The socio-political agenda of the EFL textbooks in Egypt : A CDA study /
Nasser Ali Ahmed Ammar ; Supervised Salwa A. Kamel , Amani A. Badawy
- Cairo : Nasser Ali Ahmed Ammar , 2017
- 252 P. : charts , facsimiles ; 25cm
Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Arts - Department of English
The main purpose of this study is to examine and analyse a selected set of EFL textbooks that are taught in Egypt in order to arrive at a critical understanding of the representation of values, gender and race in these textbooks. The study was guided by a main research question and subquestions around which the research problem and objectives were built. For this purpose, a textual and visual analysis was conducted to answer the research question and to examine the hypotheses by tabulating and analyzing the statements and images of the textbooks to find out the frequency of their occurrence and calculate percentages. Within a critical discourse analysis (CDA) framework, the study explored the ideology and power relations in the textbooks under study by using various tools of analysis based on hallidays (1994) systemic functional grammar (SFG), van leeuwens (2008) social actor Network (SAN), and van Dijks (2000) Us/Them perspective. The findings of the study revealed strategies of cultural infiltration and bias adopted in these textbooks, which may represent a threat to the learners identity. In addition, the English language was overestimated at the expense of other languages which were not fairly referred to. This was recorded together with an exercise of hegemony by the western culture through an emphasis on materialistic values that have to do with consumption activities. The socio-cultural implications observed in the low visibility of a given group of people on the basis of age, race or gender revealed that a sociopolitical agenda was being promoted in the textbooks under study. Some negative traits were associated with particular social actors such as the elderly, females and people of color
Critical critical discourse analysis Cultural values Hegemony