Entrando na brincadeira: uma análise semiótica da imagem de criança em embalagens de bonecas

Abstract

In this work, packages are understood as multimodal texts, because they are constituted not only by written verbal language, but also by a good number of visual resources. The corpus of this research is a set of six pictures of dolls packaging; Three pictures are of dolls released from 2006 and the other three packages are from the 80’s. The objectives of this research are: to analyze the boxes of dolls in order to discover what is the image of child or consumer public; to establish the differences and similarities between the packaging of the 80's and the present; reflect on the current childhood and compare it with the childhood of the 80's; discuss the gender roles that emerge during the analysis. To fulfill the objectives of this research, we analyzed the packages from the perspective of the Social semiotics and the Grammar of Visual Design (GVD) of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) and, in a complementary way, for a better understanding of the verbal text, we used the Theoretical framework of the French semiotics, more specifically, the method of analysis developed by Greimas (1973, 1979). The results of the analysis reveal a contemporary image of childhood, the one in which children are exposed to constant visual and sensory stimulation, thus, they start to demand dolls that can do more activities. Although they were made in different decades, there are still a lot of common details between the packages, for example, the classification of toys by gender which is something as present as it was in the 80s. Thus, the results reveal indications of a new childhood, while demonstrate that some ideals have been perpetuated over time.