An Analysis of the Image of Women in Cosmetic Surgery's Leaflets: Visual Grammar as a Tool to Discover Stereotypes

摘要

The study aims to point out that the way in which women appear represented in multimodal cosmetic surgery's leaflets is different to the way in which men appear. This research explores the main strategies used to create meaning in 15 cosmetic surgery's leaflets published in 2008 in Alicante (Spain). For its framework for analysis, the study draws on multimodality (Baldry and Thibault, 2006; Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006; Ventola, Cassily and Kaltenbacher (eds.) 2004) and the relationship between text and context proposed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday,1978; Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004). This paper is also related to discussions on the representations of others (van Leeuwen, 1996; Nalon, 2000; van Leeuwen, 2000). In our society there are many texts in which images of women are used for different purposes. Our research will analyse the main visual and linguistic characteristics in multimodal texts in which people are persuaded of the benefits of cosmetic surgery. This study reveals that in many of the leaflets analysed women are treated as 'objects' and that the image of women that appears in some cosmetic surgery's leaflets is so aggressive that it could be understood as a new form of gender violence.