Traces of neoliberalism in English teaching materials: a critical discourse analysis

ABSTRACT

Textbooks, in general, and English teaching textbooks, in particular, are acknowledged as common sites for social reproduction and disseminating dominant ideologies. In an attempt to contribute to research on textbook ideology, the current study attempted to uncover neoliberal mentality in the highly popular ELT materials taught in Iranian private language institutes. Scrutinized though CDA methodology proposed by Fairclough [2001. Language and power (2nd ed.). London: Routledge; 2003. Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge], the textbooks were found to popularize certain tenets of neoliberalism such as market, consumerism, branding, individual productivity/marketability as well as superficial, non-critical multiculturalism which was employed, simply to present a perfect, utopian image of the West. Such a practice, it is believed here, is a clear instance of ‘inculcation’ (Fairclough N. [2001]. Language and power (2nd ed.). London: Routledge) whose effect needs to be counterbalanced by reflective teaching and critical pedagogy.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical discourse analysis
• neoliberalism
• consumerism
• market-led discourse
• ELT materials
• textbook analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Esmat Babaii is associate professor of applied linguistics at Kharazmi University, Iran,where she teaches research methods, language assessment and discourse analysis to graduate students. She has served on the editorial boards and/or the review panels of several national and international journals. She has published articles and book chapters dealing with issues in Systemic Functional Linguistics, Appraisal theory, test-taking processes, English for Academic Purposes, and critical approaches to the study of culture and language. Her most recent work is a co-authored paper on critical analysis of teacher talk to appear in Pragmatics & Society.

Mohammad Sheikhi is an MA holder in TEFL from Kharazmi university of Tehran. He studied English literature at the BA level in Urmia University. His areas of study are research methodology and discourse analysis.

ORCID

Esmat Babaii http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9998-8247