Doing critical multimodality in research on gender, language and discourse

The aim of this paper is to open a discussion about multimodal work in the area of gender, language and discourse, and propose the kinds of multimodal approaches that are most appropriate for this task. Multimodality, we claim, is a rather fragmented and unconsolidated field where many of the tools and concepts applied by different researchers are much less suitable than others. Our intention here is to raise critical questions about the affordances used by communicators in each context of usage and the ideological purposes they are meant to accomplish, so that meanings about gender and sexuality are uncovered.