Word-picture interplay in the Chinese translations of English picturebooks: A narrative rhythm perspective

Abstract The co-deployment of words and pictures is ubiquitous in picturebooks. Drawing on the narrative rhythm in picturebooks and the logico-semantic relations in Systemic Functional Linguistics, this study examines the word-picture interplays in Chinese translations of English picturebooks from the narrative rhythm perspective. To that end, it analyzes the logico-semantic relations in three word-picture interplays— succession, substitution, and stimulation —in Chinese translations of English picturebooks. This study reveals that in successive word-picture interplay, words extend pictorial information while emphasizing the importance of maintaining narrative flow between words and pictures. In substituting interplay, words and pictures elaborate or enhance each other to present readers with a moment, ensuring temporal, content, and logical congruity. In stimulating interplay, visually depicted interlocutors project locutions and ideas/thoughts, aiming to align the verbal description of protagonists' disposition with the visual depiction of their physical attributes. This paper elucidates the importance of pictures in translating picturebooks from the narrative rhythm perspective and provides insights for translation procedures suitable for various word-picture interplays.