A SEMIO-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE SELECTED ILLUSTRATIONS IN ‘THE TIN-POT FOREIGN GENERAL AND THE OLD IRON WOMAN’ PICTURE BOOK

Abstract

Picture books are essential to children's education, providing valuable opportunities for engagement, comprehension, and critical thinking. In academic settings, they help students understand the world and connect with their studies. However, limited research has examined picture books through semiotic and pragmatic lenses, particularly using Peirce's semiotic theory and Yule's pragmatic theory. This study aims to explore the content of picture book by identifying signs in the selected illustrations in the 'Tin-Pot Foreign General and The Old Iron Woman' picture book by analyzing the relationship between signs and their referents, and uncovering the speech acts within the illustrations. A descriptive qualitative approach was used, applying Peirce's semiotic theory for visual analysis and Yule's pragmatic theory for verbal analysis. The study identified a range of signs, including icons, indexes, and symbols. Icons resembled their referents, indexes indicated causal relationships, and symbols were linked to cultural interpretations. The primary speech act identified was the representative illocutionary act, used to convey information and describe conditions in the illustrations. Both direct and indirect speech acts were present in the narrative. This research highlights the complexity and depth of picture book content and demonstrates the value of a semio-pragmatic approach in analyzing children's literature