ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a multimodal analysis of Brazilian textbooks especially their front covers, designed for the sixth grade. The analysis is underpinned by Social Semiotics Multimodal framework and the perspective of audience-based experiences, discussed by Knight. This multimodal analysis considers four semiotic modes involved in the composition of the texts: colour, layout, image, and typography. Multimodal studies of aesthetics are essential to demonstrate and reveal strategies and resources that are commonly and largely used to persuade and influence readers towards a specific direction. Such studies were developed under a Social Semiotics perspective, which considers aesthetics as the "politics of style—with style being the politics of choice”. Framing is another relevant feature which shapes aesthetics. The systematic use of textbooks in Brazilian education began in the period known as 'Imperial Brazil' where the access to schools was still very restricted, serving the upper class only.
