A Probe Into Gender Ideology Hidden In Senior High School EFL Textbooks: Advance With English

This thesis is a tentative gender study on Senior High School EFL textbooks, Advance with English, from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). As the main source of input for senior high school students, Advance with English undoubtedly exerts enormous influence over the students and teachers as well. However, languages in textbooks are not transparent, but are value-loaded and ideology-penetrated; some elements of language are manipulated by writers and designers for the effect of highlighting or devaluating some viewpoints. In this sense, the study attempts to shed some light on textbook interpretation, textbook designing and EFL education.The present thesis aims to explore the relationship between discourse and gender ideology, to identify and unearth the embedded negative stereotypes. For this purpose, the author adopts Critical Discourse Analysis as the analytical tool; Fairclough's three-dimensional framework for discourse analysis serves as a general analytical framework; also, Halliday's three metafunctions are used to provide an elaborate analysis. Investigations are made from the following analytical devices within the three metafunctions:lexical classification, the system of transitivity and modality. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis is employed.The result shows that certain meanings are foregrounded while others are suppressed or obfuscated through the manipulation and imposition of particular views, stances and perception. The gender bias, inequity of power and some negative stereotypes are found and impositions are made implicitly by the article writers or textbook designers.As can be drawn from the study, CDA can be implemented in second language teaching and textbooks can be adapted to facilitate the critical literacy of students. Therefore, it is imperative to enhance among the teachers and textbook designers critical language awareness in the first place. Furthermore, EFL educationalists'task can go beyond linguistic training and become a really educational undertaking, with the aim of helping the students develop their internal values and capacity to criticize the world. In this sense, we should necessarily advocate the development of critical learning ability and set this as an important educational goal in the English Curriculum.