An Intersemiotic Analysis of Pictures in Translated and Non-Translated Children’s Literature

Abstract

Illustrations in books play a significant role in the development of the story by re-narrating the story which is also presented in linguistic forms (words). This process is a type of translation (intersemiotic) as proposed by Jacobson (2000). Also words being accompanied by illustrations help children to better involve in and understand the story. Therefore it is necessary to pay close attention to the illustrations and the relationships they hold with the linguistic texts of the story. There seems to be differences between English and Persian children’s story books in terms of illustrations. The study and investigation of the importance as well as strengths/weaknesses of illustrations in original Persian stories for children can help writer develop better strategies to organize their stories in both linguistic forms and illustrations. In the present study a number of translated and original Persian children story books were collected. All the books have illustrations which accompany the texts of the books. Then all the texts were study carefully, analyzed and compared with their accompanying pictures (or illustrations). Each picture was analyzed based on its relationship with the corresponding text. The results of the study revealed that there are significant differences in illustrations in translated and non-translated children story books.