Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

[Johnny <yggdrasil@gmx.co.uk>]

Hi list members,

I have been looking around for a way to resize the text displayed in the
echo area. I found that for the buffer, C-x + and C-x - does the sizing
for the buffer alright, but I haven't found how to do this for the echo
area / mode line? 

Ideally, if there is a clever way to automatically increase the default
text size in the echo area and buffer when changing input mode (to
chinese-tonpy)?

Thanks!
-- 
Johnny