Semiotic transformations in the study of prisms: an analysis based on mathematics textbooks

Abstract

This article presents part of a master's research that aimed to analyze the transformations, treatments, and conversions between semiotic representations related to the study of prisms in High School Mathematics textbooks. The analyses focused on the solved exercises in three works approved by the National Textbook and Educational Material Plan of 2021. Using the Theory of Semiotic Representation Registers as a framework, the results showed that the proposed exercises explored registers in the forms of natural language, figural, and symbolic. From this, it is inferred that there is potencial for diversification and articulation among different registers. Regarding transformations, treatments in the figural and symbolic registers were prominent, with a predominance of the symbolic register, which includes algebraic and numerical treatments. In the context of conversions, there was a higher frequency of conversions from natural language to figural, and from natural language to symbolic, followed by conversions from the figural register to the symbolic.