Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Gender Representation In Primary School English Textbooks

With the development of society and the advancement of printing technology,the composition of textbooks includes not only languages but also other semiotic resources like illustrations,characters,colors,and typesetting.In order to propagate the equality notion between male and female characters through the textbooks of compulsory education,each component of textbooks needs to be more scientific and standardized.Multimodal discourse analysis furnishes a new method to analyze gender representation in textbooks comprehensively.Based on Brugeilles’(2009)research method for studying gender discrimination in verbal texts in textbooks and Van Leeuwen’s(2008)theory for analyzing characters in visual media,this thesis explores gender representation in language and the illustrations in the 2012 PEP primary school English textbooks PEP Primary English from the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis to investigate whether there is gender discrimination in the textbooks.The results reveal that gender representation is unequal both in language and illustrations in the textbooks PEP Primary English.In the verbal mode: firstly,generic uses of “man”,“he” etc.present in large numbers and addresses reflecting females’ marital status appear multiple times;secondly,the turns number of male is about 20% larger than that of female;thirdly,there are more adjectives which are used to describe males’ appearances and traits than females’,so males are more vivid;fourthly,males have more various occupations.There are careers like driver and doctor only for males and nurse and housekeeper only for females;finally,males are more likely to show in social relationships while females are more likely to appear in family relationships.In the non-verbal mode: firstly,males appear more frequently than females in illustrations;secondly,the times of males in the close shot or the medium close shot are higher than females;thirdly,males appear more often in low angle which means higher status while females emerge more frequently in high angle.The times that males are shown in frontal angle are more than females who are shown in oblique angle more frequently;finally,people who have more direct eye contact with readers are males.It is evident that gender representation is inequitable in both the verbal and non-verbal mode.Hence,there is a certain degree gender discrimination against females in this set of textbooks.This study can broaden the research field of multimodal discourse analysis and promote the development of research in the field of teaching materials and enrich the results of gender discrimination research in English textbooks in China.In addition,it has certain enlightening significance to improve the gender equality consciousness of the whole society,help children to shape the concept of equality between male and female and remind females to strive for their legitimate rights and interests.