Social Semiotics, based on the work of the linguist Michael Halliday, emphasises the ways in which language functions in our construction and representation of our experience and of our social identities and relationships. In this paper, I provide an introduction to the theory and its analytic tools, considering how they can be applied in the field of mathematics education. Some research questions that may be raised and addressed from this perspective are identified. An illustrative example is offered, demonstrating a social semiotic approach to addressing questions related to construction of the nature of school mathematical activity in writing produced by secondary school students.

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Our approach to emotion in school mathematics draws on social semiotics, pedagogic discourse theory and psychoanalysis. Emotions are considered as socially organised and shaped by power relations; we portray emotion as a charge (of energy) attached to ideas or signifiers. We analyse transcripts from a small group solving problems in mathematics class, and from an individual student. The structural phase of analysis identifies positions available to subjects in the specific setting, using Bernstein's sociological approach to pedagogic discourse. The textual phase examines the use of language and other signs in interaction and describes the positionings taken up by particular pupils. We then focus on indicators of emotion, and find indications of excitement and anxiety, linked to participants' positionings. Finally we consider implications of our approach.

This paper discusses fairness and equity in assessment of mathematics. The increased importance of teachers' interpretative judgments of students' performance in highstakes assessments and in the classroom has prompted this exploration. Following a substantial theoretical overview of the field, the issues are illustrated by two studies that took place in the context of a reformed mathematics curriculum in England. One study is of teachers' informal classroom assessment practices; the other is of their interpretation and evaluation of students' formal written mathematical texts (i.e., responses to mathematics problems). Results from both studies found that broadly similar work could be interpreted differently by different teachers. The formation of teachers' views of students and evaluation of their mathematical attainments appeared to be influenced by surface features of students' work and behavior and by individual teachers' prior expectations. We discuss and critique some approaches to improving the quality and equity of teachers' assessment.

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These findings provide the first evidence that drug cues interact with reward processing in a drug dependent population.

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