Voice Is Everything: A Critical Content Analysis of Translingual Negotiation in Intercultural Graphic Novels

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Examining the Representation of Race and Ethnicity in Literacy Curricula Through Content Analysis (Table 20)

Abstract

Drawing from the tenets of Translingualism and Multimodality, we conducted a critical content analysis to examine the multimodal texts within three intercultural graphic novels. The study uncovered four translingual strategies including envoicing, recontextualization, interactional, and entextualization employed in these translingual texts to reveal characters’ negotiable voices. Also, from Multimodality, we found that semiotic resources contribute to a dynamic meaning-making process. Based on our findings, we argue that translingual phenomena in intercultural graphic novels provide multilingual students with a space for negotiating meanings and expressing their voices. Also, teachers can value students’ repertoire and voices in a dynamic, co-constructing, multimodal, and translingual environment.

Keywords: graphic novels, critical content analysis, translingual negotiation strategies, multimodality, voice

Authors

• Chen Su, Pennsylvania State University

• Jason Griffith, Pennsylvania State University