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MATHEMATICAL
LANGUANGE AND
SYMBOLS
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Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

• Discuss the language, symbols, and conventions of
mathematics
• Explain the nature of mathematics as a language
• Perform operations on mathematical expressions
correctly
• Acknowledge that mathematics is a useful language
• Evaluate one’s learning

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Imagine the following
Master title
scenario…
style

You are in a math class, and the instructor passes a piece

of paper to each student. It is announced that the paper
contains Strategies in Solving Math Problems. You are to
read it and make comments. Upon glancing at the paper,
you are surprised that it is written in a foreign language that
you do not understand!

IS THE INSTRUCTOR FAIR?

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Responses:

Of course not. Indeed, the instructor is probably trying to make a

point. Although the ideas in the paragraph may be simple, there is
no access to the ideas without a knowledge of the language in which
the ideas are expressed.

This situation has a very strong analogy in mathematics. People

frequently have trouble understanding mathematical ideas; not
necessarily because the ideas are difficult, but because they are
being presented in a foreign language – THE LANGUAGE OF
MATHEMATICS!

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Mathematical Language
titleand
style
Symbols

Mathematical language is a system used in the field of

mathematics to communicate mathematical ideas, concepts, and
theories among others. It is distinct and unique from the usual
language that people are used to, and is used to communicate
abstract, logical ideas.

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Language of Mathematics
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Like any language, mathematics has its own symbols, syntax

and rules.

• To understand the expressed ideas

• To communicate ideas to others

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Characteristics of Mathematical
title style Language

• Precise
- be able to make very fine distinctions of things
• Concise
- use symbols to be able to express more or able to say things
briefly
• Powerful
- be able to express complex thoughts with relative ease, being
understood by most readers.

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Mathematical Language
titleand
style
Symbols

Mathematical Symbols are used to refer to certain quantities,

concepts, and ideas among others. The most commonly used in basic
mathematics are numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, the four
fundamental symbols of operation +, -, ×, ÷, and the inequality
symbols ≠, ≤, ≥, < >, and equal sign =.

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Noun versus
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Sentences
title style

ENGLISH
Noun Sentence
(name given to object of (must state a complete
interest) thought)

• Person • TRUE: The word “math” has four

• Place letters.
• Thing • FALSE: The word “math” has 5 letters
• Sometimes True/Sometimes False:
Math is a difficult subject. 9 9
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Expressions MasterSentences
title style

Mathematical Expression – the mathematical analogue of an

English noun; a correct arrangement of mathematical symbols used
to represent a mathematical object of interest (Burns, n.d). It does
NOT state a complete thought and does NOT make sense to ask if an
expression is true or false.

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Expressions MasterSentences
title style

MATHEMATICS
Expression Sentence
(name given to mathematical (must state a complete
object of interest) thought)

• Number • TRUE : 1+2=3

• Set • FALSE : 1+2 = 4
• Ordered Pair
• ST/SF : X = 1
• Average
• Matrix
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Expressions MasterSentences
title style

Mathematical Sentence – the mathematical analogue of an

English sentence, and is a correct arrangement of mathematical
symbols that state a complete thought. Hence, it makes sense to ask
if a sentence is true, false, sometimes true, or sometimes false.

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Ideas regarding
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Mathematical
title style Sentence

• Mathematical Sentences have verbs and connectives

• Truth of Sentences
The notion of truth (the property of being true or false) is
of fundamental importance in the mathematical language.

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How to decide
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whether
titlesomething
style is a Sentence?

• Read it aloud, and ask yourself the question: Does it state

a complete thought? If YES, then it is a sentence.

• You may also ask yourself the question: Does it make

sense to ask about the truth of it?

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The to edit Master
of Mathematics
title style

It is the structural rules governing the use of symbols

representing mathematical objects.

Express the following using mathematical symbols

a) 5 is the square root of 25
b) 5 is less than 10
c) 5 is a prime number

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Some Difficulties
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title style
Language

• The word "is" could mean equality, inequality or

membership in a set
• Different uses of a number; to express quantity (cardinal),
to indicate the order (ordinal), and as a label (nominal)
• Mathematical objects may be represented in many ways,
such as sets and functions
• The words "and' & "or" means different from its English
use

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Expressions MasterSentences
title style

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The to edit Master
of Algebra
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Common Words in Algebra

1. Variable – it is a symbol which represents a value or a number.
Usually, small letters are used as variable, e.g. a, x, y.
2. Constant – it is a number on its own which means the value never
is definite and will never change, e.g. 4, 9, 35.
3. Term – it is a constant, or a variable, or a constant and variable/s
multiplied together, e.g. 4, z, 5xy, 87xy, xyz.
Literal Coefficient is the variable in a particular term.
Numerical Coefficient is the constant in a particular term.
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of Algebra
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Common Words in Algebra

4. Expression – it is also called algebraic expression. It is a group of
terms separated by the “plus” or “minus” symbols, e.g. 3x-2, x+3.

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of Algebra
title style

Mathematical sentences are written using variables, constant, and

equal sign or inequality sign; while verbal sentences are written in words
using phrases. The following are most commonly used phrases in Algebra:
1. Addition (plus, increased by, added to, the sum of, more than)
2. Subtraction (decreased by, subtracted from, the difference of, less than,
diminished by)
3. Multiplication (multiplied by, of, the product of, times)
4. Division (ratio of, the quotient of, divided by)
5. Inequality (is greater than, is less than, is at least, is less than or equal,
is greater than or equal to, is at most, is not equal to)
6. Equality (the same as, is equal to, equals)
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of Algebra
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Conventions in Mathematical
title styleLanguage

Ideas Regarding Expressions

• Expressions have different names
Example:
5 2+3 10÷2 (6 - 2) + 1 1+1+1+1+1
• Common in solving expressions is to SIMPLIFY.

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What does
editSIMPLER
Master mean?
title style

• Fewer symbols
• Fewer operations
• Better suited to current use
• Preferred/Style/Format

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Objects that Master
we usetitle
in Math
style

• Numbers (4 operations and properties)

• Variables
• Operations (unary & binary)

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Numbers andMaster
4 operations
title style

Can you think of

any more terms
that you can add
to the mind
map?

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Variable

A variable is any letter used to stand for a mathematical

object.

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Click to edit(Unary
Operations Masterortitle
Binary)
style

A Unary operation is an operation on a single element.

Example: negative of 5
the multiplicative inverse of 7

A binary operation is an operation that combines two

elements of a set to give a single element.
e.g. multiplication 3 x 4 = 12

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Four to edit
Concepts
Master title style

• Sets (relationships, operations, properties)

• Relations (Equivalence relations)
• Functions ( injective, Surjective , Bijective)
• Binary Operations

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Four to edit
Concepts
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• Sets
- is the representation of a collection of objects; distinct
objects with one or more common properties. Grouping up
the objects in a set is an act of distinguishing those objects
from the members of another set. We can use the terms –
elements or members of a set instead of the term objects.

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How to denote
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Sets?title style

If ‘A’ is a set and ‘a’ one of its elements then: ‘a ∈ A’

denotes that element ‘a’ belongs to ‘A’ whereas, ‘a ∉ A’
denotes that ‘a’ is not an element of A. Alternatively, we can
say that ‘A’ contains ‘a’. A set is usually represented by
capital letters and an element of the set by a small letter.

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Representation of Sets
title style

There are mainly 3 ways to represent a set:

1. Statement Form – a single statement describes all the elements
inside a set.
For example: V = The set of all vowels in English.
2. Roaster Form – in this form all the members of the given set are
enlisted within a pair of braces { }, separated by commas.
For example:
The set of all even whole numbers between 1 to 10.
E = {2, 4, 6, 8}
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Representation of Sets
title style

3. Set Builder Form – here, the property is stated that must be

common to all the elements of that particular set.
For example: N = {x : x is positive integers between 10 to 20 }

We read the set builder form as “N is the set of all x such that x
is a positive integer between 10 to 20”. Braces { } denote the set while
‘:’ denotes ‘such that’.

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Types ofedit
SetsMaster title style

Knowing the type of a set helps in verifying the appropriate set

operations applicable to that particular set.
1. Empty Set – A set with no elements. Empty sets are also called
null sets or void sets and are denoted by { } or Φ.
Example: {x: x is an integer which is a perfect cube and lies between
2 and 7}
2. Equal Sets – Sets with equal elements.
Example: A = {5, 6, 7} and B = {5, 6, 5, 7, 7}. Here, the elements
of A and B are equal to each other (5, 6, 7) i. e., A = B In the case of
repetition as in B we write B = {5, 6, 7} by ignoring the repetition.
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SetsMaster title style

3. Equivalent Sets – Sets with the equal number of members.

Example: A = {3, 6, 8} and B = {p, q, r}. Both A and B having three
elements are equivalent sets.
*Two equal sets are equivalent too but the vice-versa doesn’t always
hold true.
4. Finite and Infinite Sets – Based on the number of elements (finite
or infinite) present in the set, the set is either finite or infinite. In case
of infinite the set, it is given as:
N = Numbers divisible by 4 = {4, 8, 12, 16…..}

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SetsMaster title style

5. Singleton Set – A set with a single element.

For example, {9}.
6. Subsets and Super-sets – A set qualifies as the subset of another set if
all of its elements are also the elements of that another set. A collection of
all the subsets of a given set is a power set.
A super-set can be thought of as the parent set that at least contains
all the elements of the subset and may or may not contain some extra
elements.
C = The set of all colors and P = The set of all primary colors then,
P ⊂ C; read as P is a “subset of” C or P is “contained in” C. Or we have: C
⊃ P which means C is a “superset of” P or C “contains” P.

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For the figure given at the left side if we consider

N = the set of natural numbers
W = the set of whole numbers.
I = the set of Integers.
Rt = the set of rational numbers.
Re = the set of real numbers.
C = the set of complex numbers.
We can say that N ⊂ W ⊂ I ⊂ Rt ⊂ Re ⊂ C. Also, going in
the reverse order we have C ⊃ Re ⊃ Rt ⊃ I ⊃ W ⊃
N. Here we can call the set of complex numbers as
a universal set for real, rational, integers, whole and
natural numbers.
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Relations andMaster
Functions
title style

• Cartesian Product – If p ∈ P and q ∈ Q then the set of all ordered pair i.

e., (p, q) is called the Cartesian product of P×Q. This means every first
element of the ordered pair belongs to the set P and every second
element belongs to the set Q.
• P and Q must be non-empty sets.
• P × Q is null if either P or Q is a null set.
Example: X = {1, 3} and Y = {4, 7} then, X × Y = {(1, 4), (1, 7), (3, 4), (3,
7)}.
For above example, the number elements in X, n(X) = 2 (this no. is
called the cardinal number) and number elements in Y, n(Y) = 2
consequently, number of ordered pairs in the Cartesian product n (X × Y) =
4. The same rule holds for any Cartesian product.
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Relations andMaster
Functions
title style

• Venn-Diagrams
Euler – Venn Diagrams make it easy to operate on sets.

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Relations andMaster
Functions
title style

The relation is the subset of the Cartesian product which

contains only some of the ordered pair based on the relationships
defined between the first and second elements. The relation is usually
denoted by R.

If every element of a set A is related with one and only one

element of another set, then this kind of relation qualifies as
a function.

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Relations andMaster
Functions
title style

A function is a special case of relation where no two ordered

pairs can have the same first element.

This notation f:X→Y denotes that f is a function from X to Y. For

x ∈ X there is unique y ∈ Y and his y is represented as y = f(x) which
means value of f at x which in turn is the value of y at a specific value
of x.

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3 WAYSto OF
editREPRESENTING
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A FUNCTION

ALGEBRAIC FORM TABULAR FORM

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3 WAYSto OF
editREPRESENTING
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A FUNCTION

GRAPHICAL FORM

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Domain and Range
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• The domain is the set of all first elements of R.

• The range is the set of all second elements of R.
For example:

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Types ofedit
Functions
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Based on the kind of element that the sets involved

consists of functions can be:

• Identity function: 𝑦 = 𝐟(𝑥) = 𝑥; both range and domain of the

function is the same.
• Constant function: 𝑦 = 𝐟 𝑥 = 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡; the range of the function
is constant
• Polynomial function: 𝑦 = 𝐟(𝑥) = 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑦𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑎𝑙 for every value of x.

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Types ofedit
Functions
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• Rational function: these are 𝑦 = 𝐟(𝑥) = 𝑔(𝑥)/ℎ(𝑥) type of function

where both g(x) and h(x) are polynomials and ℎ(𝑥) ≠ 0.
• Modulus function: The range of the function is positive plus the set
of 0
• Signum function: Range of f is {-1, 0, 1}
• Greatest Integer function: The function assumes the value of the
greatest integer. The range is a pure integer value.

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Types ofedit
Functions
Master title style

Based on the kind of relationship that the elements of the

two sets have with each other there are mainly four types of
functions:

• One-to-one function (Injective)

• Many to one function
• Onto function (Surjective)
• One-one and onto function (Bijective): A function that is both one-
to-one and onto function.
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Types ofedit
Functions
Master title style

One to one
function (Injective)

For each
element in the
domain there is one
and only one
element in the
range.

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Types ofedit
Functions
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Many to One
function

When two or
more elements from
the domain are
mapped to the
same single
elements in the
range.

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Types ofedit
Functions
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Onto function
(Surjective)

When every
element of the
range has been
mapped to an
element in the
domain.

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Types ofedit
Functions
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One-one and onto

function
(Bijective)

A function that
is both one-to-one
and onto function.

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