www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org TOWARDS A VISUAL DISCOURSE IN CHILDREN’S PICTUREBOOKS: BEATRIX POTTER’S THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT (1902), JOHN MARSDEN’S AND SHAUN TAN’S THE RABBITS (1998) MARWA ESSAM ELDIN FAHMI Assistant Professor, Department of English, College of Foreign Languages & Translation, MISR University for Science & Technology, Giza, Egypt ABSTRACT The present paper examines the contribution of visuals to narration, a process proposed by G. Kress and T. van Leeuwen as “reading images”. Illustrations are created by the innovative use of line, shape, color and other aesthetic choices to evoke setting, establish character, convey theme, display information, explain a concept or create a mood. The selected Children’s picture books – to my knowledge - have not been studied against their fluid textual entity incorporating lexical and visual signs codified in an interaction of word, image, and reader. The picture book, as a potential sign, conveys a narrative through verbal language and visual grammar. The point of departure is that the analysis relies heavily on the Kress and van Leeuwen theoretical framework of visual semiotics. It is my attempt to address the following questions in Potter’s, Marsden’s, and Tan’s visuals: 1) What is the purpose of each picture? 2) Is it narrative, referential, or symbolic? 3) Do the pictures add details to the text that are not in it? 4) Do the pictures leave room for the child’s imagination, do they have gaps, or is everything in the text depicted in the pictures? KEYWORDS: Multimodal Theory, Postmodern Picture Book, Visual Semiotics, Children's Literature Received: Oct 07; Accepted: Oct 10; Published: Oct 20; Paper Id: IJELDEC20152 INTRODUCTION “What is the use of a book”, thought Alice, “without pictures and conversations?” (Carroll, Alice in WonderLand: 2) The present paper examines the contribution of visuals to narration, a process proposed by Gunther Kress and Thao van Leeuwen as “reading images” in relation to children’s picturebooks, a canon of literature worthy of serious analysis and investigation. Most discussions of children’s picturebooks dwell on their educational uses and visual literacy is restricted in classroom activities curriculum. Furthermore, the illustrative content of children’s picturebooks goes unremarked or mentioned superficially despite the naming of the illustrators on the title page. Yet, Perry Nodelman's Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Book, 1988, Maria Nikolajeva's and Carole Scott's How Picture Books Work, 2001, in addition, David Lewis's Picturing Text: the Contemporary Children’s Picture book, 2001, to name just a few, are notable literary scholars who have been in pursuit of the metalanguage of picturebooks. John Stephens, in Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction (1992), turns to look toward the ideological dimensions of the picturebook. Stephens holds the belief that learning Original Article International Journal of English and Literature (IJEL) ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028 Vol. 5, Issue 6, Dec 2015, 9-28 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.