Previous research suggests that the use of metaphors in science education have both possibilities and challenges. In this study, we analyse the role of metaphors in meaning-making in the upper primary science classroom. We investigate the potential of metaphors about nutrient uptake occurring in classrooms in which an animation was used. To…

This paper outlines the general influence of Halliday's (1994, 2014) systemic functional linguistics on TESOL curriculum. Halliday's explanation of language as a social semiotic and language learning as learning to mean has been applied internationally in genre and textbased teaching. The concept of register in systemic functional linguistics…

Television, like other media, can work as a platform for promoting learning. This article illustrates the value of multimodal discourse analysis for evaluating the potential of a children's television show as a vehicle for fostering knowledge and skills in a specific subject area. Drawing on social semiotic principles and systemic functional genre…

The theme of 'embodiment' has become an important approach in current mathematics education research, growing in significance from the mid-1990s onward. However terminology of 'body' and 'embodiment' is used to signal multiple, widely varying meanings in this research. Studies are grounded in a number of radically different theoretical bases, with…

Professional collaboration in schools features prominently in contemporary approaches to educational change. Advocates highlight the importance of situated knowledge to continuous teacher learning, sustained school reform and improved student learning. Critics portray collaboration as an invisible and coercive means of official control. The…

In this chapter, the historical roots of contemporary Practice Theory are unearthed in the work of semioticians, philosophers, and anthropologists. Saussure's semiotic theory is contrasted with that of Peirce, and the importance of Peirce's work for understanding the context of signs is stressed. The philosophy of language in the writings of…

Taking as its exegetic point of departure Peirce's outline of a semiotic theory of cognition from the mid 1890s, this paper explores the relevance of this outline to a theory of learning and also to a broader, normative vision of education. Firstly, besides providing for fallibilism in philosophical inquiry Peirce's outline accords with critical…

Some preliminary observations relating to problems of the semiotic mediation of reality through linguistic tools are presented and discussed in light of the experiences of 12- to 13-year-old Swedish students interpreting a table of postage rates. Learning to use such a tool is a genuinely social phenomenon. (SLD)