Open AccessI am what I am: Exploring the identity construal in Pakistani School EFL Textbooks
Author(s) -
Tazanfal Tehseem,
Naima Tassadiq,
Rabia Faiz,
Lala Rukh
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
review of applied management and social sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2708-3640
pISSN - 2708-2024
DOI - 10.47067/ramss.v4i3.174
Subject(s) - sociocultural evolution , systemic functional linguistics , identity (music) , curriculum , sociology , sociocultural perspective , construal level theory , multimodality , pedagogy , semiotics , literacy , discourse analysis , linguistics , psychology , social science , aesthetics , anthropology , philosophy
This paper aims at exploring how identity is construed in children’s literature and how the powerful legitimize to identify the textbook consumers by exercising their influence. Drawing on Systemic-functional Linguistics (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014), particularly Genre theory (Martin and Rose, 2008), it examines how English language textbooks used in Pakistan are written to construe, a project, and normalize a particular sociocultural identity. The sociocultural positioning being projected through the textbooks can be norm-conforming, contesting or can suggest otherwise. The majority of the students in Pakistan are mandated to learn state governed textbooks which serve them build up a sociopolitical identity. Therefore, underlying semiotic modalities realizing a perspective are pertinent to be explored in order to unfold discursive strategies for constructing identity. It is widely acknowledged that any educational curriculum is the most effective tool to construct and circulate a reality. Therefore, challenging any literacy pedagogy embedding particular outcomes can help transforming educational practices across the school curriculum (Martin and Rose, 2012). The data comprises Punjab English textbooks for the government schools. The findings suggest that the intriguing intricacies of textbook discourses can be successfully examined through analyzing linguistic patterns and that the textbooks construe sociocultural identity. The findings also provide insightful implications for discourse analysis based on SFL by contributing explorations of identity.