Agency, Authority and Universality in the Promotion of Global ELT Textbook Series
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| Title: | Agency, Authority and Universality in the Promotion of Global ELT Textbook Series |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Nalina Samarn, Kristof Savski (ORCID |
| Source: | Language, Culture and Curriculum. 2024 37(4):544-561. |
| Availability: | Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 18 |
| Publication Date: | 2024 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Descriptors: | Textbooks, Professional Autonomy, Personal Autonomy, Global Approach, Power Structure, Social Influences, Textbook Content, Language Tests, Educational Policy, Teaching Methods, Web Sites, Publishing Industry, Textbook Publication, Mass Media Role |
| DOI: | 10.1080/07908318.2024.2367460 |
| ISSN: | 0790-8318 1747-7573 |
| Abstract: | There is at present much focus in ELT on describing and promoting teacher and learner agency. However, ELT as a professional field is concurrently characterised by an increasing orientation toward authoritative texts, particularly those imbued with authority at the transnational level. Global textbooks are a notable example, since they, along with global language testing and language policy, play an increasingly important role in determining teaching and learning practices across a range of different settings. Our focus in this paper is on how the authoritativeness of global textbooks is upheld in online promotional materials. Examining websites of three contemporary ELT textbook series, we analyse discourse strategies employed to legitimise the authoritative position of the textbooks and their publishers. We find that publishers legitimised their authority through strategic links to external forces (policy, testing), in this way foregrounding the universality of the textbooks. In contrast, the websites represented the agencies of teachers and learners only minimally, primarily as subordinate to the agency attributed to textbooks themselves. We conclude with a reflection on the need for applied critical scholarship in ELT that can offer practical alternatives and thus disrupt dominant notions of universality and the hierarchization of knowledge these are based on. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2024 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1452126 |
| Database: | ERIC |
| Abstract: | There is at present much focus in ELT on describing and promoting teacher and learner agency. However, ELT as a professional field is concurrently characterised by an increasing orientation toward authoritative texts, particularly those imbued with authority at the transnational level. Global textbooks are a notable example, since they, along with global language testing and language policy, play an increasingly important role in determining teaching and learning practices across a range of different settings. Our focus in this paper is on how the authoritativeness of global textbooks is upheld in online promotional materials. Examining websites of three contemporary ELT textbook series, we analyse discourse strategies employed to legitimise the authoritative position of the textbooks and their publishers. We find that publishers legitimised their authority through strategic links to external forces (policy, testing), in this way foregrounding the universality of the textbooks. In contrast, the websites represented the agencies of teachers and learners only minimally, primarily as subordinate to the agency attributed to textbooks themselves. We conclude with a reflection on the need for applied critical scholarship in ELT that can offer practical alternatives and thus disrupt dominant notions of universality and the hierarchization of knowledge these are based on. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0790-8318 1747-7573 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/07908318.2024.2367460 |
