English and Englishness: A multimodal analysis of English language teaching materials in contemporary China

URI
Thumbnail Image
Type
Book chapter
Citation
Shi, H., & Lim, F. V. (2022). English and Englishness: A multimodal analysis of English language teaching materials in contemporary China. In T. Xiong, D. Feng, & G. Hu (Eds.), Cultural knowledge and values in English language teaching materials: (Multimodal) representations and stakeholders (pp. 63-80). Springer. https://10.1007/978-981-19-1935-0_4
Author
Shi, Huawei
•
Lim, Fei Victor 
Abstract
This chapter adopts multimodal content analysis (Bell, 2001; Joo et al., 2019) to examine an introductory video to an online English course, the textbook accompanying the course, as well as the online course itself, for students in China. The analysis aims to surface the discursive construction and representation of values and the expression of ideologies on English in the English language teaching (ELT) materials (Hu & Mckay, 2014). In particular, the analysis highlights the privileging of Anglocentric representations and dominance of the native speaker model (Kirkpatrick, 2007). Such representations are observed to persist in the Chinese society despite the present status of English as a world language with an increasing number of English language speakers from many parts of the world in the outer circle (Kachru, 1992). Through the analysis, we discuss the expressions of cultural hegemony (Gramsci, 1971), in this case, the western cultural bias implicit in ELT materials propagated to students in China. We advance the argument that such ideological positioning (van Dijk, 2011) of ELT materials is unproductive as such an essentialist definition of EL proficiency is unattainable for non-native speakers (Kirkpatrick, 2007). Even worse, such an association between the English language and nationality can be deleterious as it propagates the unhelpful notion of English where standards and norms are determined by nationality rather than by use.
Date Issued
2022
ISBN
9789811919350
Publisher
Springer
DOI
10.1007/978-981-19-1935-0_4