Examining the text quality of English/Chinese bilingual children’s picture books

Abstract

As a branch of multicultural literature, bilingual children’s picture books present a special opportunity for readers to expand their horizons and knowledge of other cultures. The researchers took a closer look at the text quality of 31 English/Chinese bilingual children’s picture books. These bilingual books were examined on the aspects of the English text’s quality, the Chinese text’s quality, and the correspondence between the English text and the Chinese text. The findings suggested that while the English text had no obvious issues, the Chinese text lacked quality. In addition, the researchers noticed that the Chinese text appeared subordinate when comparing the two texts.

Keywords:

• text quality
• English/Chinese
• bilingual books
• children's literature
• multicultural literature

Acknowledgments

This research paper is made possible through the help and support from Dr Bihui Huang and Ms Amelia Luciano.