Connecting the teaching of mechanical work with the model of energy: a semiotic approach

Abstract

In this study, an attempt is made to search for the conditions of implementing the conservation of energy principle model into semiotic modes and semiotic actions. The further purpose is to describe how mechanical work can be represented avoiding the ambiguities concerning the definition of system(s) and the conceptual blending between transfer and transformation of energy. It was shown that both in diagrams and semiotic actions, the separation of the systems and the description of the transfer of energy have to be translated into the successive semiotic units of the ‘no contact between the systems’, the ‘contact of the systems’ and the ‘displacement of the system which receives the energy.