Literary and Cinematic indoctrination: female characterization in three films versions of Cinderella

Abstract

Extensive research in sociolinguistics (Fairclough, 1995, 2003; Caldas-Coulthard and Coulthard, 1996; Taylor, 2003, Cohen et al. 2007) has disclosed that media, movies among others, play an important role in supporting prevailing language ideology and consolidating linguistic stereotypes. Today, for the transmission and construction of messages, meaning creators make use of different semiotic modes in combination which allow to establish various synergies among themselves, giving rise to new meanings that are influenced, among other things, by social interactions and our vision of the world. In this regard, the main aim of this paper is to show how the various affordances of cinematic discourse may be implemented in order to fulfil specific ideological purposes in three Cinderella film versions aimed at the Spanish audience. This study is embedded in Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA), Kress and van Leeuwen’s multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) and Propp’s actantial model. The findings reveal that the message conveyed in these films contributes to ingrain gender stereotypes in their addressees.

Keywords

• discurso cinematográfico
• ideología
• análisis crítico del discurso multimodal
• estereotipo de género
• transmediación