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Title Language and Gender in Children’s Picture Books in Pakistan: A Multimodal Analysis

Author(s) SOBIA REHMAT

Abstract Gender as a social and cultural phenomenon, rather than a biological one, is instituted in children in early stages and children’s picture books play an imperative role in shaping up such gender related views and attitudes. Following these lines, the focus area of this study is gender depiction in children picture books written by Pakistani authors. Reading being one of the most frequent activities done by children plays a significant role in teaching them appropriate values and attitudes. Children who are unable to read by themselves observe illustrations in picture books and imbibe what is presented to them. Hence, the current study attempts to look at the use of language and the portrayal of gender in the selected children’s picture books written by Pakistani authors. For this purpose, qualitative descriptive approach was adopted and textual analysis of six selected picture books was conducted to identify and analyze the gender depiction through the use of linguistic and non-linguistic areas of text. For linguistics analysis the study is based on Dale Spender Dominance approach to language (1980). To investigate the adjectives used to describe characters of different genders the study is based on Turner Bowker (1996) and Alsagoff (2009) categorization of adjectives. Using Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) Representational meaning as a focus the illustrations were analyzed to identify gender biases in images of children's picture books. The findings of the study reveal that male and female characters were assigned gender-oriented tasks confirming them to traditional and stereotypical gender roles. Male characters are described as active, arrogant and proud while females are described as beautiful, clumsy and scared showing females as submissive and subservient. Most females are in the role of daughter, mother and sister; even if women are shown in the public domain, they are assigned tasks which require nurturing and caring abilities. On the other hand, male is shown in the position of authority. This study is imperative for parents, teachers, peers and authors of children's books to select gender neutral books for children to help children develop a positive self-image of themselves and others.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

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Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2022-06-21

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