Where is the Time? Temporality in Literacy Assemblages

Abstract

This chapter discusses the concept of literacies as assemblages of diverse elements in dynamic, changeable formations which can manifest as texts, practices, or events. The focus is on the function of time in literacy assemblages and their assembly. Time may be treated as a mode in the same order as other modes such as image, that is, as a semiotic resource that is consciously drawn on and manipulated in the production of a text. The forms that multimodality takes may also be also historically situated. The character of a multimodal text a previous period may be very different from what we are used to considering as multimodal in current times. This chapter also explores ways of understanding the interaction of time and space in assemblages, and allied approaches to analysing temporality and spatiality interactively. Alternative epistemologies of time-space located within Indigenous knowledge systems are also discussed. Finally, these approaches to analysis are applied to the case of an immersive digital game.