Engaging with Old Testament Stories: A Multimodal Social Semiotic Approach to Children Bible Illustrations

Studies based on Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) do not only abound but have remained on the increase in recent times. However, focus has not been on the multimodal analysis of Children Bible stories through the linguistic framework of social semiotics. This paper, informed by this need presents and analyses pictorials of Children Bible stories, thus reflecting at one level the linguistic features and how they are being complemented by visual features on another level. Also, the paper emphasizes the importance and effectiveness of visual features by revealing meanings. The study concludes that despite the fact that linguistic features could convey meaning, certain meanings are best conveyed through the use of visual images especially to children who are passive readers.