The power of language in textbooks: shaping futures, shaping identities

Abstract

This article examines secondary school textbooks used in one province of Pakistan to explore how particular political and religious beliefs are embedded in the texts used to teach the English language. The article shows how the authors of these textbooks change the discursive practices of global English to suit their own purposes. In particular, the article discusses how the authors appropriate the genre structure of biographical texts and adapt lexico-grammatical resources for identity management. An appropriation of the language in the textbooks, the article argues, curtails students’ access to the linguistic or semiotic tools that are needed to read and engage with other globally oriented texts. This may impact students’ views of the world as well as limit their ability to understand and appreciate alternative perspectives.

Keywords:

• Pakistani English
• identity management
• language variation
• curriculum and ideology

Notes

1. While Pakistan has been investing substantially in higher education, most graduates, including those with PhDs, are often unable to publish or contribute to their respective fields in a global context. I argue that this is partly a consequence of their limited knowledge (procedural and declarative) of discipline-specific language.

2. According to World Bank reports, the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita for Pakistan was only $1410 in 2014, the lowest in South Asia. Current reports suggest that Pakistan has failed to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals.

3. Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) states that the crime level for Pakistan is high; and many countries have travel advisories against travelling to Pakistan given the high rate of violence and terrorism.

4. The ordering of the domains here is different than in earlier publications on this framework (Mahboob, 2014, 2015). The mode dimension has been reversed here to reflect the primacy of oral language over written language.