Abstract
In this social-semiotic account of the meaning potential of multimodal texts in a number of children’s picture books (CPB), the authors describe the ways in which images construe representations of the world, enact social relations and create a textual composition that allows for children to be apprenticed into the world of reading. Such endeavor is ultimately enriched by also taking into account the verbal language at play, especially in terms of the intermodal meanings that arise from the synergistic work between these two semiotic resources. Analyses are carried out by exploring concepts of systemic-functional linguistics (SFL) (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) as well as extending existing accounts of visual meaning (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006). The book should be of interest to those carrying out research in the areas of (multimodal) discourse, SFL and (children’s) literacy.
The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 highlights the importance of CPB in the process whereby children are ‘apprenticed into literacy, literature and social values’ (p. 1). The authors stress that images should no longer be understood as mere complementation of the meanings construed by verbal language. The main aim of the book is to develop analytical tools for understanding the meaning potential of images as well as carrying out intermodal analysis by drawing on, and contributing to, work in multimodal discourse analysis, social semiotics and SFL. The authors do so by building on the work of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) and, most importantly, extending it in terms of what the analysis of CPB can add to existing descriptions of images. At the end of the chapter, information is given on the data, the unit of analysis and the structure of the book.
Chapter 2 deals with interpersonal meaning insofar as the visual resources of images in CPB are analyzed in terms of the social relations at play. The authors emphasize the significance of the image in helping children create an affective relationship with the book. They propose additional meaning systems to those found in Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), which is arguably one of their major contributions to current social-semiotic accounts of the meaning potential of images. To the previously known systems of distance, attitude, contact and modality, the authors add focalization, affect, pathos, ambience and graduation, which are usefully explained with examples from the data. However, they also propose adaptations to the systems previously proposed. For instance, in addition to describing distance between characters and reader, the authors propose to address it between depicted characters themselves, which is interestingly described as the system of ‘proximity’ (p. 16). Regrettably, no networks are presented for a few systems discussed, which makes it less reader-friendly at times.
Still in Chapter 2, the authors describe their proposed systems of pathos (realizing reader alignment), ambience (creating an emotional mood or atmosphere) and graduation (realizing attitudinal meanings). Again, no network is provided for the system of ambience, and though this system is principally realized by the use of color, the images in the book are not presented in their original colors, which is clearly a limiting reality found in publications about multimodality. This chapter and the following ones end with a useful analysis of one of the CPB from the data, which helps the reader to see the theoretical concepts presented in more practical terms.
Chapter 3 tackles the ideational dimension of experience by relying on present-day descriptions of verbal language and adapting/extending the work of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) in order to propose a framework that is more suited to describe the meaning potential of images in CPB. The alternative offered is closer to Halliday’s terminology for verbal language, which arguably makes it easier for the reader to understand the analysis of intermodal complementarity in Chapter 5. Chapter 4 deals with compositional meaning, describing how images in CPB make use of layout (integrated or complementary), framing (bound or unbound) and focus (centrifocal or iterating) so as to construe particular meanings. As in previous chapters, these elements are described in rather useful system networks.
Finally, in Chapter 5, the focus is on the analysis of discourse rather than on building system networks. Verbal language is an integral part of CPB, so this chapter is especially important in the context of this book. The authors underline the essential work in analyzing the interaction between verbal language and visual images. Exploring the notion of intermodal complementarity, they draw on SFL, mainly the dimension of instantiation, which relates the overall meaning potential of a semiotic system with the specific texts that are instantiated. Mobilizing this dimension, they propose to approach intermodal complementarity by means of two main notions: coupling and commitment. Their proposal differs from other SFL-based research on intermodal relations in that it does not ‘analogise from the text-forming resources of language to explain intermodality’ (p. 134).
In conclusion, the authors have achieved their goal to contribute to existing descriptions of visual meaning as well as intermodality. This book should be of particular interest to those looking to diversify their work with images in educational contexts, since it offers theoretically sound networks and frameworks to inform analysis at varying levels. Nevertheless, due to its perceived concern with reading images as part of a multiliteracy project, the book would have profited from a section considering pedagogical implications of the work in the classroom with the concepts proposed. The greatest achievements of this volume have been to call further attention to the relevance of images as semiotic resources in their own right, to adapt and extend previous work on visual meaning, thus contributing to the field in a very practical manner, and to provide a framework to deal with meanings that arise from the interrelation between verbal language and images – all of that adding to our understanding that multimodal texts should be seen as indispensable resources in fostering literacy projects that aim to emancipate people to become critical readers in contemporary society.