Writing, literate activity, semiotic remediation: A sociocultural approach

This chapter sketches a sociocultural framework for understanding writing, particularly exploring the way notions of literate activity (Prior 1998) and semiotic remediation (Prior, Hengst, Roozen & Shipka 2006; Prior & Hengst 2010) maintain a distinct interest in both written artifacts and associated actions that are dialogically dispersed across people, tools, times and places. Drawing in particular on traditions grounded in the work of Vygotsky and Voloshinov, this approach argues for seeing writing as chronotopically laminated trajectories. Theoretical and methodological implications of this approach are illustrated by reviewing a line of research that has investigated writing as situated, mediated, and dispersed. The chapter concludes with key implications of this approach for the research, teaching, and practice of writing.