Typography and meaning-making in Arabic children’s literature: the covert communication!
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Ali A. Al-Jafar received his PhD from Indiana University Bloomington in 1998. He is a professor of children’s literature at Kuwait University. He has published more than 20 studies in peer-reviewed journals specializing in children’s literature in Kuwait, the Middle East, and around the world. He is also the author of several books documenting Arabic culture and children’s literature and the first faculty member in the field of humanities at Kuwait University to have been awarded a patent.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Kuwait University, Sabah Al Salem University City, Kuwait. Email:
ali.alghafar@ku.edu.kw 
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Mohammed R. Jouhar received his PhD from Texas A&M University in 2020. He is an assistant professor of reading, writing, and literacy at Kuwait University. He has published three academic papers in peer-reviewed journals related to language and literature.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Kuwait University, Sabah Al Salem University City, Kuwait. Email:
mohammed.jouhar@ku.edu.kw
Abstract
Little is known about typography and its contribution to the meaning-making process in children’s storybooks. This study applied the systematic framework for a distinctive feature analysis of typography to explore the manifestations of typography in 24 recently published Arabic children’s storybooks and outline typography’s ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions as interpreted according to the Arabic sociocultural context. The findings show a pattern of visually manipulated typographic representations in terms of weight, expansion and spacing, curvature, connectivity, orientation, irregularity, and colors. In its ideational function, the typography constructed, reflected, and evoked visual images of real-life representations. In its interpersonal function, the typography communicated educative, social, and cultural messages and values to young readers. In its textual function, the typography supported dramatic atmospheres, matched the tone and rhythm of the story, harmonized with the stories’ themes, reflected the characters’ emotions and thoughts, and highlighted or differentiated incidents, concepts, and characters. The typography was found to be a promising communicative resource in Arabic children’s storybooks.
About the authors
Ali A. Al-Jafar received his PhD from Indiana University Bloomington in 1998. He is a professor of children’s literature at Kuwait University. He has published more than 20 studies in peer-reviewed journals specializing in children’s literature in Kuwait, the Middle East, and around the world. He is also the author of several books documenting Arabic culture and children’s literature and the first faculty member in the field of humanities at Kuwait University to have been awarded a patent.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Kuwait University, Sabah Al Salem University City, Kuwait. Email: ali.alghafar@ku.edu.kw
Mohammed R. Jouhar received his PhD from Texas A&M University in 2020. He is an assistant professor of reading, writing, and literacy at Kuwait University. He has published three academic papers in peer-reviewed journals related to language and literature.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Kuwait University, Sabah Al Salem University City, Kuwait. Email: mohammed.jouhar@ku.edu.kw
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Typography and meaning-making in Arabic children’s literature: the covert communication!
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Typography and meaning-making in Arabic children’s literature: the covert communication!
- Car bumper stickers in Jordan as a site of carnivalesque transgression and degradation
- The problem of translating Chinese policy-related expressions: a case study of wenming (‘civilised’)
- Metaphor(s) of the platform economy in the trade union discourse
- Stance construction via that-clauses in telecommunications research articles: a comparison of L1 and L2 expert writers
- Review Article
- Metadiscourse: the evolution of an approach to texts
