Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Looking at picturebook covers multimodally
T2 - the case of two-mum and two-dad picturebooks
AU - Sunderland, Jane
AU - Mcglashan, Mark
PY - 2013/11
Y1 - 2013/11
N2 - Picturebooks featuring gay parents, although growing in number, remain underexplored. In this paper we look at the covers of four such picturebooks, in particular at the representation of the co-parents and the multimodal workings of image and text. This study is timely in that the image-text relationship is a contested one. Drawing on the notions of modal affordance and epistemological commitment and the Hallidayan functional grammar category of enhancement, we use Theo van Leeuwen’s Social Actors frameworks (2008, 1996, 1995), in particular the Visual Representation frameworks, to show that image and text are not commensurate in the meanings they communicate. Further, rather than one mode being merely supportive of the other, image and text, here, are mutually enhancing. In these picturebooks, gay identities can – and indeed need to - be read through an appreciation of this mutual enhancement, rather than through image or text (title) alone or in parallel.
AB - Picturebooks featuring gay parents, although growing in number, remain underexplored. In this paper we look at the covers of four such picturebooks, in particular at the representation of the co-parents and the multimodal workings of image and text. This study is timely in that the image-text relationship is a contested one. Drawing on the notions of modal affordance and epistemological commitment and the Hallidayan functional grammar category of enhancement, we use Theo van Leeuwen’s Social Actors frameworks (2008, 1996, 1995), in particular the Visual Representation frameworks, to show that image and text are not commensurate in the meanings they communicate. Further, rather than one mode being merely supportive of the other, image and text, here, are mutually enhancing. In these picturebooks, gay identities can – and indeed need to - be read through an appreciation of this mutual enhancement, rather than through image or text (title) alone or in parallel.
KW - affordance
KW - enhancement
KW - epistemological commitment
KW - mode
KW - multimodality
KW - picturebooks
KW - representation
KW - sexual identity
KW - sexuality
KW - visual representation
U2 - 10.1177/1470357212471474
DO - 10.1177/1470357212471474
M3 - Journal article
VL - 12
SP - 473
EP - 496
JO - Visual Communication
JF - Visual Communication
SN - 1741-3214
IS - 4
ER -