Reading Graphs

Abstract

This chapter focuses on graphs as they are used and talked about in everyday settings. Here, graphs become apparently fused to the things or contexts that they describe. Graphs are no longer interpreted but are read in the way one may read a newspaper article about a familiar feature in the community. Graphs become transparent; they are present to hand in the same way as familiar words and physical tools. The present case study focuses on the graphs used by a water technician on the farm where she works. As part of her and her employer’s engagement with an environmental group, Karen gets to interact over and about the graphs with a variety of people in the community. The chapter highlights contextual features that allow graphs to be transparent in use. In such situations, Karen does not ‘interpret’ a graph but ‘reads’ it. Her reading leaps beyond the material sign to a world that lies beyond.