A multimodal analysis of picture books for children : a systemic functional approach / Arsenio Jesús Moya Guijarro.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Moya Guijarro, Arsenio Jesús, author.

Series:

Discussions in functional approaches to language

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Modality (Linguistics).

Children's literature--History and criticism.

Children's literature.

Children--Books and reading--English-speaking countries.

Children.

Children--Books and reading.

English-speaking countries.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Discourse analysis, Literary.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xii, 301 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Sheffield, UK ; Bristol, CT : Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2014.

Summary:

A Multimodal Analysis of Picture Books for Children goes beyond the relationship between the representation of reality and language alone. Instead, it analyses the intersemiosis between verbal and visual elements in a sample of nine picture books. This book takes the most relevant systemic-functional and visual social semiotic theories a step further from previous studies and applies them to the genre of children's tales. Within the frameworks of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics and Kress and van Leeuwen's Visual Social Semiotics, this book identifies the verbal and visual strategies available to the writer and illustrator to convey representational meanings, to set up interpersonal relationships within the tale itself, as well as external relationships between writer and reader, and to create coherent tales. This is achieved by analyzing and identifying the ideational, interpersonal and textual choices available to the writer to make meaning in picture books, and comparing them with the corresponding representational, interactive and compositional choices made by the illustrator. The analysis reveals how the verbal and visual modalities contribute to each other's meaning and makes the potential of combining verbal and non-verbal language in picture books evident. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Aims and scope of the book 2

1.2 Structure of the book 5

1.3 Picture books, child development and the age factor 7

1.4 Selection of the sample texts 11

2 Systemic functional grammar and visual social semiotics 18

2.1 Functional versus formal approaches to language 20

2.2 Functional approaches 24

2.3 Systemic-Functional Grammar: Main tenets 27

2.4 Approaches to multimodality 28

2.5 Towards a definition of mode 53

3 Representational meaning: Characters, narrative events and settings 61

3.1 Representing and visualizing the narrative reality 62

3.2 Words and images: Intersemiosis 68

3.3 Troubleshooting 75

3.4 The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Analysis and exemplification 79

4 The writer/illustrator and the child-viewer's interaction 88

4.1 SFG and Visual Social Semiotics: Interpersonal/interactive meanings 89

4.2 Where the Wild Things Are: Interpersonal and interactive meanings 97

5 Creating textuality and compositional meaning 114

5.1 Theoretical framework: SFG and Visual Social Semiotics 115

5.2 Gorilla. Analysis and exemplification 123

6 Processing reality: The synergy between image and text at representational level 143

6.1 The representation of reality in language 144

6.2 The representation of reality in the visual mode 151

6.3 Intersemiosis of verbal and visual components at representational level 160

6.4 The representation of the narrative world and the age factor 169

7 Interpersonal verbal and visual interdependence in the sample texts 183

7.1 The creation of interaction through language 184

7.2 Generating engagement in the visual mode 190

7.3 The interplay of images and words at interpersonal level 200

7.4 Interpersonal meaning and the age factor 205

8 The interplay of images and words to create textuality 217

8.1 Choices of theme and topic: Thematic organization of the tales 217

8.2 Compositional meaning of the illustrations 227

8.3 The synergy of images and words at textual level 238

8.4 Thematicity, composition and the age factor 244

9 Conclusions 257

9.1 The tales created for children in the sensory-motor stage (0-2 years) 260

9.2 Picture books intended for children in the pre-operational stage (3-6 years) 264

9.3 Tales aimed at young readers in the concrete operations stage (7-9 years) 270.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781908049773

1908049774

9781908049780

1908049782

OCLC:

870847751

Publisher Number:

99960274849