (Osiurak et al., 2017; Kress, 2010). The Global South is therefore approached not simply as a geographical category, but as a critical site for theorising digital communication. Contributions should demonstrate how locally situated practices in the Global South can refine, challenge or extend existing theories of digital affordances, multimodality, multilingualism and technologically mediated meaning-making.

Topics include, but are not restricted to, the following:

• Digital Affordances and Multimodal Meaning-Making
• Multilingualism, Translanguaging and Digital Interaction
• AI-Mediated Affordances and Language Practices
• Digital Identities, Communities and Cultural Representation
• Digital Inequalities, Linguistic Visibility and Platform Power

Across these areas, submissions should explicitly examine the relationship between digital affordances and situated linguistic and/or multimodal practices, rather than treating digital technologies or platforms as objects of study in isolation.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor (telyas@kau.edu.sa) or to /Languages/ editorial office (languages@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Tentative Completion Schedule
Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 October 2026
Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 15 November 2026
Full Manuscript Deadline: 31 May 2027

References

Bateman, J., Wildfeuer, J., & Hiippala, T. (2017). Multimodality: Foundations, research and analysis–A problem-oriented introduction. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.

Bender, E. M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A., & Shmitchell, S. (2021, March). On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big??. In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency(pp. 610-623).

Dryden, S., & Izadi, D. (2023). The small things of Global South: Exploring the use of social media through translingualism. Discourse, Context & Media, 51, 100668.

Floridi, L., & Chiriatti, M. (2020). GPT-3: Its nature, scope, limits, and consequences. Minds and machines, 30(4), 681-694.

Herring, S. C., & Androutsopoulos, J. (2015). Computer‐mediated discourse 2.0. The handbook of discourse analysis, 127-151.

Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J., & O'Halloran, K. (2016). Introducing multimodality. Routledge.

Kress, G. R. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Taylor & Francis.

Norris, S. (2004). Analyzing multimodal interaction: A methodological framework. Routledge.

Osiurak, F., Rossetti, Y., & Badets, A. (2017). What is an affordance? 40 years later. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 77, 403-417.

Seargeant, P., & Tagg, C. (Eds.). (2014). The language of social media: Identity and community on the internet. Springer.

Galante, A., Piccardo, E., Marcel, F., Zeaiter, L. F., dela Cruz, J. W. N., & Barise, A. (2026). Decolonizing language learning in digital environments through the voices of plurilingual learners in the Global South. Applied linguistics, 47(2), 273-292.

Prof. Dr. Tariq Elyas
Prof. Dr. Rania Fawzy
Prof. Dr. Osman Solmaz
Dr. Anas Alhaisony
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• digital affordances
• multimodality
• digital language practices
• multilingualism
• Global South
• generative AI