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Professor Kay O’Halloran is Chair Professor, Head of the Department of Communication and Media (2019–present) and Co-Director of the Digital Media & Society Institute (2023—present) at the University of Liverpool.
Her research area is multimodal analysis involving the study of language, images and other resources in texts, interactions and events. She has extensive experience in developing multimodal literacy approaches, with a specific interest in mathematics and scientific discourse. Over the past two decades she has focused on the development and use of digital tools and techniques for multimodal analysis and mixed methods approaches to digital communications.
Her current research involves the use of multimodal AI and context-based information fusion approaches for analysing online and social media at scale.
Selected publications
O’Halloran, K. L., Tan, S. & Smith, B. A. (2026). Multimodal Approaches to English for Academic Purposes. In K. Hyland and P. Thompson (eds), The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes (2nd edition). London & New York: Routledge.
Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J. & O’Halloran, K. L. (2025). Introducing Multimodality (2nd edition). London: Routledge.
O’Halloran, K. L. (2023). Matter, Meaning and Semiotics. Visual Communication, 22(1), 174-201. https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221128881
O’Halloran, K. L. (2023). Developing Competence in Multimodal Discourse. In B. Tomlinson (ed), Developing Materials for Language Teaching (3rd edition). London: Bloomsbury, 472-491.
O’Halloran, K. L. (2023). Semiotics: A Discipline for Understanding the Human Condition. In A. Biglari (ed), Open Semiotics: Volume 1. Paris: L’Harmattan, 115-134.
O’Halloran, K. L., Tan, S., Wignell, P., Lange, R., Chai, K. and Wiebrands, M. (2022). Big Data and Managing Multimodal Complexity. In D. Caldwell, J. Martin, and J. Knox (eds), Appliable Linguistics and Semiotics: Developing Theory from Practice. London: Bloomsbury, 157-179.
O’Halloran, K. L. (2021). Multimodal Discourse Analysis. In K. Hyland, B. Paltridge and L. Wong (eds), Bloomsbury Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd edition). London: Bloomsbury, pp. 249-266.
O’Halloran, K. L., Pal, G. & Jin, M.H. (2021). Multimodal Approach to Analysing Big Social and News Media Data. Discourse, Context and Media (40) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100467
O’Halloran, K. L. (2015). The Language of Learning Mathematics: A Multimodal Perspective. The Journal of Mathematical Behaviour, 40 Part A: 63–74.
O’Halloran, K. L., Tan, S. and E, M. K. L. (2017). Multimodal Analysis for Critical Thinking. Learning, Media and Technology, 42(2): 147-170. DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2016.1101003.