Popularization of legal knowledge in English and Italian information books for children

This paper looks at popularization of legal knowledge targeted at children. The aim is to analyze the popularization strategies associated with the dissemination of legal knowledge in UK English and Italian information books for children aged between 7 and 14 dealing with legal issues: more specifically, the emphasis lies onto the concepts of Parliament and Law. Attention is paid to examples that highlight popularization strategies on the basis of the verbal elements characterizing them. The basic methodological framework of this comparative case study is discourse analysis, with occasional reliance on notions taken from multimodality. This provides instruments suitable for identifying cases where the visual mode interacts with the verbal mode to support popularization strategies. Cross-linguistic analysis suggests variation in the use of popularization strategies adopted by English and Italian writers to communicate and recontextualize legal knowledge to children within information books for them.