This article examines young children’s conceptualisation of the images they encounter within the familiar environments of the home and community settings, focusing on case study data from two, 4-year-old children. The data discussed are taken from a study involving a group of children aged 4–5 years. A participatory mapping approach was adopted, enabling children to be positioned as both message creators, through the production of their multimodal map texts, and message receivers as they sought to make meaning with the image-based texts they encountered within their environments. The use of a mapping activity supported identification of the children’s knowledge of different texts which may not so easily be put into words. The study revealed that, for children, the context and location of images are important, with the presence of images and artefacts enabling familiarity with a place. Furthermore, movement was identified as an intrinsic part of their multimodal engagements. Adopting a social semiotics theoretical framework, this study aims to explore the ways in which young children conceptualise images in their environment. This paper emphasises the need to take account of the embodied, spatial and multimodal nature of making practices, given the importance placed on these by young children themselves.

中文翻译：

---

绘制幼儿对他们在熟悉环境中遇到的图像的概念图

本文考察了幼儿对他们在熟悉的家庭和社区环境中遇到的图像的概念化，重点是来自两个 4 岁儿童的案例研究数据。所讨论的数据取自一项涉及 4-5 岁儿童群体的研究。采用了一种参与式映射方法，通过制作多模态地图文本，使儿童既是消息创造者，又是消息接收者，因为他们试图用他们在环境中遇到的基于图像的文本来表达意义。绘图活动的使用有助于识别儿童对不同文本的知识，这些文本可能不太容易用文字表达。研究表明，对于儿童来说，图像的背景和位置很重要，图像和人工制品的存在使人们能够熟悉一个地方。此外，运动被确定为他们多模式参与的内在组成部分。本研究采用社会符号学理论框架，旨在探索幼儿在其环境中概念化图像的方式。鉴于幼儿自己对这些内容的重视，本文强调需要考虑制作实践的具身性、空间性和多模式性。