Classrooms and the Design of Pedagogic Discourse: A Multimodal Approach

Abstract

This paper offers a social semiotic analysis of the school classroom, in this case the subject English classroom, as a material instantiation of pedagogic discourse. The classroom is looked at as a multimodal sign: the semiotic ‘residue’ or ‘sediment’ of discursive practices over time. In particular it discusses how visual displays and spatial design in the English classroom can be thought of as signs of school English. From this perspective a teacher’s classroom can be understood as a sign of how she or he mediates ‘official’ government and school discourse. Drawing on three illustrative examples of English classrooms from three different schools, the paper argues that the variation between these classrooms can be understood in part as a consequence of the complex web of social relations that mediate and institutionally frame pedagogy.