Ability to comprehend and engage with communities of different cultures. In the Australian curriculum, the term intercultural understanding consists of three interrelated elements, i.e., recognizing culture and developing respect, interacting and empathizing with others; and reflecting on intercultural experiences and taking responsibility.
Published in Chapter:
East-Asian Philosophical Concepts as Analytical Framework for Interpreting Non-Western Images in Children's Picturebooks
Ngoc Tai Huynh (University of Tasmania, Australia), Angela Thomas (University of Tasmania, Australia), and Vinh Thi To (University of Tasmania, Australia)
Copyright: © 2020
|Pages: 28
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-2722-1.ch019
Abstract
In contemporary Western cultures, picturebooks are a mainstream means for young children to first attend to print and start learning to read. The use of children's picturebooks has been reported as supporting intercultural awareness in children. Multiliteracies researchers suggest that other theoretical frameworks should be applied in addition to the semiotic approach of interpreting picturebooks, especially picturebooks from non-Western cultures. This chapter theorizes how Eastern philosophical concepts influence the meaning-making potential of illustrations in Eastern picturebooks. To do this, the authors first discuss the cultural constraints when applying a contemporary semiotic framework in analyzing non-Western images. The authors introduce a framework developed based on philosophical concepts that have influenced East-Asian art forms, particularly that of painting, to understand the Eastern artistic traditions. The chapter demonstrates how to apply this framework for interpretation of non-Western images to working with multicultural picturebooks.