TY - CHAP

T1 - The Creative Potential of Multilingual Picturebooks

T2 - Perspectives from Literary Studies and Foreign Language Teaching Research

AU - O'Sullivan, Emer

AU - Rösler, Dietmar

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - This chapter considers the specifics of multilingual picturebooks and shows how they can be successfully integrated into foreign language teaching. The most common form of multilingualism in picturebooks is parallel bilingualism, where a text is translated and presented in both languages. More experimental are forms of interlingual multilingualism in which the languages are not segregated but intermingled, either by integrating individual lexical elements of different languages, as in macaronic texts, or by combining natural and invented languages. Genuinely multilingual texts go beyond this, by fundamentally intermingling languages and making this a constitutive factor of the entire narrative. Arguments against using languages other than the target one have a long history in foreign language teaching discourse. Bilingual texts, in particular, challenge the dogma of monolingualism in the foreign language classroom, a dogma now contested by research on plurilingualism and foreign language teaching. The chapter presents a brief summary of these main arguments and discusses how multilingual picturebooks that are not only multilingual but also multimodal can be used for various language teaching activities with different groups, ranging from reading comprehension to project work. And, above all, for aesthetic education and to promote the equal valorisation of different perspectives.

AB - This chapter considers the specifics of multilingual picturebooks and shows how they can be successfully integrated into foreign language teaching. The most common form of multilingualism in picturebooks is parallel bilingualism, where a text is translated and presented in both languages. More experimental are forms of interlingual multilingualism in which the languages are not segregated but intermingled, either by integrating individual lexical elements of different languages, as in macaronic texts, or by combining natural and invented languages. Genuinely multilingual texts go beyond this, by fundamentally intermingling languages and making this a constitutive factor of the entire narrative. Arguments against using languages other than the target one have a long history in foreign language teaching discourse. Bilingual texts, in particular, challenge the dogma of monolingualism in the foreign language classroom, a dogma now contested by research on plurilingualism and foreign language teaching. The chapter presents a brief summary of these main arguments and discusses how multilingual picturebooks that are not only multilingual but also multimodal can be used for various language teaching activities with different groups, ranging from reading comprehension to project work. And, above all, for aesthetic education and to promote the equal valorisation of different perspectives.

M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

SN - 978-1-0326-3901-7

SP - 105

EP - 121

BT - Creative Readings of Multilingual Picturebooks

A2 - Hartmann, Esa Christine

A2 - McGillicuddy, Áine

PB - Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

ER -