An examination of EFL textbooks in Lithuania

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a Critical Discourse Analysis and a Cultural Discourse Studies analysis of a series of English as a foreign language textbooks produced and used in Lithuanian schools during the Soviet era and into the post-Soviet era. The analysis shows that these books use the English language not to pay homage to linguistic imperialism and concomitantly promote anglophone countries (the Inner Circle), but rather to demote these countries and advance a communist ideology. This paper concludes that the English language per se is not an agent capable of (re)producing inequalities; rather, it is an instrument for other agents – in this case the creators of English language textbooks – to use to mediate any ideology, not just those for whom English is a first language.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural Discourse Studies (CDS)
• Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
• English language teaching (ELT) materials, Lithuania

Acknowledgements

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Notes on contributors

Richard W. Hallett

Richard W. Hallett is a professor of linguistics at Northeastern Illinois University. His areas of research include the discourse(s) of tourism, world Englishes, linguistic landscape, second language development, and language and identity.