Whose Culture is Represented in English for Business Purpose Course Books in Iran: Center or Circle Englishes?

Abstract

Intercultural communicative competence plays an important role in business communication. English for business course books need to provide students with the opportunity to explore, acquire, and compare various features of the cultures of different countries. The present paper reports a content analysis of three English for business purpose (EBP) course books published by two main academic publications in Iran. The aim was to find out cultural representation of center and circle English countries. Also the potential for fostering intercultural competence was investigated. Two checklists were developed for the data collection in the study, namely, Cultural Representation and Intercultural Experiences Checklist. Content or document analysis was applied to identify inner circle, and the outer and expanding circle cultural contents of the EBP textbooks under analysis. The data was quantified as the frequency of occurrence both in the texts and illustrations of the three books if any. Also the coverage of activities was recorded that allow for multiculturalism and foster interculturally competent EBP learners. The findings suggest that the texts were generally de-cultured and no provision was made for developing an intercultural personality in the students.