TING HUANG (XI'AN JIAOTONG UNIVERSITY)

IDENTIFYING US AND THEM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) TEXTBOOKS IN CHINA : MATERIALS DESIGN

In recent years, the Chinese government has paid more attention on Chinese culture represented in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks as a response to English hegemony and nationalistic identity confusion. This study examines the discourse of nationalism in two of the most popular Chinese senior high school EFL textbooks. Drawing on Proximization Theory (PT) and adopting mixed method research design (MMR), this study examines the structures of Us and Them pervading discourse and linguistic means with reference to Chinese social context. We find that both textbooks reinforce positive views on Us characterized by the country’s splendid traditional culture and significant achievement and depict Them in an essentialist and contradictory way. The implications of these findings are the value in integrating PT with EFL textbooks study in disclosing latent ideological configurations. This study also contributes to discussions of future role of EFL textbooks.

Ting Huang is a Ph.D. candidate at the school of Foreign Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong University. Her research interests lie in the field of material design, discourse analysis, pragmatics and teaching and learning English in the context of culture and identity.