The ideological underpinnings in university English textbooks in China: A critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT China has had an ambivalent policy for the learning and teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) over much of its history. The explicit and implicit implementation of language policy has had a significant impact on the content of EFL textbooks and the ideologies underlying them. However, studies exploring such ideologies remain sensitive areas in which little work has been done to date. By applying a combination of critical discourse analysis and a corpus linguistics approach, this paper critically investigates the ideological underpinnings embedded in 10 current English language textbook series that are officially approved and widely used in Chinese universities. Results show that the significantly overused semantic domains are ‘Education in general’, Science and technology, and ‘Language, speech and grammar’, and the most underused concepts are ‘Politics’, ‘Warfare’, and ‘Government’. Unlike the English language textbooks in earlier historical periods, no explicit political philosophy is captured in current textbook series, reflecting China’s more recent focus on some concepts of education and the development of science and technology. This study may contribute to our understanding of the ideological underpinnings in English language textbooks worldwide, with the hope of offering insights into language teaching materials development.