A multimodal analysis of character-character interaction in LGTB picture books and its educational implications

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the interpersonal strategies utilized by writers and illustrators to forge the interaction of characters in three LGTB picture books. The stories were selected because they foster progressive gender discourses, and still gain international recognition long after their first publication. The study is drawn on Halliday's (2004) Systemic Functional Linguistics and Kress & van Leeuwen's (2006) and Painter et al.’s (2013) Visual Social Semiotics. The findings show that the interaction between the characters in the stories is mainly achieved through eye contacts, eye-level angles, characters placed side by side and characters in proximity. The verbal text, however, plays a minor role in aligning the characters with each other. Certain educational implications emerge from this study. LGTB picture books, apart from providing teachers with reading material with which to practice both verbal and visual literacy, are also powerful ideological educational tools for fostering the acceptance of same-sex parent families.