New textual terrain in Africa: Constructions of identity through digital texts in South Africa

This chapter is located within an African, and more specifically, a South African context of learning and development. It explores technological challenges unique to the country's developmental context. Then it explores the multimodal engagement of English as an Additional Language students in a university English classroom in Johannesburg. Within a social semiotic framework, and using constructions of design and identity to understand their multimodal engagement, the chapter agrees that multimodal representations offer English as an Additional Language students from under-resourced contexts creativity and agency to re-design meaning.