The weave of text and picture: Iconic and Linguistic resources in the process of meaning construction (original) (raw)
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Impact Of Visual Media In Children’s Literature: A Paradigm Of Cognitive/Psycho-Linguistic Approach
International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 2018
Throughout centuries, children’s books have influenced the identity creation of children in various levels, in the form of fairy tales, folk tales, picture books, Disney cartoons, and movies. Modern child spends more time with interactive learning/visual aids than with traditional pedagogical means which mainly consist of printed texts. Majority of their learning and leisure activities include focus on picture books, flash cards or several interactive pedagogical structures like interactive boards, pop-up books, animated movies etc. Receptive skills in children can be enhanced in their developmental stage in this way. It aids their psychological development and language acquisition skills along with socio-cultural aspects. Adults also relive their childhood days while engaging themselves with children and children’s books carrying the roles of facilitator, caretaker, parent or educator. This paper discusses the impact that visual media has imparted in the field of children’s literature and how it helps in the cognitive and psycho- linguistic development of children. Visual media has gained greater importance in recent years and has incredibly affected the contemporary modern world. It has made a tremendous influence in the field of literature, specifically in children’s literature. I postulate that children’s literature lays the foundation of shared intergenerational, national and international culture, a barometer of beliefs and anxieties about children and childhood, and a body of literature with its own genres, classic texts and avant-garde experiments.
Production of multimodal texts in Secondary Education: A case study
This paper describes the theoretical framework and the methodology followed by three researchers from different disciplines (Literature, Art Education and Educational Psychology) in order to present the challenges 12-15-year-old students faced in the production of a multimodal text in a school context. It examines the way students address specific dimensions of meaning (representational, social and organizational) within and across linguistic and visual-spatial modes, when producing a multimodal text. Specifically, it demonstrates students' challenges in addressing the different dimensions of meaning and achieving synergy among different semiotic systems in creating multimodal artefacts. Qualitative methods were utilized to analyze how groups addressed linguistically and visually the representational, social and organizational dimensions of meaning for the production of their multimodal texts and how they reflected on the production of their multimodal meaning making. The results of this study shed light on the difficulties the students have faced in the production of multimodal meaning making. Moreover, the study stresses the need to support students through systematic approaches on how to address the different dimensions of meaning in multimodal text production. Finally, several suggestions are provided regarding further research on studying in depth the process of producing multimodal texts in school context.
Child Readers and the Worlds of the Picture Book
Children's Literature in Education, 2015
Children as readers of picture books and the ways they respond to, and make meaning from, such texts are the focus of this article, which reports on a small-scale study undertaken in Norway and Wales, UK. The theoretical framing of the research draws on concepts of the multimodal ensemble in picture books and of the reading event as part of a social practice. The research design was developed Adela Baird was formerly a Senior Research Fellow of the University of Edinburgh and is now an independent scholar in Cardiff. She has extensive experience of education in Scotland, England and Wales as a teacher, teacher educator, academic and one of Her Majesty's Inspectors. Her research interests are language and literacy, children who learn English as a second language and improving education for disadvantaged children. Janet Laugharne is Professor Emeritus of language in education at the School of Education, Cardiff Metropolitan University. She has extensive knowledge of teacher education and training, specialising in language and literacy education. Her research interests are in language and literacy, bilingualism with particular reference to Welsh, narrative and applied metalinguistics. Eva Maagero is Professor in Norwegian language at Vestfold University College Norway where she teaches and researches linguistics, language development, literacy, text theory, semiotics and multimodality on Bachelor and Master's programmes. She has published extensively in these areas.
Although most preschool teachers encourage children’s art making activities, they usually abstain from involving their students in activities aiming to enhance their ability in recognizing, interpreting and understanding visual art works. In our effort to improve on this educational insufficiency, we worked on an art education plan which has been built on a narrative oriented interpretive process. This paper presents the pilot application of this educational project designed for the undergraduate students of two Greek University Departments of Early Childhood Education. The project has a double aim: a) to help the students become aware of themselves as future preschool teachers who are able to adequately understand the procedures and methods used in the analysis of an art work and b) to provide them with a useful tool of analysis and interpretation of art works proper for pre-primary school children. The whole project has been developed in two distinct but intertwined phases: the object of the first phase was to reveal and describe in a cohesive way the iconographic, morphological and cultural elements of the art works in order to create the appropriate interpretive background. In this effort we worked out a model of analysis based on Erwin Panofsky’s iconological method. In the second stage, we tried to transfigure the material developed in the first phase in such a way as to be functional in the educational deed. In quest of the appropriate educational condition in the pre-primary school, we concluded that the use of the fairy tale was the best means for presenting and elucidating a visual art work. In this framework, the interpretive material developed in the first phase has been used as an inducement for the creation of fairy tales, which in their turn can be used as stimuli or sources of inspiration for further educational activities. In this paper we present the theoretical framework, the method we used as well as a first analysis of the conclusions drawn from the pilot application of this project.
Reading Visual Narratives: Image Analysis of Children's Picture Books (Discourse Studies)
That gap aside, the book is a comprehensive introduction to approaches in discourse studies, and to how they can inform language education. In addition, it provides rich insights into how to do research on language education from a discourse perspective. It is written in a highly engaging and accessible manner. Hence, it is a must read for discourse analysts, language teachers, and researchers in language education.
Theorizing Visual Representation in Children's Literature
Journal of Literacy Research, 2008
Children's literature has been analyzed through a number of different theoretical lenses, including critical literacy, feminism, and multiculturalism. Yet, given the prominence that image plays in such literature, little if any work in literacy has analyzed children's literature from the perspective of art theory. This study first theorized how and why artists render visual representations as they do. It then used this theory to analyze images in Caldecott award-winning literature. Three findings emerged from the analysis: (a) image types cut across time, culture, and artists' rendering; (b) images embody stable representations of culture; and (c) images tend to render visual binaries and invite oppositional readings. Implications are discussed for developing and using a theory for the close reading of visual imagery in children's literature.
Education Sciences, 2020
Social sustainability embraces literacy development as a means by which children integrate their knowledge in society and become powerful and meaningful. In this context, the development of writing among young children requires the design of new teaching strategies that allow for the multimodal repertoire brought by children into the classroom. Systemic Functional Linguistics offers tools for the analysis of children's multimodal writing, which plays an important role in their literacy development. Our research was carried out in an urban context, the participants being 12 children aged 7 to 8. Data were collected through participant observation, conversations, and the analysis of documents and products generated by the children. From them, we analysed two stories written by two girls, which showed the way in which the children created meaning by combining verbal and visual modes, and how these modes interact (intersemiosis). The performance of a literacy task in which children are able to integrate their knowledge and heritage into the classroom, may constitute an interdisciplinary tool for their participation and engagement in the school, thus leading to a more equal society. In consequence, we propose that the integration of a genre-based pedagogy in the classroom should include greater awareness in teachers of the value of pupils' multimodal assessments.
The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy
In this paper, we draw upon Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reading to frame six readings of a picture book. The picture book, There’s a Ghost in This House by Oliver Jeffers, was selected for a children’s literature reading group which brought together literacy researchers and teacher educators to share their encounters with the text. The question “How did you read the book?” provoked us to examine how we had transacted with the text to generate interpretations. This work was presented at the “Stories that Matter” seminar alongside the other papers appearing in this special edition of the Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. In this paper, we highlight our own roles as readers encountering Jeffer’s book and reflect on our own responses as a way of explaining the multiple readings we present. We emphasise the place of intertextuality and intratextuality in reader response and argue that Rosenblatt’s transactional theory continues to be an important way of understanding ...