Essence or practice? Conflicting cultural values in Chinese EFL textbooks: a discourse approach

Abstract While increasing attention is being paid to the ideological debate on Confucian-influenced cultural values communicated in Chinese language textbooks, EFL textbooks remain under-examined since the TEFL/TESOL is typically assumed to be 'technical' and 'neutral'. Drawing on critical theoretical perspectives on curriculum, education and applied linguistics, I take the position that language textbooks need to be seen as social and cultural artifacts. By a discourse analytical approach, this study explores how cultural and moral values are constructed in textbooks by various linguistic and rhetorical resources. It is found that in such textbooks dominant cultural and moral discourses are occasionally contested and resisted by competing discourses. These conflicts and ambivalence concerning different cultural discourses highlight the possibilities of critical reading and critical pedagogy. Keywords: cultural valuesChinaConfucianismdiscourse analysisEFL textbooksociology of education Acknowledgements I am indebted to Narahiko Inoue and two anonymous referees. This study is supported under the Japanese Government (MEXT) Scholarship Program, and the Chinese Ministry of Education Youth Humanities and Social Sciences Fund (project title "Situated cognition research on comment discourse on foreign Language teaching", project No. 11YJC740075). The viewpoints expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the funding bodies.