Th is book advances two major dimensions in discourse studies, which is studies of multimodal discourse and multimodal methods of discourse analysis. So, multimodality is regarded as a discourse construal strategy and a research tool. Featuring the studies in Russian, English, and German languages we address spoken and written discourse formats in spoken descriptions of paintings, drama and cinema discourse, novels, and social advertisement posters. We develop a cognitive approach to multimodal research in gestures and language, language and video, text and image specifying the

construal operations of focusing, conceptual integration, resonance, fi ctive communication which underly the mutual adaptation of diff erent semiotic resources in discourse.