From Action to Writing: Modes of Representing and Knowing

In his book, Before Writing, Gunter Kress (1997) discusses the many modes in which children represent meaning before they master the system of writing. His illustrations include: drawings, some of them coloured in, or cut out and adorned with further material; three-dimensional figures; and my favorite a photograph of a ‘pillow car’, made from two wire-mesh drawers, a pillow, a red toolbox and other objects, all carefully arranged so that the two girls who made it could sit in the car with their doll passengers. Surprisingly, it might seem, it has neither gear shift nor steering wheel. However, as Kress comments, this is “not because this car’s makers do not know about them, but because they are not relevant for the purposes of this car’s users and makers” (p. 32). The point of the illustrations is to support his central argument: In making meaning with and through signs of various kinds, people old as well as young act out of their current interest and put to use in sign-making whatever is to hand. Furthermore, since the sign is almost always a means to an end in some larger activity, usually involving others as well as the signmaker, he claims that “all signs show rationality, logic, human desire and affect” (p. 19).