Examining the emotional expressions in the picture story books according to the cognitive literary approach and the reflection of these emotions in children 60-72 months old

Children begin to recognize and understand the phenomena in their social settings through illustrated story books from the first years of their lives. This important role that theillustrated story books play contribute significantly to children's usage and improvement of skills of mind reading and emphaty. This important contribution is evaluated in the light of a new approach called Cognitive Literary Approach in children's literature. Cognitive Literary Approach in general deals with the cognitive processes through which readers understand the messages that appear in the fictive literary framework and the kind of images that these messages create in the minds of readers. This research is comprised of two related studies. The first study investigates how emotive expressions are reflected as a result of the interaction between the texts and pictures in the illustrated books in the light of Cognitive Literary Approach, and the second study investigates the reflection of emotive expressions in the illustrated books in the children of 60-72 months in terms of Cognitive Literary Approach. The sample of the first study comprises the 13 illustrated books that were chosen through purposeful sampling, the sample of the second study comprises the 10 children of 68 months on average that go to a private pre-school educational institution. In compliance with the aim of the research, the data of the first study were collected through document review method and the data collected were analysed with content analysis method. The data of the second study were collected through semi-structured interview method and analysed with content analysis method. The findings of the first study revealed that the pictures in the 6 of 13 illustrated books allowed the readers to reacognize and understand the mental conditions of the characters in the stories, and the pictures in the 5 books were ambigous. Of the words that express emotions in the books, it was seen that the emotions "happiness" and "sadness" were the emotions that were most frequently expressed. Also, the findings indicate that an interaction between pictures and texts in the books can be corroborated with a frequency of 143 "yesses" and 68 "noes" but it is not expected level. 143 times "yes"; the emotional statement in the picture is supported with text, or the emotional statement described in the text is supported in the picture. 68 times "no"; the emotional statement in the picture is not supported by the text or the emotional statement described in the text is not supported by the picture. In addition, layers of reflexivity of mind reading exists the most in two levels of intentionality in the sentences that involve expressions of emotions in the picture story books. The findings of the second study in the research revealed that the children of 66 months on average could understand the expressions of emotions in the pictures and texts in the books that reflected the emotional conditions of the characters well in terms of Cognitive Literary Approach, and could realize the mental conditions of the characters and empathize with them. They had difficulty in recognizing the expressions of emotions in the pictures and texts in the books that could not reflect emotional conditions well ad hence they could not empathize with the characters. Keywords: Cognitive literary approach, mind reading, empathy, picture story book, emotions, 60-72 months old children.