Title: A multimodal analysis of Daddy's Roommate : deconstructing compositional and interpersonal meanings
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2020, vol. 46, iss. 2, pp. 25-46
Extent
25-46
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2020-2-2
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/143205
Type: Article
Language
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
This paper employs the model to analyse visual narratives in children's picturebooks proposed by Painter, Martin and Unsworth (2013) and Kress and van Leeuwen's visual social semiotics (2006), in order to observe the main compositional and interpersonal meanings created in the picturebook Daddy's Roommate. The aim of the study is to look at the position of the readers in the story and to observe the way the characters are represented and the relationships between them. The role of the mother will also be deconstructed, due to her importance in the story. I will analyse the main characteristics of the interpersonal and compositional metafunctions by exploring the way in which the visual and textual component create meaning. The methodology is mainly qualitative-descriptive. The analysis reveals that the abundance of middle-shots and close-ups suggest involvement between the characters represented in the book and the reader. Moreover, the predominance of offers points out that the reader is invited to observe the relationship and the actions that the child has with Daddy and his roommate and to see how positive it is. The compositional meanings show that both Daddy and his roommate appear in prominent positions to show that they are important in the child's life. In most cases, the written theme coincides with the visual one as a way to reinforce the complementary meaning of both modes of communication in the story.
Note
This study was carried out as part of the research project FFI2017-85306-P (The Construction of Discourse in Children's Picturebooks, AMULIT), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness.
References
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[31] Painter, Claire (2018) Multimodal analysis of picturebooks. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. New York: Routledge, 420–428.
[32] Painter, Claire, James Martin and Len Unsworth. (2013) Reading Visual Narratives. Image Analysis of Children's Picturebooks. London: Equinox.
[33] Pinar, Mª Jesús and A. Jesús Moya (2016) Irony and Humor in Princess Smarthypants. Brno Studies in English 42, 93–111.
[34] Rowell, Elisabeth (2007) Missing! Picturebooks reflecting gay and lesbian families make the curriculum inclusive for all children. Young Children 62 (3), 24–30.
[35] Serafini, Frank (2010) Reading multimodal texts: perceptual, structural and ideological perspectives. Children's Literature in Education 41, 85–104. | DOI 10.1007/s10583-010-9100-5
[36] Soler Quiles, Guillermo (2015) La representación de la realidad afectivo-sexual en la literatura infantil y juvenil de América Latina. América sin nombre 20, 63–72. | DOI 10.14198/AMESN.2015.20.05
[37] Sunderland, Jane (2012) Language, Gender and C children's Fiction. London: Continuum.
[38] Sunderland, Jane and Mark Mclashan (2012) Stories featuring two-mum or two-dad families. In: Sunderland, Jane (ed.) Language, Gender and Children's Fiction. London: Continuum, 142–172.
[39] Unsworth, Len (2006) Towards a metalanguage for multiliteracies education: Describing the meaningmaking resources of language-image interaction. English Teaching: Practice and Critique 5 (1), 55–76.
[40] Unsworth Len. (2010) Resourcing multimodal literacy pedagogy. Toward a description of the meaning-making resources of language-image interaction. In: Locke, Terry (ed.), Beyond the Grammar Wars. London: Routledge, 276–293.
[41] Unsworth, Len (2014) Multimodal reading comprehension: Curriculum expectations and large-scale literacy testing practices. Pedagogies: An International Journal 9, 26–44. | DOI 10.1080/1554480X.2014.878968
[42] Unsworth, Len and Isabel Ortigas (2008) Exploring the narrative art of David Wiesner: Using a grammar of visual design and learning experiences on the world wide web. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 8 (3), 1–21.
[43] van Leeuwen, Theo (2005a) Introducing social semiotics. London: Routledge.
[44] van Leeuwen, Theo (2005b) Multimodality, genre and design. In: Norris, Sigrid and Rodney H. Jones (eds.) Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge, 73–94.
[45] Van Leeuwen, Theo (2008) Discourse and Practice. New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
[46] van Leeuwen, Theo. (2011) The Language of Colour: An Introduction. London: Routledge.
[47] Willhoite, Michael. (1989) Daddy's Roommate. New York: Alyson Wonderland.
[2] Bateman, John A. (2011) The decomposability of semiotic modes. In: O'Halloran, Kay L. and Smith, Bradley A. (eds.) Multimodal studies: Multiple Approaches and Domains. Routledge Studies in Multimodality. London: Routledge, 17–38.
[3] Campagnaro, Marnie (2015) 'These books made me really curious'. How visual explorations shape the young readers' taste. In: Evans, Janet (ed.) Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks. Creative and visual responses to visual texts. London: Routledge, 121–143.
[4] Coats, Karen (2018) Gender in picturebooks. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. New York: Routledge, 119–127.
[5] Daneš, František (1974) Functional sentence perspective and the organization of the text. In: Danes, Frantisek (ed.) Papers on Functional Sentence Perspective. Academic: Prague, 106–128.
[6] Elleström, Lars (2010) The modalities of media: A model for understanding intermedial relations. In: Elleström, Lars (ed.) Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality. London: Palgrave, 11–48.
[7] Evans, Janet (ed.) (2015) Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks: Creative and Critical Responses to Visual Texts. London: Routledge.
[8] Halliday, Michael A.K. and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen (2014) An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 4th edn. London: Arnold.
[9] Hamer, Naomi, Perry and Nodelman Mavies Reimer (eds.). (2017) More Words about Pictures: Current Research on Picturebooks and Visual/Verbal Texts for Young People. New York: Routledge.
[10] Kress, Gunther (1998) Visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically mediated communication: The potentials of new forms of text. In: Snyder, Ilana (ed.) Page to Screen: Taking Literacy into the Electronic Era. London and New York: Routledge, 53–79.
[11] Kress, Gunther (2010) Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge.
[12] Kress, Gunther and Teo van Leeuwen (2002) Colour as a semiotic mode: notes for a grammar of colour. Visual Communication 1 (3), 343–368. | DOI 10.1177/147035720200100306
[13] Kress, Gunther and Teo van Leeuwen (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. 2nd edn. London: Routledge Press.
[14] Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.). (2014) Picturebooks: Representation and Narration. New York: Routledge.
[15] Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina, Jörg Meibauer, Kerstin Nachtigäller and Katharina Rohlfing, (eds.). (2015) Learning from Picturebooks: Perspectives from Child Development and Literacy Studies. New York: Routledge.
[16] Lewis, David. (2001) Reading Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing Text. London: Routledge-Falmer.
[17] Molina, Silvia and Isabel Alonso (2016) The construction of meaning in multimodal discourse. A digital story as a case study. In: Romano, Manuela and Porto, Maria Dolores (eds.) Exploring Discourse Strategies in Social and Cognitive Interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
[18] John Benjamins, 111–135.
[19] Moya Guijarro, A. Jesús (2014) A Multimodal Analysis of Picturebooks for Children. A Systemic Functional approach. London: Equinox.
[20] Moya Guijarro, A. Jesús (2017). Processing Reality in Picturebooks. In: Neumann, Stella, Wegener, Rebekah, Fest, Jennifer, Niemietz, Paula and Hützen, Nicole (eds.) Challenging Boundaries in Linguistics: Systemic Functional Perspectives. Aachen British and American
[21] Studies Series. Frankfurt and Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 431–458.
[22] Moya Guijarro, A. Jesús (2019a). Communicative functions of visual metonymies in picturebooks targeted at children in two different age groups. A multimodal analysis. WORD 65 (4), 1–20. https://doi-org.ezproxy.muni.cz/10.1080/00437956.2019.1670932
[23] Moya Guijarro, A. Jesús (2019b) Textual functions of metonymies in Anthony Browne's picturebooks: A multimodal approach. Text and Talk 39 (3), 389–413. https://doi-org.ezproxy.muni.cz/10.1080/00437956.2019.1670932 | DOI 10.1515/text-2019-2034
[24] Nikolajeva, Maria (2014) Emotion Emphasis: Representation of emotions in children's picturebooks. In: Machin, David (ed.) Visual Communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 711–729.
[25] Nikolajeva, Maria (2018) Emotions in picturebooks. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. New York: Routledge, 110–118.
[26] O'Halloran, Kay L. (2004) Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Systemic Functional Perspectives. London: Continuum.
[27] O'Halloran, Kay. L. (2008) Systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA): constructing ideational meaning using language and visual imagery. Visual Communication 7, 443–475. | DOI 10.1177/1470357208096210
[28] O'Halloran, Kay L., Sabine Tan, Bradley A. Smith and Alexey Podlasov A. (2011) Multimodal analysis within an interactive software environment: critical discourse perspectives. Critical Discourse Studies 8, 109–125. | DOI 10.1080/17405904.2011.558687
[29] Painter, Claire. (2007) Children's picturebooks narratives: Reading sequences of images. In: McCabe, Anne, O'Donnell, Mick and Whittaker, Rachel (eds.) Advances in Language and Education. London and New York: Continuum, 40–59.
[30] Painter, Claire (2008) The Role of Colour in Children's Picturebooks: Choices in Ambience. In: Unsworth, Len (ed.) New Literacies and the English Curriculum: Perspectives. London: Continuum, 89–111.
[31] Painter, Claire (2018) Multimodal analysis of picturebooks. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. New York: Routledge, 420–428.
[32] Painter, Claire, James Martin and Len Unsworth. (2013) Reading Visual Narratives. Image Analysis of Children's Picturebooks. London: Equinox.
[33] Pinar, Mª Jesús and A. Jesús Moya (2016) Irony and Humor in Princess Smarthypants. Brno Studies in English 42, 93–111.
[34] Rowell, Elisabeth (2007) Missing! Picturebooks reflecting gay and lesbian families make the curriculum inclusive for all children. Young Children 62 (3), 24–30.
[35] Serafini, Frank (2010) Reading multimodal texts: perceptual, structural and ideological perspectives. Children's Literature in Education 41, 85–104. | DOI 10.1007/s10583-010-9100-5
[36] Soler Quiles, Guillermo (2015) La representación de la realidad afectivo-sexual en la literatura infantil y juvenil de América Latina. América sin nombre 20, 63–72. | DOI 10.14198/AMESN.2015.20.05
[37] Sunderland, Jane (2012) Language, Gender and C children's Fiction. London: Continuum.
[38] Sunderland, Jane and Mark Mclashan (2012) Stories featuring two-mum or two-dad families. In: Sunderland, Jane (ed.) Language, Gender and Children's Fiction. London: Continuum, 142–172.
[39] Unsworth, Len (2006) Towards a metalanguage for multiliteracies education: Describing the meaningmaking resources of language-image interaction. English Teaching: Practice and Critique 5 (1), 55–76.
[40] Unsworth Len. (2010) Resourcing multimodal literacy pedagogy. Toward a description of the meaning-making resources of language-image interaction. In: Locke, Terry (ed.), Beyond the Grammar Wars. London: Routledge, 276–293.
[41] Unsworth, Len (2014) Multimodal reading comprehension: Curriculum expectations and large-scale literacy testing practices. Pedagogies: An International Journal 9, 26–44. | DOI 10.1080/1554480X.2014.878968
[42] Unsworth, Len and Isabel Ortigas (2008) Exploring the narrative art of David Wiesner: Using a grammar of visual design and learning experiences on the world wide web. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature 8 (3), 1–21.
[43] van Leeuwen, Theo (2005a) Introducing social semiotics. London: Routledge.
[44] van Leeuwen, Theo (2005b) Multimodality, genre and design. In: Norris, Sigrid and Rodney H. Jones (eds.) Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge, 73–94.
[45] Van Leeuwen, Theo (2008) Discourse and Practice. New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
[46] van Leeuwen, Theo. (2011) The Language of Colour: An Introduction. London: Routledge.
[47] Willhoite, Michael. (1989) Daddy's Roommate. New York: Alyson Wonderland.