Normality, Values and Affiliation: a Preliminary Approach to Ideology in the EFL Textbooks
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UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CUYO FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS LICENCIATURA FILOLOGÍA INGLESA ORIENTACIÓN LINGÜÍSTICA Normality, Values and Affiliation: A Preliminary Approach to Ideology in the EFL Textbooks María Alejandra Celi Registro alumna Nº 20186 Dirigido por Prof.: Laura Eugenia Hlavacka Mendoza, 20 de Junio de 2016 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my most sincere appreciation to Susan Hood, who helped me to see the correct path to develop this project. As for my teachers, I am deeply grateful to Cristina Boccia for the time devoted in office hours to help me find the topic of my research and the books made available, and to Laura Hlavacka, my thesis director, for her patience and her interest to engage in this project and to motivate me to go through this process. I must also acknowledge that this research would not have been possible if it were not for the help provided by Paula Domansky, who was more than willing to facilitate the EFL textbooks to develop the sample used. Finally yet importantly, special thanks need to be expressed towards family and friends, who have been extraordinarily patient and supportive in this process. I truly hope this work makes you all proud. 1 INDEX 1. INTRODUCTION__________________________________________________________ 4 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK _____________________________________________9 2.1 THE SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL MODEL OF LANGUAGE____________9 2.2 TRANSITIVITY ________________________________________________ 16 2.2.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION __________________________ 16 2.2.2 PROCESS TYPES AND PARTICIPANT ROLES___________17 2.2.2.1Material Processes ______________________________17 2.2.2.2 Mental Processes _______________________________20 2.2.2.3 Relational Processes ____________________________21 2.2.2.4 Verbal Processes _______________________________26 2.2.2.5 Behavioral Processes____________________________27 2.2.2.6 Existential Processes ____________________________28 2.2.2.7 Meteorological Processes________________________ 28 2.2.2.8 Causative Process Configurations_________________29 2.2.3 CIRCUMSTANTIATION ______________________________34 2.3 A NUCLEAR MODEL OF EXPERIENCE: THE ERGATIVITY SYSTEM _________________________________________________________ 41 2.4 AFFILIATION _________________________________________________ 44 3. METHODOLOGY ________________________________________________________ 47 3.1 Research Questions ______________________________________________ 47 3.2 Corpus Selection Criteria _________________________________________ 48 3.3 Method of Analysis ______________________________________________ 53 3.3.1 Organization of the text corpus for transitivity analysis_____53 3.3.1.1 Group 1: Personal habits and dispositions __________54 3.3.1.2 Group 2: Out of the ordinary experiences __________ 55 3.3.1.3 Group 3: Teenage problems and conflicts __________ 55 3.3.1.4 Group 4: Predictions and plans for the future _______56 3.3.1.5 Group 5: Volunteering in the local community ______57 3.3.1.6 Group 6: Hybrid texts___________________________57 2 3.3.2 Transitivity Analysis Procedure ________________________ 58 3.4 Problems Encountered and Solutions Provided________________________62 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ______________________________________________ 63 4.1 TRANSITIVITY CONFIGURATIONS INSTANTIATED IN THE SAMPLE_______________________________________________________63 4.1.1 Group 1: Personal habits and dispositions ________________64 4.1.2 Group 2: Out of the ordinary experiences ________________69 4.1.3 Group 3: Teenage problems and conflicts ________________76 4.1.4 Group 4: Predictions and plans for the future ____________ 82 4.1.5 Group 5: Volunteering in the local community ____________86 4.1.6 Group 6: Hybrid texts ________________________________ 91 4.2 USUALITY AND NORMALITY AS DERIVED FROM THE TRANSITIVITY CONFIGURATIONS ____________________________100 4.2.1 Group 1: Personal habits and dispositions ______________ 100 4.2.2 Group 2: Out of the ordinary experiences_______________102 4.2.3 Group 3: Teenage problems and conflicts_______________ 106 4.2.4 Group 4: Predictions and plans for the future ___________ 108 4.2.5 Group 5: Volunteering in the local community___________109 4.2.6 Group 6: Hybrid texts _______________________________111 4.3 NORMALITY, VALUES AND AFFILITIATION STRATEGIES IN THE SAMPLE_________________________________________________112 4.3.1 THE MOTIF OF ACHIEVEMENT AND VALUES ASSOCIATED WITH IT____________________________113 4.3.2 STEREOTYPES AS AN AFFILITATION ESTRATEGY__116 5. CONCLUSIONS AND PRELIMINARY PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS ______ 119 REFERENCES _____________________________________________________________121 APPENDIX 1: LISTS OF TEXTS FROM THE DIFFERENT EFL TEXTBOOKS ____ 124 APPENDIX 2: CHARTS DISPLAYING TRANSITIVITY ANALYSIS______________ 126 3 1. INTRODUCTION During the last decade, Argentinean secondary education has been the object of deep transformations. Such changes were mainly focused on moving from a secondary school at the service of a few, to an education at the service of everyone. According to the Local Curricular Design (Diseño Curricular Provincial (2015: 11), the purpose of such transformation was to question the naturalized educational practices in all school subjects in order to be able to construe a new perspective on education as a compulsory and a quality process in every adolescents’ life1. In 2006, the new Ley de Educación Nacional N° 26.206 was enforced and the whole educational system was reorganized and, in the process, most school subjects and pedagogical practices were reevaluated. As could be expected, English as a Foreign Language (EFL from now onwards) was not left out of such reform. After the said educational reform, Foreign Languages in general gained importance as part of the basic curriculum of secondary education since they finally attained a status comparable to other school subjects like Mathematics, Language and Literature, History and Physical Education. In the document containing the LCD (Diseño Curricular Provincial (2015: 80)) it is argued that in the framework of the new educational policies, a multilingual and intercultural perspective is needed in the teaching of foreign languages since languages reflect the identity of individuals and peoples and, thus, their culture. In this sense, the purpose of EFL in schools resides, on the one hand, in allowing adolescents to enlarge their view of the world by exposing them to different construals of reality and, on the other hand, in providing multiple opportunities of significant interaction that help adolescents to understand other cultures and express their individuality as well as their own culture, emotions and thoughts in oral and written global communication. It is also argued in the LCD that in all this process teenagers need to be considered as active members of society with civil rights and the potential of construing, appropriating and re-construing knowledge and culture (Diseño Curricular Provincial 2015: 82). Considering adolescents as full social subjects, then, implies the implementation of new pedagogical methods regarding the use of EFL as a tool for actual communication in a globalized world. The use of authentic texts in this case is constantly mentioned as a paramount tool to help develop students’ reading, listening, speaking and writing skills (Diseño Curricular Provincial 2015: 99). 1 Author’s non-literal translation from the Diseño Curricular Provincial 2015 in the whole chapter. 4 However, the pedagogical tools used in the EFL classrooms in Argentina do not always seem to contribute efficiently to the exposure of students to authentic communicative contexts that allow them to significantly interact with others and express themselves. For instance, although the curriculum design for secondary education states the need to include authentic texts to facilitate students’ actual interaction in a foreign language (Diseño Curricular Provincial 2015: 99), texts within English textbooks are generally not authentic. The texts provided in EFL books seem to be made up texts whose representation of reality is prototypically construed in stereotyped contexts, with no variety of participants, activities in which they get involved and even topics of discussion. It seems that the primarily concern of the LCD of providing students with different authentic sources to experience reality through language is not currently achieved. In addition, the lack of reference to criteria for the selection of English textbooks or to the parameters to critically choose a given text as a model for students’ communication seem to contribute to failing in promoting authentic communication in different contexts. Going back to EFL classrooms in Argentina, it seems that to make textbook selections the context in which EFL is taught is not frequently taken into account, i.e. the arbitrary selection of EFL textbooks can put at risk the achievement of the pedagogical purposes presented above. The goals of enabling students’ comprehension of a culture and expression of ideas seem to be difficult to achieve if the selection of English textbooks does not suit the interests, values and ‘norms’ of a given community. It seems contradictory that although the new educational system promotes an interesting perspective in which foreign languages are the tool to foster adolescents’ intercultural development, the lack of contextualized criteria for the selection of English textbooks does not contribute to a meaningful teaching-learning process that could enable teenagers