The Interplay Between Gesture and Discourse as Mediating Devices in Collaborative Mathematical Reasoning:A Multimodal Approach

摘要

This article aims to identify the mathematical reasoning strategies expressed through gestures and speech used by two groups of sixth-grade pupils when solving a task related to the transition between two semiotic representations: figure and Cartesian diagram. The article also identifies the difficulties the pupils meet in the solution process. The analyses of the group dialogues focus particularly on the gesture dimension of deixis. The pupils in both groups have used the following deictic gestures: pointing, held-point, linear point-slide, and circular point-slide in their solution process, while repeated pointing has been identified only in one of the groups. These pointing gestures are related to the reasoning strategies: comparison of persons in the figure, coordination of two dimensions in the diagram, recapitulation and going to an extreme location. The pupils use the modalities of speech, gesture, and writing in order to solve the mathematical task. Their pointing gestures related to their use of reasoning strategies play a multifaceted role in developing collaborative mathematical reasoning in the two small groups.