Analysis of Anka Luger’s picture books

Magistrsko delo v teoretičnem delu opisuje književnost za otroke in mladino v Avstriji, predstavljena je »odsotna avtorica« (Dović, 2005) Anka Luger (1953–) in njenih pet avtorskih slikanic. Predstavljene so definicije slikanice različnih avtorjev, oblike knjig in razmerje med besedilom in ilustracijo v slikanici. Opisane so definicija govora in mišljenja ter faze razvoja otroškega govora. Predstavljeni so dejavniki vpliva slikanice na otrokov govor in otrokova recepcijska zmožnost. Na otrokovo predbralno in začetno bralno obdobje ima slikanica velik vpliv, na kar opozarjajo pedagogi, psihologi in literarna veda. Slikaniška starost otroka (das Bilderbuchalter) je mednarodno uveljavljen strokovni termin, ki poudarja vlogo, ki jo ima slikanica pri otrocih, hkrati pa opominja starše na pomembno funkcijo in potenciale te zvrsti književnega dela. Raziskovalni del zajema likovno-literarno analizo petih avtorskih slikanic, s katero sem želela ugotoviti, ali se motivno-tematske in morfološko-strukturne značilnosti kratke sodobne pravljice po teoriji Marjane Kobe ujemajo z avtorskimi slikanicami Anke Luger. Zanimalo me je, ali sta vizualna in verbalna podoba slikanic po teoriji Marie Nikolajeve in Carole Scott usklajeni v avtorskih slikanicah Anke Luger. Rezultati raziskave so pokazali, da se značilnosti kratke sodobne pravljice v večini ujemajo z obravnavanimi avtorskimi slikanicami ter da sta vizualna in verbalna podoba slikanic usklajeni, saj v vseh zgodbah ilustracija podpira besedilo in obratno.The theoretical part of the master’s thesis presents children and youth literature in Austria and introduces the so-called “absent author” (Dovič, 2005) Anka Luger (1953–) along with her five picture books. Furthermore, we also introduce picture book definitions from various authors, book forms as well as the relation between text and illustrations in picture books. We define speech and thinking and the various stages of children’s speech development, as well as discuss how picture books affect children’s speech and their learning abilities. Educators, psychologist and literary science many times point out that picture books can have a great effect on children before they learn to read and during the initial reading period. The picture-book age (in German das Bilderbuchalter) is an internationally established term that emphasizes the role of picture books in children, and also reminds the parents of its importance and potential. The empirical part includes a visual and literary analysis of the five picture books. Our aim was to determine if according to the theory of Marjana Kobe the motives and subject as well as the morphological and structural characteristics of short modern stories, match the picture books of Anke Luger. We also try to investigate, if the visual and verbal part of the picture books, as defined by Marie Nikolajeva and Carole Scott, corresponds with the picture books of our author. The results have shown that for the most part, the characteristics of short modern stories match the analysed picture books and that the visual and verbal part, or, in other words, the illustrations and the text complement each other well