Pictorial and Multimodal Metaphors in Informational Picture Books for Children <br/>—A Case Study

Abstract

This article aims to explore how the use of pictorial and multimodal metaphors in informational picture books contributes to children’s understanding of the information or facts and, at the same time, attracts their interest in the plot of the story. The sample picture book selected for the analysis is Inside the Human Body, from The Magic School Bus series, the informational picture books written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen. Based on Forceville’s categorization of pictorial and multimodal metaphors, the sample text is analyzed from three perspectives, namely, the construction of the narrative reality transmitted in this picture book, the identity construction of the main characters and the interaction of pictorial and multimodal metaphors in the successfully representation of the information to the young viewer in the book. The results of the analysis show that pictorial metaphors are employed in the construction of the narrative reality transmitted in the picture book to make the plot of the story interesting and reasonable; the picture book resorts to multimodal designs to construct the unique identities of its main characters both verbally and pictorially; the text writer and the illustrator of the information picture book collaborate to present the concepts and information through the combination of different types of pictorial and multimodal metaphors. The analysis also suggests that most of the pictorial metaphors are represented with two pictorially present terms (MP2) and verbo-pictorial metaphors (VPMs).