This book examines communicative practices in a high-tech firm in California's Silicon Valley, where employees come from diverse ethnolinguistic backgrounds and their practices are shaped by, and sometimes contest, local and global forces. It demonstrates the importance of accounting for multilingual practices in studies of multimodality.

Jo Anne Kleifgen is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA. Her publications include Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners (with Ofelia García; Teachers College Press, 2010) and Languages of Africa and the Diaspora: Educating for Language Awareness (with George C. Bond; Multilingual Matters, 2009).