The Mathematics Register (Speaking Mathematically)

David Pimm (1987)

Cpt4: The mathematics register



In this chapter, the author introduces Halliday’s register in linguistics and applies his sociocultural perspective in language within mathematics classrooms. Several examples are served here. For example, the student misunderstands a meaning of diagonal in the polygon, and she thinks diagonal means inclined/declined lines as well as the original meaning of diagonal in English. When students face new concepts in mathematics, they initially try to connect the word to the vocabulary they already know. The author argues that metaphor plays a significant and essential role in mathematics register for any learners to make sense of speaking and writing in mathematics. He also shows several examples of the use of metaphor in mathematics which they are formally utilized in mathematics such as slope as a graph of the linear function. However, the author claims that the expansion of unexplained concept might raise the risk of destruction.



As I see mathematical terminologies in Japanese, I guess the most words intend only for mathematics: we seldom use mathematics vocabularies in everyday life. In the case of “diagonal” as mentioned above, it is 対角線 in Japanese which means like a cross (対) angle (角) line (線) and has no other meaning. From this point, Japanese students might rarely get confused the meanings of mathematics terminology by comparing the original meaning of the word unlike English speakers, but they have to memorize the new words. (I think Chinese and Korean are same situations as Japanese.) However, each character in 対角線 has a meaning, so native Japanese speakers can guess the definition of 対角線from each character. The use of metaphor in mathematics also is not often accepted as formal mathematics, so we cannot see those mathematics terminologies which come from metaphor though they are used by both teachers and students to help to explain their idea as an informal expression.

  Therefore, native Japanese speakers can understand new terminologies in mathematics without confusions in linguistics whereas it will be very tough for Japanese language learner to understand them (from literal expressions) unless they have sufficient knowledge of the Japanese characters.