| The contemporary society is a historical period when female consciousness awakes and female roles are quite lively.Along with it,how to integrate the gender perspective into education has become a hot topic in the field of educational research.School textbooks,as an important carrier of culture,play a crucial role in determining students' views on gender roles in society.English,as a compulsory subject in secondary schools,is a very important part of the curriculum in China.Therefore,it is necessary and worthwhile to research on the presentation of gender roles in English textbooks.This paper selects the new curriculum standard of junior high school English textbooks(a total of 5 books),published by People's Education Press,as the research subject.It will analyze whether there are stereotypes and bias of gender roles in the textbooks from Multimodal Discourse Analysis(MDA)and Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA)perspectives.It will also reveal the deep reasons behind them and make some reasonable suggestions.First of all,from the perspective of CDA,this paper adopts the method of quantitative analysis to analyze the text(including tapescripts)from the following aspects: the frequency of gender roles,the number of professional roles of gender roles,Ms.and Mrs.,firstness,masculine generic construction,classification system,and adjectives with gender roles analysis;Secondly,from the perspective of MDA,qualitative analysis is adopted to analyze the differences of gender roles in illustrations in terms of placement,dressing,gesture and facial expressions.The analysis results show that :(1)the frequency of male and female roles appeared in reading,conversation,illustration and tapescripts are respectively 78/59,223/235,681/525 and 964/858,male characters outnumber female characters as a whole;(2)the number of professional types of male and female roles is 24/7,and the occupational types of male roles are far more than that of female roles.Moreover,the employment field is broader and the level is higher;(3)when male and female roles appear at the same time,the frequency of male and female roles appearing in the first place is 37/29;(4)the frequency of occurrence of Ms.And Mrs.Is 10/4,and the use of Ms.is far more than that of Mrs.;(5)the numbers of types of adjectives used by male and female roles are(appreciative words)19/14 and(depreciative words)11/15.The number of appreciative words used by male roles is more than that of female roles,and the number of depreciative words used by male roles is less than that of female role;(6)analyzed from the aspects of masculine generic construction and classification system,females are either underlexicalized in certain fields or overlexicalized as critical and harsh;(7)in the selected pictures,the male roles are mostly located at the top and center positions,conveying more important information.In terms of dressing,the female roles are usually in cool and dim colors,and the roles of mom are mainly shaped at home.In terms of gesture,female roles tend to appear with actors and phenomenon.In terms of facial expressions,men are more likely to have high angle,with positive and confident expressions.In conclusion,the compilers of the textbooks has noticed the equality of both gender roles and made some attempts,like the frequency of Ms is much higher than Mrs.,the occurrence of masculine generic construction is reduced and in terms of gesture,female roles tend to appear with actors and phenomenon.However,all of the rest of the content more or less indicate that gender stereotypes and gender biases still exist.The writer analyzes the causes and effects of stereotypes and gender biases and put forward some feasible suggestions to eliminate the gender stereotypes and gender bias in textbooks.The research results of this paper are not only of practical significance to textbook editors,but also of great significance to teachers and students in the identification and shaping of gender roles. |
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