A multimodal approach to gender construction in children's stories: a case study

Abstract

Femininity (and masculinity) patterns are learnt from childhood. The role of education, mass media, games and family environment are crucial in determining the child’s future conception of gender. Within this framework, the stories that children read (or are read to by their parents) also help them form their concept of what boys and girls are like and how they are expected to act. In these tales, ideology is not only linguistically encoded but also by visual means, which makes a multimodal approach to these texts a welcome analytical tool. The present paper is aimed at analysing two editions of the same fairy tales within a time span of twenty years from a multimodal perspective. The analysis will show that there has been a significant (and positive) change in gender construction regarding female characters, even if the traditional plot remains unaltered.