Challenging Male Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Picture Books: A Social Semiotic and Multimodal Analysis

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to identify the visual and verbal strategies that authors and illustrators display in five picture books featuring children who do not conform to traditional masculine gender stereotypes. The theoretical framework adopted for the multimodal analysis is Systemic-Functional Social Semiotics. After identifying the verbal and visual transitivity/transactional options that are actualised in the sample texts, we determine whether the semantic load that each mode contributes to the construction of gender is convergent or divergent. The findings show that the meaning load carried by embedded images (action plus reaction), together with verbal and mental processes of perception, provides essential cues for fostering progressive gender discourses.