using, and adapting the multimodal semiotic resources available to them in order to
realise the most apt and plausible Signifier to express the meaning that they want to
express. Viewing signs as motivated and always transformative leads signs to be
understood as a trace of the designed interests of the situated sign maker. This
challenges the view of learning as acquiring competence, and suggests that learning is
a process of multimodal design. The theorisation of the fundamental connection
between external signs and cognitive development and learning enables students texts
(complex signs) to be analysed as one kind of evidence of their learning and the
cognitive processes they engaged in.
In the next chapter, Chapter Three, I discuss how the theoretical concepts introduced
in this chapter are operationalised in the thesis.
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