How Young Children Use Semiotic Tools to Communicate Through Music Play in School Contexts

This study provided a thick, detailed description of young children's music play in a classroom setting. Interpreting play in this context consisted of identifying children's selection of appropriate tools for representing their lived experiences and determining how they constructed meaning using these semiotic tools. Negotiation and communication in an educational setting were examined. Children's use of materials and embodied forms of meaning making (semiotic resources) in their music interactions were core concerns of the study. Multimodal Analysis was used to interpret video data: examining the actions of children first, then their verbal responses, in music invention. Together these components of analysis assisted in investigating the layers of actions and associated meanings (the semiotic resources) in young children's music play. Ways by which children selected resources to communicate meaning through their everyday music play revealed the semiotic work, the cultural influences of their investment of effort. Music play in classroom settings revealed children formulating and testing ideas, stretching their inventive music dialogue and redesigning music activities during their first year of school. Preliminary results will lead to further study of young children's capacity in multimodal communication: their embodied and artistic representations of meaning. ; Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Education and Professional Studies ; Full Text