Disciplinary Acculturation: A Comparative Study of Intradiscourse Cycles of English and Persian Introductory Textbooks of Sociology and Linguistics

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the specific discourse cycles of some<br />introductory textbooks across disciplines and languages to see to what extent they<br />acculturate students into the new subjects. To this end, 2 well-established and mostly<br />used English and Persian introductory textbooks in sociology and 2 other wellestablished<br />English and Persian introductory textbooks in linguistics were examined.<br />The study was conducted with reference to Love's (as cited in Hewings, 2006)<br />suggested framework for the analysis of introductory textbooks. The texts were<br />analyzed in terms of the intradiscourse cycles. Then, the introductory textbooks<br />from the 2 disciplines were compared and contrasted in order to determine their<br />similarities and differences in acculturating students into the discipline. Results<br />showed that though in the English introductory textbooks, the cycles either started<br />with theory, data, or culminated in cutting-edge, real time problematization, in the<br />Persian texts, the cycles less frequently culminated in problematization of the<br />interpretive process. The study suggests that this kind of analysis enhances both<br />teachers' and students' knowledge concerning the process of acculturation into their<br />disciplines.