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Social Semiotics in University Physics Education

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Book cover Multiple Representations in Physics Education

Part of the book series: Models and Modeling in Science Education ((MMSE,volume 10))

Abstract

In this chapter we discuss the application of social semiotics to the teaching and learning of university physics. Social semiotics is a broad construct where all communication in a particular social group is realized through the use of semiotic resources. In the discipline of physics, examples of such semiotic resources are graphs, diagrams, mathematics, spoken and written language, and laboratory apparatus. In physics education research it is usual to refer to most of these semiotic resources as representations. In social semiotics, then, disciplinary learning can be viewed as coming to interpret and use the meaning potential of disciplinary-specific semiotic resources (representations) that has been assigned by the discipline. We use this complementary depiction of representations to build theory with respect to the construction and sharing of disciplinary knowledge in the teaching and learning of university physics. To facilitate both scholarly discussion and future research in the area, a number of theoretical constructs have been developed. These constructs take their point of departure in empirical studies of teaching and learning in undergraduate physics. In the chapter we present each of these constructs in turn and examine their usefulness for problematizing teaching and learning with multiple representations in university physics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the broader contexts of cognitive psychology and science education these semiotic resources are often termed external representations in order to differentiate them from internal representations .

  2. 2.

    See for example Hammer (2000).

  3. 3.

    See for example Ainsworth (2006).

  4. 4.

    For example, see the discussion later for Figure 15 where a particular task calls for a subset of disciplinary relevant aspects.

  5. 5.

    Another complementary linguistic metaphor we have used to characterise representational competence is disciplinary literacy. See for example Airey (2011, 2013) and Linder et al. (2014).

  6. 6.

    If one considers the static case (i.e., constant with time) of Maxwell’s Equations, one finds that the time derivatives of the electric field and magnetic flux density are zero and one form of Maxwell’s equations becomes \( \nabla \times \mathbf{E}\left(\overline{r}\right)=0 \)

  7. 7.

    For example: a tensor of rank two is defined as a system that has a magnitude and two directions associated with it. Thus, it has nine components. So, if one takes the inner product of a vector and a tensor of rank two, the outcome will be another vector that has both a new magnitude and a new direction.

  8. 8.

    See discussions in Fredlund et al. (2012) and Airey et al. (2014).

  9. 9.

    The reader is also referred here to Lemke’s (1999) discussion of the appropriate semiotic resources for presenting typological and topological meanings.

  10. 10.

    Leveraging Bruner’s (1960) notion of the spiral curriculum, we have also drawn some tentative conclusions about the ways in which students come to discern these disciplinary affordances, documenting what we term an anatomy of disciplinary discernment (Eriksson et al. 2014a). Here, students are seen to progress from initial, non-disciplinary discernment through four stages: disciplinary identification, disciplinary explanation, disciplinary appreciation and disciplinary evaluation.

  11. 11.

    Figure 5.11 also provides an interesting illustration of variation theory. Most people when they first see Fig. 5.11 tend to notice the washer since this is seen as a difference in a background of sameness.

  12. 12.

    It is, of course possible to see the wavefront diagram as an unpacked version of the ray diagram .

  13. 13.

    In this respect, Linder (1993) argues for depicting physics learning in terms of learning to contextually discern aspects in functionally appropriate ways in order to deal with tasks set in these contexts in the optimal disciplinary way. And Marton and Pang (2013, p. 31) point out how, ‘Becoming an “expert” frequently amounts to being able to see particular phenomena in particular ways under widely varying circumstances’

  14. 14.

    Here we are drawing on Marton & Booth’s idea of ‘simultaneity’ (e.g. 1997, pp. 100–107) which refers to how contrasts between the ‘taken-for-granted background’ and an educationally critical aspect of the ‘object of learning ’ are made explicit, so that they are simultaneously present to the learner. The idea can also be related to the concept of extraneous cognitive load (e.g. Sweller 1994).

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Acknowledgement

Funding from the Swedish Research Council (grant numbers 721-2010-5780 and 2016-04113) is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks to Tobias Fredlund for granting us permission to use photographs from his PhD thesis: Using a Social Semiotic Perspective to Inform the Teaching and Learning of Physics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Education Research Group, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    John Airey & Cedric Linder

  2. Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    John Airey

  3. Department of Physics, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

    Cedric Linder

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  1. John Airey
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  2. Cedric Linder
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Correspondence to John Airey .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Curtin University, Perth, West Australia, Australia

    David F. Treagust

  2. Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Reinders Duit

  3. Universität Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Hans E. Fischer

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Airey, J., Linder, C. (2017). Social Semiotics in University Physics Education. In: Treagust, D., Duit, R., Fischer, H. (eds) Multiple Representations in Physics Education. Models and Modeling in Science Education, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58914-5_5

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