Reading Visual Narratives: Image Analysis of Children's Picture Books

196 Pages·2013·16.113 MB·English

by  Clare Painter

Reading Visual Narratives
Functional Linguistics
Series Editor: Robin P. Fawcett, Cardiff University
This series publishes monographs that seek to understand the nature of language by exploring
one or other of various cognitive models or in terms of the communicative use of language.
It concentrates on studies that are in, or on the borders of, various functional theories of
language.
Published
Explorations in Stylistics
Andrew Goatly
From Language to Multimodality: New Developments in the Study of Ideational Meaning
Edited by Carys Jones and Eija Ventola
Functional Dimensions of Ape–Human Discourse
Edited by James D. Benson and William S. Greaves
An Introduction to the Grammar of Old English: A Systemic Functional Approach
Michael Cummings
Meaningful Arrangement: Exploring the Syntactic Description of Texts
Edward McDonald
Morphosyntactic Alternations in English: Functional and Cognitive Perspectives
Edited by Pilar Guerrero Medina
System and Corpus: Exploring Connections
Edited by Geoff Thompson and Susan Hunston
Text Type and Texture
Edited by Gail Forey and Geoff Thompson
Forthcoming
Choice in Language: Applications in Text Analysis
Edited by Gerard O’Grady, Lise Fontaine and Tom Bartlett
Contrastive Discourse Analysis: Functional and Corpus Perspectives
Edited by Maite Taboada, Susana Doval Suarez and Elsa Gonzalez Alvarez
A Multimodal Approach to Classroom Discourse
Kay O’Halloran
Systemic Functional Perspectives of Japanese: Descriptions and Applications
Edited by Elizabeth Thomson and William Armour
The Texture of Casual Conversation: A Multidimensional Interpretation
Diana Slade and Christian Matthiessen
Voices Around the World – Recent Studies in Systemic Phonology. Volume 1: Focus on the
English Language
Edited by Wendy L. Bowcher and Bradley A. Smith
Reading Visual Narratives
Image Analysis in Children’s Picture Books
Clare Painter, J. R. Martin and Len Unsworth
Published by Equinox Publishing Ltd.
UK: Unit S3, Kelham House, 3 Lancaster Street, Sheffield S3 8AF
USA: ISD, 70 Enterprise Drive, Bristol, CT 06010
www.equinoxpub.com
First published 2012
© Clare Painter, J. R. Martin and Len Unsworth 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any infor-
mation storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-84553-198-0 (hardcover)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Painter, Clare, 1947–
Reading visual narratives : image analysis of children’s picture books / Clare Painter,
J. R. Martin and Len Unsworth.
p. cm. – (Functional linguistics)
ISBN 978-1-84553-198-0 (hardcover)
1. Picture books for children–History and criticism. 2. Narration (Rhetoric)
I. Martin, J. R., 1950– II. Unsworth, Len. III. Title.
PN1009.A1P228 2012
809’.89282–dc23
2012000196
Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan
Printed and bound in the UK by the MPG Books Group.
For Gunther

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
1 Reading the Visual in Children’s Picture Books 1
1.1 Picture books as a site for multimodal discourse analysis 1
1.2 The picture book and its criticism 4
1.3 Using systemic functional theory 6
1.4 The current study 10
2 Enacting Social Relations 15
2.1 Interpersonal meaning 15
2.2 focalisation 18
2.3 pathos and affect 30
2.4 ambience 35
2.5 graduation 44
2.6 Visual interpersonal meaning in The Tinpot Foreign General and
the Old Iron Woman 46
3 Construing Representations 53
3.1 Ideational meaning 53
3.2 Participants 55
3.3 Processes 68
3.4 Circumstances 78
3.5 Visual ideational meaning in Lucy’s Bay 83
4 Composing visual space 91
4.1 Textual meaning 91
4.2 intermodal integration 92
4.3 framing 103
4.4 focus 109
4.5 Visual textual meaning in Possum Magic 120
viii Contents
5 Intermodality: Image and Verbiage 133
5.1 Instantiation of meaning 133
5.2 Visual–verbal instantiation in Way Home 148
5.3 Coda 156
References 173
Index 183
Preface
The research we are voicing in this book was initially inspired by Talia Gill’s 2002
honours thesis, entitled Visual and Verbal Playmates: An Exploration of Visual and
Verbal Modalities in Children’s Picture Books (Department of Linguistics, University
of Sydney). This groundbreaking work drew on systemic functional models of lan-
guage and image to analyse intermodality in Anthony Browne’s Gorilla and Helen
Cooper’s The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed. Talia’s work convinced Len, Clare and
Jim of the need for further research on verbiage/image relations in picture books.
In 2003 an internal University of Sydney grant allowed us to employ Talia on a
part-time basis to advance the work and prepare for a large external grant. In 2004
we successfully applied for an Australian Research Council Discovery grant, which
funded the project from 2005 to 2007. This grant funded Sumin Zhao to under-
take her doctoral study on the pedagogic discourse of electronic primary school
social science resources. It also provided further part-time funding for Talia, and in
addition for Maree Stenglin and Chris Cleirigh. Chris worked closely with Len on
primary school science texts, and also innovated some exciting work on Sendak’s
classic Where the Wild Things Are. During this period Ariane Welch undertook
pioneering work on facial affect as part of her honours program, and this was fol-
lowed up by Ping Tian in her doctoral study of evaluation in Anthony Browne’s
picture books.
During 2007, 2008 and 2009 Clare and Jim met weekly to adapt the analysis of
images proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (Reading Images 1996, 2006) to what
we found in children’s picture books, alongside working up a model of verbiage/
image relations. Len attended these meetings on a regular basis, supporting the
discussions and reporting on his science text research. Over 2010 and 2011 Clare
then carefully compiled the collective research into the present volume, usually
able to rely on little more than editorial support from her ‘co-authors’. Len and Jim
gratefully acknowledge Clare’s tremendous contribution to ensuring this book has
gone to press in a timely fashion.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all in our systemic functional
community who lent an ear and gave advice in support of this work during
x Preface
presentations in our Sydney Friday afternoon systemic-functional linguistics semi-
nar series, regional systemic-functional linguistics meetings in Mendoza, Miraflores,
Gorizia, Armidale, Brisbane and Adelaide, and international ISFC congresses in
Odense, Sydney and Beijing.
Over the decades, our colleague, comrade and friend, Gunther Kress, has been
a constant source of inspiration as far as our work on genre, education and social
semiosis is concerned. We dedicate this work to him in honor of his ongoing initia-
tives opening up the field of children’s interaction with words and pictures from
home through school.