To an unreconstructed cognitivist with experience of developing General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations and national tests in mathematics, the three papers which provide the core of this special issue (Morgan & Sfard; Morgan, Morgan & Tang) provided a refreshing opportunity to consider examination items from a different perspective. The integration of sociocultural/communicational and social semiotic/functional linguistic viewpoints underpinning the ESRC-funded The Evolution of the Discourse of School Mathematics (EDSM) highlighted for me the role of examination texts as purveyors of cultural meanings, communicating an authorised definition of school mathematics. The fourth paper (Alshwaikh) showed an attempt to translate this analysis to a different medium and also to a different culture and language. The fifth paper (Adler & Lerman) usefully took a step back and reminded me of the importance of who sets these cultural definitions, drawing on narratives from two contrasting countries. With little background in language and discourse the author is obviously not well placed to comment on the theoretical issues and will confine herself mainly to pragmatic and policy matters. In this brief commentary, the author shares her views on the papers chosen for the special issue, highlighting some specific data from across the three EDSM articles.