‘Trans- perspectives’ in language studies are emerging as scholars begin to destabilize conceptualizations of individual named languages, account for fluid movement among languages and intermeshing with other communicative resources, and recognize the mobility of people and messages in our increasingly globally-connected world. Transmodalities indexes the entanglement of language with other semiotic resources in meaning making, and the importance of understanding how modes mutually inform one another in communicative assemblages, as well as how they carry meanings both in local interactions and across space and time. It also attends to the arc of meaning making, as modes are assembled, shared, received, interpreted and negotiated.
Here I present a detailed conceptualization of transmodalities, then illustrate its import and interpretive power through data drawn from a project, Global StoryBridges, that digitally connects youth across the globe. I demonstrate how affordances of digital and technological engagements shape communication, learning and understandings of global selves and others for (emergent) plurilingual youth in local and transnational contexts.