Presenting new and innovative research, this book shows that children demonstrate intentionality in their mark-marking from the time they first engage in activity of this kind. Well before the age of three, children already understand how the marks they make can refer symbolically to a diverse range of meanings beyond the immediate. Though not identifiable with conventional systems, early marks and signs typically have features of such systems of representation, including writing. Lancaster suggests that, in general, these reflect the underlying architecture and framework of symbolic systems, rather than the level of surface detail more conventionally associated with children's early productions. The book will discuss and analyse children's construction of these features, including examples of their use of diagrammatic and narrative genres, their use of simple syntax, their incorporation of bodily activity into graphic meanings, and their understanding of complex systems of reference. It argues that this is a social process, with interpersonal interactions and bodily communication being integral. The book will include examples from a rich data set that includes images of the children's productions, film stills, and exemplars of multimodal transcription. It will appeal to researchers in applied linguistics, working in with discourse analysis, multimodal analysis and in language acquisition.

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