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The term multimodality (see also Multimodality and audiovisual translation 4) came into wider use in interpreting studies only after 2010, though its underlying concept has been significant in various ways ever since the emergence of the interpreting profession in the mid-twentieth century. As the academic discourse that bears on the topic of multimodality evolved in different periods and for different professional practices, a summary presentation and critical review of the current state of knowledge requires separate consideration of major professional domains. Recent scholarship in translation and interpreting studies mostly relies on Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001: 20) to define multimodality as “the use of several semiotic modes in the design of a semiotic product or event”. As pointed out by Kaindl (2020), however, this social semiotic proposal for a theory of communication, with strong roots in systemic functional …