Building knowledge through images in physics

Abstract

This article considers the role of images in physics. Utilizing the Systemic Functional Linguistic dimension of field it shows that diagrams that present large classification and composition taxonomies as well as long sequences of activities can be overlaid upon graphs that show arrays of ordered data. Through an analysis using the concepts of semantic density and semantic gravity from Legitimation Code Theory, it is argued that this allows images to present large degrees of meaning in a single snapshot whilst also linking abstracted theory to specific instances of data. That is, the analysis shows that images play a significant role in developing technical physics knowledge through abstractions away from the empirical world. This article contributes to the growing body of research focusing on the structuring of knowledge and the non-linguistic semiotic resources used to organize it.

Infografías científicas en secundaria: complejos de significados multimodales en ensambles compuestos verbales-visuales

“…Las imágenes científicas en estos estudios no han sido analizadas en el contexto del discurso propio de la ciencia, ni se ha abordado la complejidad ideacional relativa de tales imágenes (Bateman, 2008;Höllerer et al, 2019;Kress & van Leeuwen, 2021). En su obra seminal sobre la gramática del diseño visual, Kress y van Leeuwen (2006) se focalizaron en las imágenes estructurales únicas (Doran, 2019). Kress y van Leeuwen (2006) describen la representación de significados ideacionales en términos de estructuras narrativas (que construyen actividad), estructuras de clasificación (que construyen relaciones de clase-subclase), estructuras analíticas (que principalmente construyen relacionales de composición), y estructuras simbólicas.…”

“…Kress y van Leeuwen (2006) describen la representación de significados ideacionales en términos de estructuras narrativas (que construyen actividad), estructuras de clasificación (que construyen relaciones de clase-subclase), estructuras analíticas (que principalmente construyen relacionales de composición), y estructuras simbólicas. No queda claro en el enfoque de Kress y van Leeuwen si las imágenes pueden contener y conceder el mismo estatus a más de una de estas estructuras (Doran, 2019). Kress y van Leeuwen (2006) sí indican que las líneas de tiempo parecen ocupar una posición intermedia entre lo narrativo y lo analítico, y que las genealogías y los árboles filogenéticos y gráficos pueden borrar las barreras entre lo estático y lo dinámico (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006).…”

A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Animation Design and Use in Science Education

“…The range of representational modes in science for which SFS approaches have detailed the nature of their meaning making resources range from language to static images, to graphs, symbols and gestures (Doran, 2019;Halliday & Martin, 1993;Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006;Lemke, 1990;Martin & Veel, 1998;O'Halloran, 2003). Further work has importantly extended to the intermodal orchestration of these in paper and digital media texts and in teachers' shaping of scientific knowledge in the classroom (Danielsson, 2016;Kress et al, 2001;Lemke, 1998;Tang, Delgado, & Moje, 2014).…”

“…Approaches to the induction of students into the multimodal disciplinary literacy practices of science have differed most noticeably in the extent to which they incorporate the development of students' explicit and systematic knowledge of the semiotics or meaning-making resources of language and image and the use as a pedagogic tool of a meta-language describing these resources. Arguably the most educationally influential delineation of the semiotics of the discourse of science has emerged from systemic functional linguistics (SFL) through research on language led by Halliday (Halliday & Martin, 1993), Martin (Martin, 2017;Martin & Veel, 1998) and Lemke (1990Lemke ( , 2004 and related systemic functional semiotic (SFS) research focusing more on images led by Kress (Kress, Jewitt, Ogborn, & Tsatsarelis, 2001;Kress, Ogborn, & Martins, 1998;Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), Bateman (2008), O'Halloran (2003) and more recently Doran (2019). Such accounts of the multimodal discourse of science have clearly informed approaches to integrating disciplinary literacy development in science pedagogy such as the Representation Construction Approach (RCA) (Hubber & Tytler, 2017;Hubber, Tytler, & Haslam, 2010;Prain & Tytler, 2012;Tytler et al, 2018;Tytler, Prain, Hubber, & Waldrip, 2013) and Primary Connections (Aubusson et al, 2019;Hackling & Prain, 2008), but without their taking up the explicit teaching of knowledge about language and image and the associated metalanguage.…”

Warmth portrayals to recruit students into science majors

“…In politics, images of political candidates influenced people’s evaluation of candidates’ trustworthiness and credibility (Lobinger and Brantner, 2015). In educational settings, visuals also were found to increase students’ knowledge about scientific issues, including physics and HIV/AIDS (Doran, 2018; Mutonyi and Kendrick, 2011). Thus, it is conceivable that ‘like linguistic structures, visual structures point to particular interpretations of experience and forms of social interaction’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006: 2).…”