Manifestations of Globalization and Linguistic Imperialism in English Language Teaching and Materials Preparation: Ideology in the International ELT Textbooks

Abstract

This study intended to investigate the imposition of values and ideological patterns of particular societies affecting learners' identity as a result of globalization and linguistic imperialism in the internationally distributed textbooks which are developed to meet the English language needs of international learners and are broadly used in Islamic countries like Iran. It was important to work out whether violation of standards and ideological patterns of certain societies could be detected. For that reason, critical discourse analysis (CDA) with its theory and procedures, as developed by Fairclough (1989), used in conversations, illustrations and reading passages in Interchange, Four Corners, Top Notch and American English File series and three meaning dimensions– the textbooks content, the social relations of the characters in the textbooks, and their subject positions– were classified and analyzed statistically. Overall, the findings of this study represented that these ELT books are by some means unfair and inclined to signify a specific discourse type, that is, the Western culture discourse, ideological patterns, and consumer societies, which can impose the Western view and have different effects on students' identity in Islamic countries. <br />