Text and Image Interplay in Selected Primary School English Textbooks in Ekiti State

This study sought to establish the relationship between text and images in selected primary school English textbooks and the ways in which text and image interplay supports interaction between pupils and materials in selected primary school English textbooks. Four English textbooks of primary 1 to 2 were selected for the study. The framework for the analysis in this study was based on the system of image text relations by Martinec and Salway (2005). Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the findings demonstrate that the total amount of instances of image-text relations in each textbook is 97 (18.5%), 202 (39.6%), 50 (8.8%) and 136 (26.1%) respectively. The study found out that there is a significant relationship between text and image in primary school English textbooks. Just as the image exemplifies the written text, the text also modifies the images. Through this, pupils are presented with concrete and familiar concepts that they can easily relate with. Thus, attention and interest of pupils are aroused, sustained and their reading speed and comprehension enhanced. The study concludes that, better understanding of the inter-semiotic relations between visual images and verbal texts helps textbook designers to design more suitable textbooks; enhances language learning and use through the learners’ proper interpretation of the pictures, words and design, as these elements come together to produce a visual-verbal narrative which is disregarded when there is a focus on the words only. The study, therefore offers more insights on how to interpret and understand how different modes in the textbooks relate to achieve the goal of language learning.