Integrating Imperatives and Feminism through Princess Mononoke (1997) in the English as a Foreign or Second Language Classroom

The use of the cinematographic world in the English classroom as a support to learn a foreign language involves a very recent area of research due to the innumerable benefits that it entails. The present study aims to demonstrate that it is possible to teach a specific grammatical aspect as well as a cross-curricular theme as significant as feminism is. To that end, a mainly qualitative, but also quantitative analysis is carried out on the animated feature film Princess Mononoke (1997), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, in which the imperative mode, one of the grammatical aspects that most predominates in the interactions of both female protagonists –Lady Eboshi and San– is analyzed, apart from paying special attention to its implicit feminist discourse. The results are favorable regarding the possible teaching of the imperative mode and students’ awareness of feminism, even though the limitations which have been found suggest much more promising future avenues of research.