See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/269094278

Analyzing the Semiotic Potential of Typographic Resources in Picture Books in

English and in Translation

Article  in  International Research in Children s Literature · January 2014

CITATIONS READS

0 275

1 author:

Len Unsworth
Australian Catholic University, Australia,Sydney
108 PUBLICATIONS   1,960 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

‘Digital Multimodal Adaptations of Children’s Literature: Semiotic Analyses and Classroom Applications’. View project

Developing a grammatics good enough for school English View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Len Unsworth on 29 June 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Unsworth, L., Meneses, A., Ow, M., & Castillo, G. (2014). Analyzing the Semiotic Potential of
Typographic Resources in Picture Books in English and in Translation. International Research
in Children's Literature, 7(2), 117-135.

Analysing the Semiotic Potential of

Typographic Resources in Picture Books in
English and in Translation

LEN UNSWORTH, ALEJANDRA MENESES, MAILI OW

GONZÁLEZ AND GUILLERMO CASTILLO

Picture books frequently make use of distinctive typography to indicate emphasis or evaluative
expression, distinguish particular characters and contribute to the interpretive possibilities of the
narrative in a variety of ways. However, the potential significance of typography is not always
taken into account in discussion of the interpretation of children’s literature or in picture book
translation. In this paper we investigate the influence of typography in interaction with language
choices on the interpretive possibilities of Oliver Jeffers’ picture book STUCK (2011) and
discuss the interpretive impact of the different typography and language choices in the Spanish
translation, ATRAPADO S (Jeffers, 2012). Our investigation is informed by recent semiotic
work on typography and accounts of evaluative resources in English, drawing on systemic
functional linguistics and its application toresearchingtheliterarynarrativetechniques of picture
books. Our analyses illuminatetherelationships amongthenarrativegenre, grammar, typography
and thematic interpretation of the texts and how the latter is influenced by translation. The
importance of further exploration of typography in picture books and extension to the ‘animated’
typographical resources in electronic versions of picture books is briefly noted.
Key wor d s: Oliver Jeffers, picture books, typography, literary translation, multimodality,
systemic functional linguistics

INTRODUCTION
Picture books frequently make use of distinctive typography in their multimodal
construction of the interpretive possibilities of stories, as for example in Anthony
Browne’s Voices in the Park, in Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks, little red
hood by Marjolaine Leray and in O liver Jeffers’ STUCK. As well as common

International Research in Children’s Literature 7.2 (2014): 117–135

Edinburgh University Press
DO I: 10.3366/ ircl.2014.0127
© International Research Society for Children’s Literature
www.euppublishing.com/ ircl
118 LEN UNSWORTH ET AL.

conventions, such as relatively larger or upper case font to indicate shouting or

emphasis, sometimes distinctive fonts are used for different characters, and not
uncommonly these font choices also imply certain evaluations of the characters.
Variation within a particular typographical choice for a character, perhaps
through relative size or colour of some words, may indicate the character’s
evaluation of what is occurring in the story. While typography makes its own
distinctive contribution to the meanings at stake (Goodman and Graddol;
van Leeuwen) as shown in studies of advertisements (Spillner) and comics
(Bateman), to date there has been little research on the role of typography as
a semiotic resource in picture books (Serafini and Clausen). Drawing on systemic
functional linguistics (SFL) (Halliday and Matthiessen) and the grammar of visual
design (Kress and van Leeuwen), van Leeuwen has proposed that typography,
like language and images, fulfils simultaneously three broad communicative
functions: it can represent actions and qualities – this is its ideational function;
typography can also indicate interaction among characters and express attitudes
to what is being represented – this is its interpersonal function; and it can
communicate relative emphasis on elements of greater or lesser importance – this
is its textual or compositional function. Typography can also contribute to
meaning-making through ‘coupling’ of typographical choices with particular
language choices of vocabulary and grammar (Painter and Martin 144–7). This
means a consistent linking of a particular font type or size with, for example, all
occurrences of adjectives concerning sadness, or with the commands uttered by
a selected character to suggest aggression. Such consistent linking of typography
with commands by a particular character exemplifies a co-patterning of different
meaning-making resources to privilege certain interpretive possibilities with
respect to that character. In this paper, we investigate the role of typography
in the construction of the interpretive possibilities of O liver Jeffers’ picture
book STUCK and we discuss the interpretive impact of the difference in the
typography and in the linguistic choices in the Spanish translation, ATRAPADOS.
O liver Jeffers comments on his website that STUCK is ‘A tale about trying
to solve a problem by throwing things at it’ (www.oliverjeffers.com). Floyd is
a young boy who gets his kite stuck up a tree. He throws up his shoe to shift
it, but that gets stuck too. He then throws his other shoe and that gets stuck,
along with . . . a ladder and a bucket of paint. But gradually Floyd’s choice of
projectiles becomes increasingly bizarre and includes the kitchen sink, an orang-
utan, a whale, the house next door and all manner of other outrageous objects
and individuals. Eventually, his kite comes unstuck. In the effort of throwing so
many things into the tree Floyd had forgotten about his kite and, once retrieved,
he puts it to immediate use, enjoying the rest of his day. That night he goes to
bed exhausted but he could have sworn he was forgetting something.
The first section of the paper outlines the semiotic resources of typography
deployed in STUCK. Section two discusses examples of the use of typography
to indicate actions and qualities (ideational function); to suggest attitudinal
meaning – similar to the way people use upper case and exclamation marks
to communicate their insistence or annoyance (interpersonal function); and to
TYPOGRAPHIC RESOURCES IN PICTURE BOOKS 119

Fig. 1. Typography in English and Spanish versions of STUCK by Oliver Jeffers.

Reproduced with permission of Fondo de Cultura Economica USA, Inc., San Diego, CA.

draw attention to or give particular emphasis to what is being communicated

through the language (textual or compositional function). Section three describes
the contribution of typography to the communication of attitude through the
coupling of specified typographic features with particular patterns of vocabulary
and grammatical choices. In section four the significance of the distribution of
these different types of coupling in the various stages of narrative structure is
discussed. The next section draws together key issues to outline the interaction of
typography, translation and literary interpretation. In conclusion we emphasise
the importance of further exploration of typography in picture books and
extension to the ‘animated’ typographical resources in electronic versions of
picture books.

THE SEMIOTICS OF TYPOGRAPHY AND NARRATOR VOICE

The difference in typography in the English and Spanish versions of STUCK
can be seen in Figure 1. The typography in the English version resembles the
handwriting of a child about the same age as the protagonist, while that in
ATRAPADOS only moderately evokes this perception.
What is most obvious in the English typography is the combination of
different letter formation styles including upper case and lower case and the
variation in letter size. Larger letter size and upper case both indicate salience
but they can also invoke insistence or dissatisfaction, and perhaps frustration or
120 LEN UNSWORTH ET AL.

Fig. 2. Happiness, satisfaction and a corresponding more cursive and regular typography.

annoyance, which is the case in the last line in Figure 1, ‘WO ULDN’T CO ME
UNSTUCK’.
The typography seems to represent a child’s writing. This is principally
due to different kinds of irregularity. The style of letter formation varies within
words. For example, in Figure 1, ‘WO ULDN’T’ is printed upper case with a
cursive writing letter ‘O ’. This form of variation within words occurs in a very
large proportion of the lower- and upper-case text presentation. There are some
regular patterns of variation of this kind, such as the letter ‘O ’ also in the words
‘FAVO URITE SHO E’ on the second opening, but additionally there is evidence
of more random variation such as the lowercase letter ‘n’ in printed form in the
word ‘swinging’ in Figure 1 and as a cursive letter ‘n’ in the word ‘began’ on
the following opening. This is connected with variation in connectivity so that,
for example, in Figure 1 the ‘s’ in ‘his’ is not connected, whereas in ‘his’ on
the subsequent opening the letters are all connected.1 There are many other
forms of variation in regularity such as the size of letters within words, the size
of the typography in different lines and the positioning of letters within a word
above or below the ‘line’ on which the word is located. While these variations
all contribute to the perception of the typography as a young child’s script, the
contrasts between the slope and connectivity of the cursive and print styles and
the variation in the size and case of the letters suggest interpersonally the state of
dissatisfaction and agitation. When the affect moves to happiness and satisfaction
at the conclusion of the story there is relatively more regularity and a more
cursive orientation to the letter formation as exemplified in Figure 2.
Some patterns of choices within the typographic options taken up in STUCK
construct specific ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings. These will be
discussed in the next section.
In ATRAPADOS there are only three occasions when there is any variation
from the typography shown in Figure 1. The first is the larger font size
of the first two words in Figure 1. The second is upper case for the word
‘DEFINITIVAMENTE’, when the ladder Floyd borrowed from a neighbour
would definitelyneed to be returned before anyone noticed, and the final occasion,
similar to the English version, is the use of very large font in opening 11 (‘and
they ALL GO T STUCK’). The consistent use of the font as shown in Figure 1
TYPOGRAPHIC RESOURCES IN PICTURE BOOKS 121

does not include any typographical indication of salience, as the ‘weight’ includes
no bold typeface. The font is completely regular with none of the variations
evident in the English version. The font is not expanded or condensed and is
not oriented to the vertical or horizontal, as the ascenders and descenders on
the letters are neither exceptionally high nor low. In terms of slope some letters,
such as ‘b’, are consistently oriented to the left and others, such as ‘l’, to the
right. The curvature is rounded, suggesting calmness and harmony, and even
though there is no connectivity and opposing slopes for some letters, which could
suggest disharmony, overall the rounded curvature seems to invoke a sense of
interpersonal stability in contrast to the overall effect of the typography in the
English version.

TYPOGRAPHICAL COMMUNICATION OF IDEATIONAL,

INTERPERSONAL AND TEXTUAL FUNCTIONS
Typography has been shown to communicate specific ideational, interpersonal
and textual meanings through the selection of particular options among
distinctive features of weight, expansion, slope, curvature, connectivity,
orientation and regularity. This can be seen on the second opening of STUCK
when Floyd threw his favourite shoe to knock his kite loose from the tree.
The noun group ‘the kite’ is shown in completely connected cursive script and
the very next word, ‘loose’, is shown in completely disconnected print with
somewhat expanded space between each letter and the next, an elongated
letter ‘s’ and an very open letter ‘e’. This is akin to what Lim referred
to as ‘homospatiality’, where two different semiotic modes co-occur in one
spatially bonded homogenous entity. He provided the example of the linguistic
representation ‘snaaap’, which visually appears with the ‘sna’ segment forming
one arm of an inverted ‘V’ shape and the ‘aap’ segment forming the other arm,
so that it appears that the word itself has ‘snapped’.
In a somewhat different manner ideational meaning can be communicated
through progressive change in typographic representation. For example, in
Figure 1 the word ‘stuck’ is represented with the letter ‘s’ unconnected in a
print form, then the next three letters in connected cursive form, and the final
‘k’ again in unconnected print form. This representation is maintained for the
second appearance of this word on the opening following Figure 1, but from
then on for five subsequent representations ‘stuck’ is represented in completely
unconnected print form. Similarly the changing typographic representation of
‘threw’ seems to suggest an increasing forcefulness. The first representation
shows the ‘t’ unconnected, followed by a connected cursive ‘hr’ and then an
unconnected ‘ew’ in print form. O n the next occurrence of the word the initial
‘th’ is connected cursive, followed by a disconnected ‘r’ and then a connected
‘ew’, and then the next version is a connected cursive initial ‘thr’ sequence
followed by an unconnected ‘ew’ in print form, suggestive of a typographical
building of the represented process.
122 LEN UNSWORTH ET AL.

The well-known role of upper case and larger font in communicating

salience as well as negative affect such as dissatisfaction or annoyance has already
been noted. The use of upper case in the typography of the STUCK story is also
used to communicate surprise by suggesting tonal prominence within a word
through representing that part of the word in upper case and the rest of the
word in lower case. This occurs on three occasions. Firstly, after Floyd threw
his favourite shoe and it got stuck, he threw his other shoe and ‘UNBElievably’
that also got stuck. The intonation is suggested by not only the upper case at
the beginning of the word but also the way in which the remainder is presented:
the next segment ‘lie’ is in connected cursive style, then the ‘v’ is unconnected, the
‘ab’ is connected cursive and the ‘l’ and ‘y’ are unconnected. This suggests, as well
as the emphasising of the ‘UNBE’, elongating the pronunciation of ‘lie’ and ‘ab’,
and separating the pronunciation of the ‘l’ and ‘y’ to achieve the oral expression
of surprise. Surprise is similarly evoked typographically when a ‘RhinO CERO S’
and then a ‘LIGHThouse’ are selected as projectiles.
The most notable use of typography to communicate salience is when the
three words ‘ALL GO T STUCK’, each on a separate line, have letters large
enough so that these three words fill nearly the entire left hand page with the
picture of the tree containing all of the projectiles on the right hand side. The size
of the typography here also invokes an extreme affective response of surprised
annoyance.
The salience and affect communicated in the parallel openings of
ATRAPADOS is very much attenuated by the use of much smaller letters than
the English version.

COUPLING OF TYPOGRAPHIC AND LINGUISTIC EXPRESSION

OF EVALUATIVE MEANING
A distinctive pattern in the English version of STUCK is the coupling of
somewhat larger upper case letters with words expressing evaluative meaning.
Early in the book we encounter the following examples:
He threw up his other shoe to knock down his FAVO URITE SHO E.
. . . but this WAS GETTING RIDICULO US
The ladder was borrowed from a neighbour and would DEFINITELY need to be
put back before anyone noticed.

Evaluative language encompasses Affect (un/ happiness, dis/ satisfaction,

in/ security); Judgment of people, which can be normative in terms of relative
capacity or a moral judgment about the veracity or propriety of behaviour;
and Appreciation of non-human objects and entities, which refers to evaluation
of impact or quality, complexity, cohesion and significance (Martin and White
42–61). Clear patterns of coupling of typography and language choices occur in
the communication of Affect, Judgment and Appreciation in STUCK.
The positive Appreciation of Floyd’s ‘FAVO URITE SHO E’ is very clear.
This is not an experiential classification of his shoe as a ‘school’ shoe or a
TYPOGRAPHIC RESOURCES IN PICTURE BOOKS 123

‘sports’ shoe. And as an interpersonal evaluation it is very highly graduated – not

simply a shoe he liked or a much-loved shoe, but his ‘FAVO URITE’ shoe. This
effect is sustained through the upper case representation of the relative pronoun
‘and THAT got stuck too!’ The typography of ‘FAVO URITE’ graduates even
further the highly positive Appreciation, but the salience in the representation of
‘THAT’ in upper case also implicitly conveys negative Affect, involving surprise
and agitation. A similar coupling occurs in the evaluation of the event sequence
of two shoes and a cat becoming stuck in the tree as ‘. . . this WAS GETTING
RIDICULO US’. Here the implicit negative Affect involving dissatisfaction is
conveyed by the larger upper case lettering. This is coupled with the explicit
negative Appreciation of the event sequence as being ‘RIDICULO US’– again
highly graduated, so the event sequence was not just ‘silly’ or ‘weird’ but
‘RIDICULO US’. The changing size of the upper case lettering suggests an
intonation pattern that would also convey dissatisfaction – ‘WAS’ is the smallest
letter size, while in ‘GETTING’ the letter size is somewhat larger, and then the
‘RIDIC’ is larger still, while the rest of the word returns to the same size as
‘GETTING’. There is no explicit verbal expression of Floyd’s negative Affect
in the book (the only explicit verbal expression of positive Affect occurs in the
penultimate opening of the book). It is through the typography coupled only with
the explicit evaluative language of Appreciation that Floyd’s growing frustration
is conveyed indirectly – in addition to its portrayal in the images.
As well as its role in the communication of Affect and Appreciation, the
larger upper case lettering is coupled with implicit or explicit communication of
Judgment of propriety. There is an intimation of this on the second opening of
the book where larger upper case lettering, and underlining, is coupled with the
intensifying adverb ‘REALLY’:
The trouble REALLY began

At this point there is no explicit indication that ‘trouble’ entails any kind of
impropriety, and it may signify negative Appreciation in the sense of some kind of
harmful forthcoming happening, but the typographic intensification is suggestive
of something untoward. Later the coupling of larger upper case lettering with
the second intensifying adverb ‘DEFINITELY’ occurs in the context of implicit
Judgment of impropriety:
The ladder was borrowed
from a neighbour and
would DEFINITELY need to be put back before
anyone noticed.

The use of ‘DEFINITELY’ with the high modal verb ‘need to’, indicating
high obligation, strengthens the invoked Judgment of impropriety about the
‘borrowed’ ladder, and is further supported by the typographic graduation.
Towards the end of the story there is a concentration of explicit and highly
graduated Judgment of negative propriety following Floyd’s use of firemen and
their truck as projectiles.
124 LEN UNSWORTH ET AL.

Firemen would DEFINITELY

be noticed missing and
Floyd KNEW he’d be in
BIG TRO UBLE!
Both the explicit and implicit Judgment of Floyd’s impropriety are highly
intensified through the language and typography – by choosing ‘BIG’ and
‘DEFINITELY’ rather than ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’ and the use of upper case.
These are the only occurrences of Judgment of negative propriety and in each
case the larger upper case lettering is coupled only with the linguistic expressions
that directly communicate evaluation or connote or ‘flag’ evaluation through
intensification (Martin and White 65).
There are three other occasions where upper case lettering is coupled with
linguistic expressions that are highly intensified and therefore flag evaluation.
The well-known figurative expression ‘once and FO R ALL’ is a metaphorical
expression of an extremely high degree of certainly and finality, and since
Floyd ‘was going to sort this out once and FO R ALL’, it invokes Floyd’s
dissatisfaction as well as his tenacity. A further example of invoked dissatisfaction
and determination occurs when Floyd attempts to dislodge the ladder, which is
now stuck in the tree.
Floyd, FLUNG a BUCKET O F PAINT at it.
‘FLUNG’ does not explicitly evaluate anything, but it is clearly highly graduated.
It is not that Floyd simply ‘threw’ the bucket but that he ‘FLUNG’ it, which
suggests throwing with some violence and hence invokes negative Affect. Floyd’s
progressively intensified frustration is reflected in the progression in verb choice
from ‘threw’ to ‘flung’ to ‘hurled’– when he finally selected a saw, but also used it
as a projectile. The intensified language is coupled with the upper case lettering.
. . . and HURLED IT UP THE TREE.
The highly graduated ‘HURLED’, rather than ‘threw’ or even ‘flung’, addresses
the much greater energy involved, but the high level of intensification also
invokes Floyd’s extreme, if single-minded, tenacity and his frustration and
annoyance. All of these instances are consistent with the communication of Affect
being entirely implicit until the final double page opening.
As well as being coupled with the evaluative language concerning
Appreciation of objects and events and Judgment of the propriety of behaviour,
upper case typography is also coupled with the names of various of Floyd’s
chosen projectiles, such as the ‘FAMILY CAR’, ‘MILKMAN’ and ‘the HO USE
across the street’, as well as the process ‘KNO CK DO WN’. O stensibly these
projectiles and the knock-down process have no evaluative dimension concerning
Affect, Judgment or Appreciation, and it is difficult to discern why the names of
some would be in upper case while others such as the ‘orang-utan’ and ‘long-
distance lorry’ would not. Similarly ‘KNO CK DO WN’ appears in upper case
on two occasions: first when the orang-utan is the projectile and then later
with the lighthouse. O n the other occasions ‘knock’ is represented as a printed
TYPOGRAPHIC RESOURCES IN PICTURE BOOKS 125

disconnected initial ‘k’, a connected cursive ‘no’ and then a disconnected ‘c’ and
‘k’, while ‘down’ is most frequently represented as a cursive connected ‘dow’ and
a sometimes cursive and sometimes disconnected ‘n’. This apparently random
deployment of the upper case lettering actually suggests a rhythm of intonation
emphasis that conveys the frustration of the serial failure of the ongoing series of
projectiles, which can be appreciated in the following excerpt from the sequence
over two openings (9 and 10):
a small boat
to knock down the orang-utan . . .
a BIG BO AT to knock down the small boat . . .
a Rin RhinO CERO S
to knock down the
BIG boat . . .
a long-distance lorry
to knock down the
rhinoceros . . .
the HO USE across
the street to
knock down the
long-distance lorry . . .

This coupling then is consistent with the role of upper case in combination with
the language to provide a textual basis for the invoking of Affect, which does not
explicitly occur in the language until the last double page opening.

THE COUPLING OF TYPOGRAPHY, EVALUATIVE MEANING AND

STORY STRUCTURE
Following a succinct orientation introducing Floyd’s situation with his kite on the
first page, most of the story concerns the exponentially developing complexity of
the complication with progressive attempts to retrieve the kite. The resolution,
with the retrieval of the kite, is conveyed economically across the last two double
page openings.
The O rientation already invokes some frustration after Floyd’s repeated
attempts to dislodge his kite, which is implied in the modal verb ‘wouldn’t’,
so it wasn’t simply that Floyd’s kite ‘didn’t’ come unstuck – it ‘wouldn’t’ come
unstuck.
It all began when Floyd got his kite stuck in a tree.
He tried pulling and swinging but it wouldn’t come unstuck.
In the following thirteen openings the Complication is depicted through three
phases of Floyd’s attempts to retrieve his kite. In the first phase Floyd begins
throwing things at the kite to dislodge it, but without success. His initial attempts
seem consistent with what one might expect, such as throwing his shoe and then
the other shoe and enlisting the aid of the family cat. When the ladder Floyd
126 LEN UNSWORTH ET AL.

fetches is actually used as a further projectile, there is some foreshadowing of his

single-minded approach and the bizarre nature of his later projectiles, which to
this point have only moved from the predictable to improbable but plausible.
The second phase of the Complication, however, while beginning plausibly,
quickly moves from the improbable to the impossible and fantastic. This phase
begins with Floyd’s throwing a duck, then a chair, his friend’s bicycle, followed
by the kitchen sink, but the objects then change from those of the immediate
domestic environment to the exotic, including an orang-utan and a rhinoceros,
and to the increasingly enormous – from a boat to a ship to the house across
the street, and then a whale. The third phase of the Complication begins with
the bizarre, when the passing fire truck stopped to help and the truck and all of
its crew were hurled into the tree. The Resolution stage in the last two double
openings marks a return to reality when Floyd fetches a saw, but the miniscule
size of the saw, and then Floyd’s throwing it into the tree, maintains the theme of
his single-mindedness blinding him to alternative approaches. Nevertheless, the
saw actually dislodged the kite. Floyd was delighted, played with the kite for the
rest of the day and went to bed exhausted, but ‘he could have sworn there was
something he was forgetting’.
In the O rientation and the first phase of the Complication there is a
significant concentration of evaluation. Appreciation of objects, and particularly
the events, is explicit: Floyd threw his ‘FAVO URITE’ shoe; his other shoe
‘UNBElievably’ also got stuck in the tree; and the cat getting stuck was
‘RIDICULO US’. Judgment of the impropriety of Floyd’s activity is invoked, but
this implicit Judgment is ‘flagged’ (Martin and White 61–8) by the intensification
of highly graduated modal adverbs (‘the trouble REALLY began’ and ‘the ladder
. . . would DEFINITELY need to be put back’). Negative affect is invoked
in that Floyd’s growing frustration is implicit in the Appreciation of events
occurring ‘UNBElievably’ and becoming ‘RIDICULO US’ as well as in the
highly graduated choice of ‘FLUNG’. But as well as this highly intensified
evaluation achieved through vocabulary and grammatical choices there is the
added graduation through the typographic resources. Every instance of every
type of evaluation is further intensified by the use of upper case letters, and
the only occurrences of this capitalisation that are not directly associated with
evaluation are ‘TREE’ and ‘CATS’.
This complex co-patterning of evaluation types, which are highly
graduated, and the use of high intensity modal adverbs all linked with upper case
lettering are distinctive to this phase of the story. A key function of this early part
of the story is building up the tension and frustration as Floyd’s initial reasonable
efforts fail. This is achieved through the highly graduated evaluation of the
unreasonableness of the story events, which, nevertheless at this stage, remain
within the realms of possibility of the real world, and also through maintaining
the reasonableness of Floyd’s responses by invoking rather than inscribing his
growing impatience and frustration. This paves the way for the subsequent
shift to extreme exaggeration and total unreality in the next phase of the
complication.
TYPOGRAPHIC RESOURCES IN PICTURE BOOKS 127

In contrast to phase one, in the entire second phase of the Complication, of

five openings there are only two explicit expressions of evaluation – and both of
these refer to a whale:
A curious whale in THE WRO NG PLACE at THE WRO NG TIME

Not only is there minimal explicit evaluation in this extended section of

the text, but also, in consequence, the capitalisation that occurs relates to
experiential meanings rather than explicit interpersonal evaluative meanings.
The capitalisation seems to be emphasising the size or bizarreness of the
projectiles such as ‘FAMILY CAR’, ‘BIG BO AT’ and ‘HO USE’. While these
do not entail explicit evaluation, perhaps the representation of the aggregation
of larger and larger and increasingly bizarre objects, intensified through the
capitalisation, invokes an evaluation of Floyd’s growing obsession (extreme
tenacity) with his approach to his problem. There is nothing explicitly evaluative
in the lexical choice or typographical representation of ‘LIGHThouse’, but
the capitalisation of the initial component of the compound word suggests an
emphasis on this in its spoken form expressing surprise, which may invoke a
sense of Floyd’s growing exasperation.
A LIGHThouse to KNO CK DO WN
the house no longer across
the street . . .

Perhaps there is also invoked frustration in the whale being ‘in THE WRO NG
PLACE at THE WRO NG TIME’ and further invoked frustration in that,
notwithstanding what outrageous objects he threw at the tree, ‘they ALL GO T
STUCK’.
The overall decrease in explicit evaluative meaning reflects the complete
shift into the exaggeration and unreality of Floyd’s view of his dilemma and
his losing sight of the original purpose of throwing things into the tree. In
this phase he appears to be completely focused on the activity of throwing
increasingly outrageously unrealistic projectiles into the tree. While there are
approximately the same number of instances of capitalisation (ten) in this phase
as in the previous phase (eleven) the capitalisation in phase two is concerned with
experiential meaning only (FAMILY CAR, MILKMAN, BIG BO AT, HO USE)
and while these meanings are not evaluative the typography seems to invoke
surprise. This and the increasing size and outrageousness of the projectiles may
‘afford’ (Martin and White 61–8) the invoking of Floyd’s frustration but this is
not as strongly suggestive as the ‘flagging’ of invoked frustration in phase one
by the comment and modal adverbs (UNBElievably, DEFINITELY). In this
second phase then, while the function of the capitalisation is still to intensify,
it is intensifying experiential meaning that affords evaluation, but there is not the
coupling of capitalisation with explicit evaluative meaning that occurred in phase
one.
In the third phase of the Complication with the arrival of the fire truck there
is a return to explicit evaluation. This is introduced with the ‘CO MMO TIO N’
128 LEN UNSWORTH ET AL.

rather than noise or activity that attracted the attention of the fire truck. But
there is a concentration of explicit evaluation in Floyd’s reflection of the situation
once the firemen were involved.
Firemen would DEFINITELY
be noticed missing and
Floyd KNEW he’d be in
BIG TRO UBLE!

Both the explicit and implicit evaluation of Floyd’s impropriety are highly
intensified through grammatical choices of ‘BIG’ and ‘DEFINITELY’, as noted
earlier, and further intensified through capitalisation. This is also the case when
Floyd fetched a saw
and HURLED IT UP THE TREE.

The highly graduated ‘HURLED’, rather than ‘threw’ or even ‘flung’, of

course addresses the experiential meaning of the much greater energy involved,
but the high level of intensification again invokes an evaluation of Floyd’s
extreme, if single-minded, tenacity. O n this reasoning there are only two
non-evaluative capitalised words in this phase – ‘BO ATS’ and ‘SAW’. The
evaluative emphasis in this phase is on the highly graduated Judgment of the
impropriety of Floyd’s activity. This is achieved through the explicit evaluation
in ‘BIG TRO UBLE’ and implicit evaluation flagged by the high intensity modal
adverb ‘DEFINITELY’, and in both cases is further intensified by the use of
capitalisation. The re-emergence of explicit evaluation, and particularly the
Judgment of impropriety, seems to herald a return to reality, which is further
strengthened when it occurs to Floyd to fetch a ‘SAW’.
In the Resolution there is again a concentration of explicit evaluative
language. This is the first and only part of the story in which Floyd’s Affect is
explicitly evaluated in the language.
Floyd was delighted. He had
forgotten all about his kite
and put it to good use immediately,
enjoying the rest of his day
very much.

The vocabulary and grammatical choices communicate highly graduated

evaluation. ‘Floyd was delighted’ rather than ‘happy’ and he enjoyed the rest
of his day ‘very much’. This intensified positive affect is also invoked by the
vocabulary and grammatical choices realising the experiential meanings about
being reunited with his kite – ‘and put it to good use immediately’. The evaluation
of Floyd’s physical state is also highly graduated – he was ‘exhausted’ rather than
‘tired’ or even ‘very tired’– and figurative words that end the story are highly
significant in maintaining the high level of intensification.
he could have sworn
there was something he was forgetting.
TYPOGRAPHIC RESOURCES IN PICTURE BOOKS 129

In these lines ‘could have sworn’ is a metaphorical expression of a very high

degree of certainty.
But there is no capitalisation! The only instance that might be considered
capitalisation is ‘unstuck’, and the size of the font compared with earlier
instances of capitalisation suggest this is non-cursive lower case printing. The
Resolution distinctively has the first and only instances of positive affect in
the language – happiness. While this is highly intensified, there is no need for the
strengthening assertion of the capitalisation because reality as well as equanimity
has been restored. O n the other hand, the coupling of capitalisation with the
overwhelmingly negative evaluation in phases one and three of the Complication
adds to the high level intensification achieved through the vocabulary choice
and use of modal adverbs, which significantly contributes to the construction of
the tension and emotional disturbance Floyd experiences. The overt experience
of this, of course, is diminished in phase two of the Complication as Floyd is
preoccupied with more and more outlandish projectiles and hence, while the
capitalisation remains, the coupling with explicit evaluation is absent.
The significance of capitalisation – its absence in the resolution and its
selective coupling with highly graduated evaluative meanings or experiential
meanings in different phases of the complication – is clearly a sophisticated
resource for the construction of the interpretive possibilities of the text and
thematic concerns of the narrative, which should be taken into account in the
translation of this literary text.

TYPOGRAPHY, TRANSLATION AND LITERARY INTERPRETATION

Since there are only two examples of capitalisation in the Spanish translation
of STUCK, what is immediately lost is the effect of the contrast achieved by
the absence of capitalisation in the Resolution in the English version compared
to the strategically distributed use of capitalisation in the other phases of the
story. If there were no capitalisation in the Spanish version this might have
been considered due to economic issues of book production. However, there
are indeed two examples of capitalisation in the Spanish version. O ne occurs
in opening 11, showing as a single composition the extremely large typography
filling the left hand side with ‘and they ALL GO T STUCK’ and depicting all
of the objects stuck in the tree on the right hand side. The Spanish version has
a comparable font size, but only ‘TO DO ’ (all/ everything) is in upper case in
‘TO DO se quedó atrapado’ (Everything remained trapped), which seems to be
consistent with the interpretive possibilities constructed by the English version.
The other occurrence of capitalisation in the Spanish version is the modal
adverb ‘DEFINITIVAMENTE’ (corresponding to ‘DEFINITELY’) in phase
one of the Complication. This single correspondence raises a number of
related issues about the translation of modal elements in this phase and their
interpretive consequences, especially in relation to the interpretive significance
of the Judgment of propriety about Floyd’s activity. The same issue involving
130 LEN UNSWORTH ET AL.

translation of the same modal adverb occurs in phase three of the Complication
when the fire truck and firemen are stuck in the tree. These matters will be
discussed in the next section to show that it is not just a matter of whether or not
the Spanish translation takes over the typographic features of the English version,
but how the issue of typography interacts with choices made in translation.
Following this discussion the translation of the transition from phase three of the
Complication to the Resolution will indicate the significance of the translation
and typographic choices for coupling of language and image to create the
interpretive impact of this transition. Finally in this section, the translation of
evaluative meanings in the Resolution will be discussed to show that, even if the
Spanish version did include comparable capitalisation to the English version, the
impact of the strategic absence of capitalisation in the Resolution of the Spanish
version would be diminished by the translation choices.
In the O rientation and phase one of the Complication in ATRAPADOS,
although the evaluative vocabulary such as ‘favourite’, ‘ridiculous’ and
‘unbelievable’ was preserved, the modal aspects and typographical means used
to convey intensity of evaluative meaning were not (with one exception).
As a result, the story partially loses the exaggerated tone characteristic of
the narrator’s voice in the English version. For example, the modal verb
group ‘wouldn’t come unstuck’ was replaced by ‘it was impossible to take
it down’. The modal adverb ‘really’ (‘the trouble REALLY began’) was not
used in the Spanish version, in which the translation uses the pronominal
verb with an indefinite pronoun ‘all’ as a subject: ‘pero todo se complicó’ (but
everything got complicated). The exception referred to above is the modal
adverb ‘DEFINITELY’/ ’DEFINITIVAMENTE’, which was the only word in
the entire Spanish version of the book that maintained the capitalisation of
the English version to convey the emphatic tone. This is significant because it
maintains in both versions the basis for the invoked Judgment of impropriety
with respect to Floyd’s taking of the ladder.
The ladder was borrowed
from a neighbour and
would DEFINITELY need to be put back before
anyone noticed.
In the English version the return to reality in phase three of the
Complication is marked by the return to the use of interpersonal resources of
the modal adverb ‘DEFINITELY’ and the invocation of Floyd’s insecurity and
impropriety, as he ‘KNEW’ that he would be in ‘BIG TRO UBLE’.
Firemen would DEFINITELY
be noticed missing and
Floyd KNEW he’d be in
BIG TRO UBLE!
The Spanish version does not convey the same interpersonal intensity. The
modal adverb ‘DEFINITELY’ on this occasion was changed to ‘surely’,
expressing reduced intensity. ‘BIG TRO UBLE’ was translated as ‘troubles’
TYPOGRAPHIC RESOURCES IN PICTURE BOOKS 131

without the intensifying adjective. The effect of these translation choices is to

diminish the suggestive strength of the English version and hence to diminish
the basis for invoking a Judgment of impropriety, the recognition of which, in
the English version, seems to re-orient Floyd’s approach to retrieving his kite to
realistic options. The issue, then, is not simply one of corresponding typographic
choices but one of aligning both the translation and the typography. Clearly, the
translation could have been managed to include ‘DEFINITIVAMENTE’, as this
had been done earlier in the text, and clearly this could have included aligning
the capitalisation to that in the English version, as this had also been done earlier
in the Spanish text.
Realising he would be in ‘BIG TRO UBLE’ seems to be the trigger that
prompted Floyd towards a more realistic attempt to retrieving his kite and
the idea of finding a ‘SAW’ (openings 13 and 14). The ideational divergence
between the image and the language is central to the humour, not only in
terms of the miniscule coping saw he finds, but also in respect of the choice
of the verb ‘HURLED’ as a highly graduated realisation of ‘throw’ but here
applied to a very small item. The humour also highlights Floyd’s remaining
fixation about throwing successive objects into the tree to solve his problem.
The intensity of the throwing of the saw expressed by ‘HURLED IT UP THE
TREE’ couples capitalisation with experiential meaning, but also complements
and further invokes the interpersonal intensity of Floyd’s anxiety about getting
into trouble. This effect is considerably less in the Spanish version, again since
capitalisation is not used, and also because the Spanish translation of ‘threw
strongly’ does not have the same level of intensifying effect, and incongruous
application to such a small object, as does ‘HURLED’ in English.
At the end of phase three of the Complication the landing of the saw in the
tree seemed to exceed its capacity for retaining objects and, as Floyd’s kite fell
to the ground, the intensity of his positive emotion is very high (‘delighted’ and
‘enjoying . . . very much’), as is the invoked happiness indicated by the highly
graduated ‘immediately’ to indicate the enthusiasm of Floyd’s playing with his
newly retrieved kite. As noted earlier, the same intensity along these dimensions
is maintained in the concluding lines of the story with the highly graduated
‘exhausted’ rather than simply ‘tired’ and ‘he could have sworn’ as a highly
graduated grammatical metaphor of modality (probability).
In the Spanish version, the expression of interpersonal meanings associated
with the retrieval of the kite and returning to reality is more neutral. Instead
of ‘Floyd was delighted’ the Spanish version was equivalent to ‘Floyd was very
happy’, hence not maintaining the same level of highly graduated positive
emotion. Playing with kite was expressed in Spanish as
así que se puso a jugar con ella y se divirtió mucho el resto del día
[so Floyd started playing with his kite and he had a lot of fun the rest of the day]

This translation has much less intensity than the expression in English (‘and put it
to use immediately, enjoying the rest of his day very much’). The Spanish version
also indicates Floyd’s exhaustion at the end of the day but instead of ‘he could
132 LEN UNSWORTH ET AL.

have sworn there was something he was forgetting’ the Spanish version is ‘sintió
que’ (he felt that).
In the English version the highly intensified positive affect and reflection
by Floyd are consistent with the level of intensification of the other evaluative
meanings in the preceding parts of the story, so the absence of capitalisation
means the absence of assertion – the reduction of tension, reflecting the positive
story resolution and return to normality. If typographic correspondence were
to be addressed in the Spanish translation, for the complex co-patterning
of evaluation, graduation and typography differentially deployed across story
phases to have an interpretive effect equivalent to the English version, it would
also be necessary to address much more precisely the level of graduation of
evaluative meaning in translation.
The deployment of capitalisation in multiple complex ways with evaluative
and experiential meaning distributed differentially across the structural stages
and throughout the thematic development of the narrative creates subtle and
very significant dimensions of meaning in the English version of this story. These
interpretive dimensions are necessarily very different in the Spanish version as
a result of the limited co-patterning of semiotic modes arising from the different
rendering of evaluative meaning and graduation in translation as well as from
differences in choices of typographic presentation.

CONCLUSION: EXTENDING THE APPRECIATION AND ANALYSIS

OF TYPOGRAPHY IN LITERARY INTERPRETATION
It seems clear that typography and its interaction with narrative structure
and evaluative language is a very significant aspect of the narrative art of
O liver Jeffers’ creation of STUCK. O f course, the distinctive nature of the
typography is of crucial importance to the interpretation of many picture
books and the interpretive impact of ignoring the typography in translation,
as shown here in relation to STUCK, is an important issue for many
other picture books in translation such as Fox (Wild and Brookes, 2001;
Wild and Brooks, 2000) and little red hood (Leray, 2009a, 2009b), which
are available in English and Spanish. But typography is also of crucial
importance to the interpretation of some longer illustrated novellas, such as
Dreamwalker (Carmody and Woolman) and innovative online illustrated stories
such as Joellyn Rock’s Vasalisa (www.rockingchair.org) (Unsworth E-literature for
Children). In addition, kinetic typography (Brownie; Hillner), used for example
in the animation of the graphic novel version (Kuper) of Franz Kafka’s
TheMetamorphosis (www.randomhouse.com/ crown/ metamorphosis), extends the
ways in which typography contributes to the interpretive possibilities of literary
texts (Unsworth ‘Comparing and Composing’). Typography, then, warrants
much more attention in literary analysis and discussion.
What also seems clear from our examination of STUCK is that the analytic
framework drawing on systemic functional linguistics to examine the realisations
TYPOGRAPHIC RESOURCES IN PICTURE BOOKS 133

of ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning in typography (van Leeuwen)

and in grammar (Halliday and Matthiessen) and to describe evaluative meanings
in terms of affect, judgment and appreciation (Martin and White) provided a
very useful means of explicating the co-patterning of these semiotic resources
as an important contribution to the communication of the thematic concerns
of the story. While it was not possible to include discussion of images in
this paper, the grammar of visual design derived from systemic functional
linguistics shows how images also always simultaneously construct ideational,
interpersonal and textual meaning (Kress and van Leeuwen), so the systemic
functional semiotic descriptions of language and image (O ’Halloran; Unsworth
Multimodal Semiotics) provide a consistent theoretical basis for analysing the nature
of multimodal meaning-making in these bimodal texts. O f course, the systemic
functional semiotic framework is well established in the study of children’s
literature (Knowles and Malmkjaer; Lewis; Painter; Painter and Martin; Painter,
Martin and Unsworth; Stephens Language and Ideology, ‘Signifying Strategies’ and
‘Modality and Space’; Unsworth ‘The Image/ Language Interface’ and ‘Point of
View’; Unsworth and Wheeler; Williams), but as yet it does not seem to have
included typography. It is hoped that this paper will provoke more scholarly
examination of the role of typography in different forms of literature for children.

NOTE
1. O f seven occurrences of ‘his’ in the text, the final ‘s’ appears as the attached cursive form
three times. See Figure 2 for variation within the same sentence.

WORKS CITED
Bateman, J. Text and Image: A Critical Introduction to the Visual/ Verbal Divide. Abingdon, O xford:
Taylor and Francis, 2014.
Browne, A. Voices in the Park. London: Doubleday, 1998.
Brownie, B. Fluid Characters in Temporal Typography. Paper presented at the Fusion, 2012.
Carmody, I. and S. Woolman. Dreamwalker. Melbourne: Lothian, 2001.
Goodman, S. and D. Graddol. RedesigningEnglish: New Texts, New Identities. London: Routledge,
1996.
Halliday, M. A. K. and C. Matthiessen. An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd ed.). London:
Arnold, 2004.
Hillner, M. ‘Text in (e) motion’. Visual Communication, 4.2 (2005): 165–71.
Jeffers, O . ATRAPADOS. Bosques del Pedregal, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 2012.
—. STUCK. London: Harper Collins, 2011.
Kafka, F. The Metamorphosis [1915]. New York: Bantam/ Random House, 2004.
Knowles, M. and K. Malmkjaer. Languageand Control in Children’s Literature. London: Routledge,
1996.
Kress, G. and T. van Leeuwen. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd ed.). London:
Routledge, 2006.
Kuper, P. The Metamorphosis. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003.
Leray, M. little red hood. London: Phoenix Yard, 2009a.
—. Una Caperucita Roja. Barcelona: O ceano Travsia, 2009b.
Lewis, D. Reading Contemporary Picturebooks. London: Routledge Falmer, 2001.
134 LEN UNSWORTH ET AL.

Lim, V. F. ‘Developing an Integrative Multi-semiotic Model’. Multimodal Discourse Analysis:

SystemicFunctional Perspectives. Ed. K. O ’Halloran. London and New York: Continuum, 2004.
220–46.
Martin, J. R. and P. White. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London/ New York:
Palgrave/ Macmillan, 2005.
O ’Halloran, K. ‘Systemic Functional-Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Constructing Ideational
Meaning Using Language and Visual Imagery’. Visual Communication 7.4 (2005): 443–75.
Painter, C. ‘Children’s Picture Book Narratives: Reading Sequences of Images’. Advances
in Language and Education. Eds A. McCabe, M. O ’Donnell and R. Whittaker. London:
Continuum, 2007.
Painter, C. and J. R. Martin. ‘Intermodal Complementarity: Modelling Affordances across
Image and Verbiage in Children’s Picture Books’. Studies in Functional Linguistics and Discourse
Analysis. Ed. F. Yan. Beijing: Education Press of China, 2011. 132–58.
Painter, C. J. R. Martin and L. Unsworth. Reading Visual Narratives: Image Analysis of Children’s
Picture Books. London: Equinox, 2013.
Serafini, F. and J. Clausen. ‘Typography as Semiotic Resource’. Journal of Visual Literacy 31.2
(2012): 1–16.
Spillner, B. ‘Stilanalyse semiotisch komplexer Texte. Zum Verhaltnis von sprachlicher
und bildlicher Information in Werbeanzeigen’. Kodikas/ Code– Ars Semeiotica 4/ 5.1 (1982):
91–106.
Stephens, J. Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction. London: Longman, 1992.
—. ‘Modality and Space in Picture Book Art: Allen Say’s Emma’s Rug‘. CREArTA 1.1 (2000):
45–59.
—. ‘Signifying Strategies and Closed Texts in Australian Children’s Literature’. Australian
Review of Applied Linguistics 17.2 (1994): 131–46.
Unsworth, L. ‘Comparing and Composing Digital Re-presentations of Literature: Multimedia
Authoring and Meta-communicative Knowledge’. New Literacies and the English Curriculum.
Ed. L. Unsworth. London and New York: Continuum, 2008. 186–212.
Unsworth, L. E-Literature for Children: Enhancing Digital Literacy Learning. London and New York:
Routledge/ Falmer, 2006.
Unsworth, L. ‘Point of View in Picture Books and Animated Film Adaptations: Informing
Critical Multimodal Comprehension and Composition Pedagogy’. Critical Multimodal Studies
of Popular Culture. Eds E. Djonov and S. Zhao. London: Routledge, 2014.
—‘The Image/ Language Interface in Picture Books as Animated Films: A Focus for New
Narrative Interpretation and Composition Pedagogies’. English Teaching and New Literacies
Pedagogy: Interpreting and Authoring Digital Multimedia Narratives. Eds L. Unsworth and A.
Thomas. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2014. 105–22.
—(ed.). Multimodal Semiotics: Functional Analysis in Contexts of Education. London/ New York:
Continuum, 2008.
Unsworth, L. and J. Wheeler (2002). ‘Re-valuing the Role of Images in Reviewing Picture
Books’. Reading: Language and Literacy 36.2 (2002): 68–74.
van Leeuwen, T. ‘Towards a Semiotics for Typography’. Information Design Journal 14.2 (2006).
139–55.
Wild, M. and R. Brooks. Fox. Caracas: Ediciones Ekare, 2001.
—. Fox. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2000.
Williams, G. ‘Children’s Literature, Children and Uses of Language Description’. Researching
Languagein Schools and Communities: AFunctional LinguisticPerspective. Ed. L. Unsworth. London:
Cassell, 2000: 111–29.

Len Un swor th is Professor in English and Literacies Education at the

Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia. His recent book publications
include (with Angela Thomas, Alyson Simpson and Jenny Asha) Teaching
Children’s Literature with Information and Communication Technologies (McGraw-
Hill/ O pen University Press, 2005), E-Literature for Children and Classroom Literacy
 TYPOGRAPHIC RESOURCES IN PICTURE BOOKS 135

Learning (Routledge, 2006), New Literacies and the English Curriculum (Continuum,
2008), Multimodal Semiotics (Continuum, 2008) and, with Clare Painter and Jim
Martin, Reading Visual Narratives (Equinox, 2013).

Aleja n d r a M en eses is an assistant professor in Language and Literacy

Education at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She was a postdoctoral
fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education during 2010–11. Her
research focuses on understanding the language of schooling and its linguistic and
discursive challenges for learning. Her publications include El desarrollo sintáctico
durante la edad escolar: un estudio preliminar (Academia Española, 2012 with Benítez,
Crespo, Alvarado and O w), Complejidad sintáctica: ¿modalidad comunicativa o tipo
textual? (O nomázein, 2012 with O w and Alvarado) and Género discursivo, sintaxis
y lenguaje académico (Didáctica lengua y literatura, 2012 with O w).

M a ili O w Gon zá lez is Professor of Children’s Literature and Language

Teaching at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her work focuses
on promotion of reading, language development and teacher training. Her
publications include Tengo un secreto: cuestionamiento del mundo adulto en álbumes
ilustrados (Didáctica 23, 2011); Dos modos dehacer sagas en Latinoamérica (Cultura LIJ
13, 2011); Metaficción en álbumes para primeros lectores and Formación de mediadores para
la lectura literaria multimodal, Perspectivas en investigación e innovación didáctica en recepción
lectora: Leer Hipertextos (2012).

Gu iller m o Ca stillo is a Spanish language teacher and professor of Children’s

Literature at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His publications include
Dos modos de escribir sagas en América Latina (Revista cultura LIJ, 2011 with Maili
O w), Lectura multimodal del libroálbumWillyel Campeón, deAnthonyBrowne, en primeros
lectores (Proceedings of Congreso III Jornadas Internacionales de Investigación y
Prácticas en Didáctica de las Lenguas y las Literaturas, National University of
Río Negro, 2012 with Carmen Maturana and Maili O w).

View publication stats