Multimodalidade em livros didáticos de lingua portuguesa: uma análise a partir da semiótica social e da gramática do design visual

Abstract

This thesis discusses multimodal aspects on Portuguese school textbooks under the Social Semiotic theory (HODGE; KRESS, 1988; VAN LEEUWEN, 2005; KRESS, 2010) and the main approaches created under this perspective, that is, the multimodal approach (BEZEMER; KRESS, 2015; KRESS, 2010; JEWITT, 2009; KRESS; VAN LEEUWEN, 2001) and the Grammar of Visual Design GVD (KRESS; VAN LEEUWEN, 1996, 2006). Due to the fact that Brazilian school textbooks have been a frequent target of public policies and play a quite important role in the teaching-learning process, it is necessary to verify how they contribute to multimodal literacy, as well as the potential meanings that modes and semiotic resources might produce throughout each book. Regarding the visual analysis, it is essential to verify textbooks potential meanings. To do so, this study also mentions Bezemer & Kress (2008, 2009, 2010), which constitute significant references to this thesis. The referred authors analised English school textbooks under a social semiotic multimodal approach. Moreover, the current research considers van Leeuwen (2006) and Kress & van Leeuwen, with regards to typography and colours (respectively). In addition, it is worthy to mention Street (1996), Kress (1997, 2003) and Jewitt (2008) when it comes to the notion of multimodal literacy. These authors provide a significant contribution to this study, once each of them discusses this concept in a particular way, adding complementary perspectives about it. Therefore, this thesis introduces new categories, aiming to fulfill some necessities of the analysis process which emerged throughout the studies and that contributed to the discussions on the potential meanings, mainly, produced by images and through layout. In addition, the study revealed how each textbook presents itself to its reader and how each of these readers are projected by the textbook. Finally, the comparative analysis showed that they have more distinct aspects than the similar ones. Thus, the current research revealed two different identities of each textbook. While one reveals itself in a more traditional way, the other one presents more evidences of being innovative. These characteristics could be inferred, mostly, by the concepts of text each book appears to provide and through the way elements are arranged and orchestrated in both textbooks.