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The notion of Multiliteracies supplements traditional literacy pedagogy by addressing these two related aspects of textual multiplicity. What we might term ‘mere literacy’ remains centred on language only, and usually on a singular national form of language at that, being conceived as a stable system based on rules such as mastering sound-letter correspondence. This is based on the assumption that we can actually discern and describe correct usage. Such a view of language must characteristically translate into a more or less authoritarian kind of pedagogy. A pedagogy of Multi-literacies, by contrast, focuses on modes of representation much broader than language alone. These differ according to culture and context, and have specific cognitive, cultural, and social effects. In some cultural contexts – in an Aboriginal community or in a multimedia environment, for instance – the visual mode of representation may be much more powerful and closely related to language than ‘mere literacy’ would ever be able to allow. Multiliteracies also creates a different kind of pedagogy: one in which language and other modes of meaning are dynamic representational resources, constantly being remade by their users as they work to achieve their various cultural purposes. 

COPE, Bill; KALANTZIS, Mary (org.). Multiliteracies: literacy learning and the design of social futures. Londres: Routledge, 2000.

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I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby’s door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.

I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robin’s-egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer: the honor would be entirely Gatsby’s, it said, if I would attend his “little party” that night. He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it – signed Jay Gatsby, in a majestic hand. 

Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven, and wandered around rather ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn’t know – though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key. 

FITZGERALD, F. S. The Great Gatsby. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925. p. 41-42

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Sometimes when we have talked or written about using ideas from complexity theory, we have been challenged as to whether we are 'just' being metaphorical. There are two ways to answer this question: firstly, to reject the 'just' and to assert the importance of metaphor; and secondly, to discuss what it would mean to say that the comparison between systems in applied linguistics and complex systems is more than metaphor. Our contention, to be supported throughout this book, is that complexity theory off ers applied linguistics at least an important new metaphor that brings with it new ways of thinking about issues in the field, and, maximally, may push the field towards radical theoretical change. (…) Metaphors are not just literary tools for ornamenting language; they are indispensable to the human mind. Whenever we have to contemplate the abstract, voice the difficult, or make sense of the complicated, we turn to metaphor. Metaphor enables us to 'see' or understand one thing in terms of another, through analogies or mappings between two conceptual domains.

(Cameron 1999). LARSEN-FREEMAN, Diane; CAMERON, Lynne. Complex systems and applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. p. 11.

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Language learning, like any other type of learning, is not a linear process and therefore cannot be deemed as predictable as some of these models of acquisition have hypothesized it to be. Minimal differences in initial conditions can cause very different results. Nevertheless, I consider that the previous attempts to explain SLA should not be disregarded because when they are put together they provide a broader view of the phenomenon. In this new perspective, a SLA model should be considered as a set of connections within a dynamic system that moves in the direction of the “edge of chaos” considered as a zone of creativity with the maximum potential for learning. 

PAIVA, V. L. M. O. Second Language Acquisition: Reconciling Theories. Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 2013, 3, 404-412. Disponível em: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ ojapps.2013.37050.