Open AccessHuman Rights Education and Language Learning in Pakistan: An EFL Perspective
Author(s) -
Tazanfal Tehseem,
Zahra Bokhari,
Saba Zulfiqar
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of education and educational development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2313-3538
pISSN - 2310-0869
DOI - 10.22555/joeed.v7i2.143
Subject(s) - systemic functional linguistics , interpersonal communication , ideology , sociology , context (archaeology) , meaning (existential) , semiotics , social semiotics , metadiscourse , meaning making , linguistics , perspective (graphical) , epistemology , pedagogy , social science , computer science , political science , politics , paleontology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , law , biology
This paper explores the dissemination of human rights through English language learning in Pakistan and builds on the knowledge that contributes to the development of democratic educational outcomes. Textbook discourses have long been the domain of critical linguistics; critical linguists understand textbook discourse primarily as a language in the context of schooling while the discourse analysts understand such discourses as systems of knowledge and ideology. The question of how the learners are expected to engage with the subject knowledge is explored from two theoretical perspectives: linguistic analyses are executed using tools such as choice of pronouns, mood, and modality from Systemic FunctionalLinguistics (Halliday et al., 2014), a social semiotic theory of language as a meaning potential, and reinterpreted according to the intercultural paradigm (Piller, 2010) to familiarize the ways interactants choose to build relations in the textbook narratives because in exploring interpersonal meanings it is very easy to focus on what is said and why. Additionally, the image analysis is done by representational analysis that of how images reflect ideologies (Kress & VanLeeuwen., 2006). The contributions of this study are of particular importance to make visible elements of interpersonal meaning-making which were explored in the context of cumulative knowledge building in humanities.