A Bi-modal and Systemic-Functional Study of Dear Zoo within the Textual Metafunction

Abstract

Based mainly on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar and Kress and van Leeuwen’s Social Semiotics, this contribution attempts to employ a multimodal, verbal and visual analysis of the picture book Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell within the textual metafunction. The early age of the children for whom the tale is intended (under-two) determines the verbal and visual choices made by Campbell to help the child identify the main characters in the story and follow the development of their actions. The animals from the zoo are given special prominence both in the verbiage, where they are omitted by the use of suspense points in rhematic position, and in the visual mode, where they and their crates come to prominence through color contrast and saturation. Words and images contribute differently to the overall organization of the tale, since they give complementary and, in turn, essential information to the understanding of the narrative plot.