<![CDATA[Purpose: This study aimed to investigate how visual semiotic resources are interpreted and experienced by language learners in technology-mediated language education and how these resources relate to cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement. Subjects and Methods: A qualitative case study was conducted with 15 language learners aged 15–20 years selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected through observations, semi-structured interviews, and digital learning material analysis. The data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis and visual semiotic analysis, followed by triangulation. Results: Four interconnected themes emerged: learners’ interpretation of visual semiotic resources, visual semiotics as cognitive scaffolding, emotional and behavioral engagement, and multimodal meaning-making. Learners interpreted images, animations, icons, colour-coded cues, and visual hierarchy to direct attention, contextualize language, recall information, generate sentences, and complete tasks. Visual resources were associated with enjoyment, confidence, persistence, participation, and peer interaction. Learners also integrated visual resources with textual information, prior knowledge, experience, and social interaction to construct and negotiate meaning. The findings indicate that visual resources did not automatically produce engagement; rather, engagement emerged when learners actively interpreted and connected visual affordances with task requirements and other semiotic resources. Conclusions: Visual semiotics functioned as interpretive resources that connected visual affordances with cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social engagement. Purposeful visual design, teacher visual and multimodal literacy, and activities that transform visual information into language use are important for technology-mediated language learning. Given the qualitative and context-specific design, research across learners and settings is needed.]]>
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