Multimodal Mediation Through Picturebooks and Graphic Narratives

This collection critically examines the notion of mediation as it manifests itself at the intersection of multimodal literature, education, and translation studies, bringing together perspectives from established and early career scholars.

The volume seeks to synthesize the fields of education and translation by exploring points of difference and commonality through multimodal communication, which has grown increasingly crucial in both fields, and how these intersect in picturebooks and graphic narratives, including graphic novels, illustrated books, and other related genres. The book begins with considerations on the multimodal as mediator and how multimodal forms mediate their messages for educational contexts. Next, the exploration of translation as mediation and mediation as translation contemplates the ways in which picturebooks serve as intersemiotic translations of previously verbal texts and as a means of translating abstract concepts into tangible forms. Finally, there is a showcase of empirical research on the mediation of multimodal literature in diverse education settings from around the world. Taken together, the collection makes the case for further study of mediation and multimodality as a valuable concept for advancing research in translation and education.

This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in multimodality, children’s literature, translation studies, and educational research.

Chapter 8 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Sandie Mourão is a Research Fellow at Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS), Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal, where she investigates early language learning and picturebooks, and coordinates the “Language teacher education and curriculum studies” research strand.

Karen Bennett is Associate Professor of Translation at Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal, where she coordinates not only the Master’s programme in Translation, but also the “Translationality” research strand at the Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS).