A multimodalidade no livro didático de inglês como língua estrangeira: padrões de representação narrativa e de interação

Abstract

This study aims at contributing to the advancement of research in the area of multimodality, within the context of foreign language teaching. A sample of multimodal texts in a coursebook produced and used in Brazil as a tool for teaching English as a foreign language to adult beginner students in a free language course is analyzed. Given the concerns pointed out in the teaching materials themselves, in meeting the needs and expectations of these students, the objectives of this research are: to investigate the interaction between the verbal and the visual semiotic modes in the corpus; to examine how this interaction contributes to achieving the educational objectives proposed by the material; and, finally, to contribute in some way to the multimodal literacy of foreign language students. Such objectives account for the hybrid nature of this research which, apart from its descriptive-analytic dimension, also features a pedagogical dimension, aimed at presenting proposals for multimodal work with some of the activities selected for analysis. The starting point for the selection of the multimodal texts for the corpus of this research was the observation that certain characters were consistently depicted throughout the coursebook. Such recurrence motivated questions that could only be answered through the analysis of the visual elements in the representation of these characters, particularly when depicted in situations of (inter)action, which led to the selection of narrative representations that included them. The characters concerned are drawings created for the educational purposes of the material and are depicted in very limited social situations: most of these representations seem to form a narrative sequence with interactions taking place at a party, in the office, at a restaurant, in a park, and on the phone. An analysis of the visual representation of these characters showed that, despite the inclusion of a black woman among the characters, which would supposedly convey a multicultural vision, the participants represent a homogeneous group pertaining to the same social segment, who only interact in limited social situations and are not therefore representative of the ethnic, social and cultural diversity of Brazil, or of countries where English is spoken. The analysis of the visual representation of the characters was followed by investigation of the patterns of representation and interaction in the multimodal texts selected, drawing on categories from the framework for the study of multimodality by van Leeuwen (1996). These analyses suggest that the verbal and the visual are not always in a direct relationship, and that, when they are, such relationship is not exploited by the material, making the visual element a purely decorative one, in most cases, contributing very little to the development of the pedagogical objectives of the units. For this reason, some exploration activities of the multimodal texts analyzed are suggested, aiming at the multimodal literacy of foreign language students