Verbal and Verbal-Visual Logico-Semantic Relations in Picturebooks: an English-Brazilian Portuguese Parallel Corpus Study

Abstract: This article presents a methodology to analyze verbal and verbal-visual logico-semantic relations in picturebooks originally written in English and their translations into Brazilian Portuguese. Drawing on systemic-functional theory (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) and on Visual Grammar (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), verbal and visual texts in picturebooks were annotated and analyzed according to the logico-semantic relations identified in them. Results revealed a higher number of clause complexes than simplexes. As regards the type of logico-semantic relations that tend to occur most frequently between clause complexes in verbal text and between verbal and visual text, in both source and translated texts, Projection_Locution is the most frequent logico-semantic relation between clause complexes, while Expansion_Extension is the most frequent logico-semantic relation between verbal and visual text. Differences between source and target texts are basically related to the number of clause complexes. The study brings an original contribution to systemic functional theory and translation studies, as it shows typical patterns of logico-semantic relations in picturebooks and offers a proposal to categorize logico-semantic relations in verbal text and between visual and verbal text that proves to be fully operational for annotation purposes and text analysis.