Reading Images for Knowledge Building

Analyzing Infographics in School Science

JR Martin author Len Unsworth author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:7th Aug '23

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Reading Images for Knowledge Building cover

This innovative volume provides a new analytic framework for understanding how meaning-making resources are deployed in images designed for knowledge building in school science.

The framework enables analyses of science images from the perspectives of both their complexity and recognizability. Complexity deals with the technical and abstract knowledge of school science (technicality), evaluative dispositions in relation to that knowledge (iconization) and the condensation of the technical and dispositional meanings as ‘synoptic eyefuls’ in discipline-specific infographics (aggregation). Recognizability concerns the relationship between the appearance of phenomena in reality and the reconfiguration of this reality in images (congruence), the perceptibility or discernibility of the features and contexts of phenomena in images (explicitness), and how images engage their viewers (affiliation). The framework is illustrated by more than 100 images in colour in the e-book and black and white in the paper version and will inform research into multimodal literacy pedagogy that incorporates an understanding of the role of images in the teaching and learning of school science.

This book will be of particular interest to scholars in multimodality, semiotics, literacy education and science education.

"The book represents a substantial contribution to bothsemiotics and science education. Its comprehensive framework for analysing the complexity and recognizability of infographics provides valuable insights into how images organize the complexity and abstraction of meaning. Furthermore, it offers practical guidance for educators to facilitate science teaching through the use of infographics. This book is thus highly recommended for researchers in semiotics and science education, and educators seeking effective methods to utilize infographics in science instruction." - Zhigang Yu, Beijing Institute of Technology, Visual Communication

"...the book is undoubtedly of particular benefit to researchers in semiotics who are concerned with multimodality in academic discourse, researchers in literacy education and science education who are concerned with empirical resources at stake for knowledge building, and school science teachers who are concerned with an explicit metalanguage for expounding on infographics in pedagogical practice." - Ying Hua, Shanghai Dianji University, Language and Education

"Martin and Unsworth’s book is an informative, engaging and well-structured
volume solely devoted to analyzing infographics for knowledge building in school science from the systemic functional semiotic perspective. It is such a comprehensive and meticulous work that makes a significant contribution to science pedagogy, multimodal literacy as well as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Theoretically rooted in social semiotics and
systemic functional linguistics, the authors’ framework for analyzing infographics is thorough and accessible, offering valuable insights into the complexity and recognizability of scientific infographics." - Yanxiu Li, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Social Semiotics

ISBN: 9780367759179

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 453g

280 pages