VISUAL GRAMMARGender Representations in English Textbooks for Primary Students

IKA LESTARI DAMAYANTI, S.PD., M.A.

BACKGROUND

In the 1970s, in Western countries, the awareness of political correctness in gender matters started to emerge.

numerous studies were conducted to

raise this awareness and rectify the

gender imbalance found

Studies on gender and children books

A survey done by Zimet (1976) showed that after exposed to numerous children’s books, all the children involved in the survey expressed the stereotypical view that mothers were usually at home and fathers at work despite the fact that most children had mothers who worked outside home.

Stereotype patterns about females and males in children’s book and EFL textbooks

Studies during the 1970s-1990s. The number of female characters was always

significantly less than the males.

The females were likely to be depicted as being nurturant, dependent, passive, submissive,

helpless, incompetent, and unambitious

The females were also limited in what they did and were assigned few goals or occupations which

were seen prestigious in the society

there was even almost no portrayal of a mother

working outside home

MULTIMODAL TEXTS

Multimodal texts are those texts-as-objects which use more than one mode of meaning-making. (Martinez, 2006)

meaning making is multimodal involving visual, gesture, speech, writing, and sound through which representation occurs (Stein, 2004)

social construction of meaning is never solely represented linguistically but also vocally and visually (Fairclough, 2004)

VISUAL GRAMMAR

The grammar of visual design allows human beings to build a mental picture of reality and to express their experience in different ways (Martinez, 2006).

Visual grammar is developed based on Halliday’s SFL which is originally conceived for linguistic text (FEi, 2004).

Like linguistic text, visual text fulfills three major functions: ideational which is the main concern of this study, interpersonal and textual (Kress and van Leeuween, 2006).

Ideational Functions

visual texts in representing aspects of the world as it is experienced by humans offer choices of different ways in which objects and their relation to other objects and to processes can be represented.

The choices could be:• Narrative Representations• Conceptual Representations

Narrative representation

Formed by a vector

A B

Conceptual Reprentations

objects related in terms of classification, formed by a structure tree

A B

Narrative RepresentationsProcesses

Action process (akin to material process)Transactional: Actor-GoalNon-transactional: Actor

Circumstance: secondary participants which relate to the

main participants but not by means of vectors

Reactional processTransactional: Reacter-Phenomenon

Non-transactional: Reacter

Projective process (Reacter-phenomenon)Verbal speech bubbles

Mental thought bubbles

Conversion process:

actor Goal (Actor) Goal (Actor)

Conceptual representations

Classificatory (akin to Intensive attributive):participants involved are conjoined in terms of their kind of relations

Analytical: (akin to possessive attributive)Carrier (the whole) and Possessive Attributes

(the parts)

Symbolical: (akin to Identifying and Existential)

Examples:A picture showing an adult man (father), an adult woman (mother) holding a baby, a little girl, and a little boy who are all standing symmetrically could be analysed from different processes:

(1) Classificational processes in terms of their similarities belonging to the same class i.e. family (covert superordinate); and

(2) Analytical processes in regard to each participant’s Possessive Attributes such as items of clothing (e.g. a suit for the father which signifies his readiness to go for work and ‘casual clothes’ for the mother holding a baby which potentially imply her dominant roles at domestic sphere

Transactional Action Processes

realized by vectors whose forms in the pictures could be an oblique line, a strong line or a diagonal line

Actor from which the vector emanates and Goal to which the vector is directed (the Actor is ‘doing’ to the Goal)

Unidirectional:a vector connects two participants

A B

Bidirectional:a vector connects two Interactors

A B

Transactional action process

Reactional processes

realized by a vector formed by an eyeline of one or more participants which are called Reacters and Phenomena

Space of Integration

RESULTS

there is no significant asymmetry found in number between the female characters (11) and the male characters (12).

Both females and males are depicted almost equally as: the Actors (female: 10, male: 8) the Reacter (female: 3, male: 3)

Stark differences occur in terms of Goals (female: 10, male: 4) Phenomenon (female: 0, male: 3).

Meaning/implications

females Actors and Goals, Bidirectional Actions. In these processes

the females are ‘doing to and being done by’ someone else.

males in the Unidirectional Actions are more dominant;

they are cast as the Actor who is ‘doing’ to something.

In the Transactional Reactions, both females and males are depicted as the Reacters but only men as the Phenomenon.

THANK YOU

IKA LESTARI DAMAYANTI, S.PD., M.A.