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Children's Literature in Education

, Volume 43, Issue 3, pp 273–291 | Cite as

Reading Other People’s Minds Through Word and Image

  • Maria Nikolajeva
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

This article considers how emotions can be conveyed through the interaction of word and image in picturebooks addressed to young readers. The theoretical framework employed in the article develops ideas from cognitive literary theory, adapting it to the specific conditions in which there is a significant difference between the sender’s and the recipient’s cognitive levels. The concept of emotion ekphrasis is used to demonstrate the various ways of representing emotions, and special attention is paid to the issues of mind-reading, empathy and other aspects of recipients’ affective engagement. The theoretical argument is illustrated by picturebooks by Max Velthuijs, Shaun Tan, Anthony Browne, and Maurice Sendak.

Keywords

Picturebooks Emotions Cognitive poetics Affective response 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Faculty of EducationUniversity of CambridgeCambridgeUK

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