Neoliberal values embedded in a Chinese college English textbook
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Since language is not neutral, English Language Teaching (ELT) and English textbooks reflect sociopolitical, economic, and cultural reality so they cannot be value-free. Values in ELT textbooks can affect students’ thinking and behaviors to a certain degree. As we are now in the era of globalization and neoliberalism which is the dominant political and economic paradigm, this study aims to investigate whether neoliberal values are implanted into a widely-circulated college English textbook in China by conducting a Critical Discourse Analysis. The research questions of this study are “Are there neoliberal values embedded in a Chinese college listening and speaking textbook? If there are, what are the most salient neoliberal values? How are these values represented in the textbook?” The analysis revealed that there are many neoliberal values embedded in the textbook selected. The most salient neoliberal values found in it are entrepreneurship, individualism, self-responsibility for personal development and fulfillment, and flexibility. The embedding of these neoliberal values can be attributed to economic, social, and political factors in China. Consequently, raising college ELT teachers and students’ awareness of and developing their critical thinking abilities with the regard to the values incorporated in the textbooks should be one of the prime tasks of ELT objectives nowadays, especially against a global backdrop of neoliberalism and globalization.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
All rights reserved. Apart from citations for the purposes of research, private study, or criticism and review,no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any other form without prior written permission by the publisher.
References
Arbak, Y. (2005). Dominant values of Turkish organizations: a contradictory phenomenon. Review of Social, Economic and Business Studies 5(6): 69-88.
Baez, B. (2007). Neoliberalism in Higher Education. Paper presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Louisville. November 9.
Bauman, Z. (1996). From Pilgrim to Tourist—Or a Short History of Identity. In Questions of Cultural identity, edited by S. Hall and P. D. Gay, pp. 18-36. London: Sage.
Bernstein, K., Hellmich, E. A., Katzelson, N., Shin, J. and Vinall, K. (2015). Critical perspectives on neoliberalism in second/foreign language education. L2 Journal 7(3): 3-14.
Block, D. (2018). Political Economy and Sociolinguistics: Neoliberalism, Inequality and Social Class. London: Bloomsbury.
Bori, P. (2018a). Language Textbooks in the Era of Neoliberalism. London: Routledge.
Bori, P. (2018b). Tourism discourse in language textbooks: a critical approach. Komunikacija I Kultura Online 9(9): 1-21.
Butcher, J. and Smith, P. (2010). ‘Making a difference’: volunteer tourism and development. Tourism Recreation Research 35(1): 27-36.
Cheung, E. (2020). China Bans Foreign Teaching Materials in Public Schools. [Online URL: www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/china/china-schools-foreign-ban-intl-hnk-scli/index.html] accessed on January 20, 2020.
Chinese Ministry of Education. (2017). College English Teaching Guide. Beijing: Ministry of Education. [in Chinese]
Chun, C. W. (2009). Contesting neoliberal discourses in EAP: critical praxis in an IEP classroom. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 8(2): 111-120.
Copley, K. (2017). Neoliberalism and ELT coursebook content. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 15(1): 43-62.
Cortazzi, M. and Jin, L. X. (1999). Cultural Mirrors: Materials and Methods in the EFL Classroom. In Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning, edited by E. Hinkel, pp. 196-219. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2008). Reading the world through words: cultural themes in heritage Chinese language textbooks. Language and Education 22(2): 95-113.
De los Heros, S. (2009). Linguistic pluralism or prescriptivism? A CDA of language ideologies in Talento, Peru’s official textbook for the first-year of high school. Linguistics and Education 20(2): 172-199.
Drucker, P. F. (2014). Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principle. n.p.: Perfect Bound Book Printing.
Engel, M. (2000). The Struggle for Control of Public Education: Market Ideology vs. Democratic Values. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Espeland, W. and Stevens, M. (1998). Commensuration as a social progress. Annual Review of Sociology 24: 313-343.
Evans, P. B. and Sewell, W. H. (2013). Neoliberalism: Policy Regimes, International Regimes, and Social Effects. In Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era, edited by P. Hall and M. Lamont, pp. 35-68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fairclough, N. L. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. L. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman.
Fitzsimons, P. (2002). Neoliberalism and Education: The Autonomous Chooser. [Online URL: www. radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue4_2/04_fitzsimons.html] accessed on September 29, 2019.
Gebregeorgis, M. Y. (2016). Gender construction through textbooks: the case of an Ethiopian primary school English textbook. Africa Education Review 13(3-4): 119-140.
Giroux, H. A. and Giroux, S. S. (2004). Take Back Higher Education: Race, Youth, and the Crisis of Democracy in the Post-civil Rights Era. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gray, J. (2012). Neoliberalism, Celebrity and ‘Aspirational Content’ in English Language Teaching Textbooks for the Global Market. In Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics, edited by D. Block et al., pp. 14-32. London: Routledge.
Halstead, J. M. and Taylor, M. J. (2005). Values in Education and Education in Values. London: Routledge Falmer.
Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hoey, M. (2001). Textual Interaction: An Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.
Holborow, M. (2012). What is neoliberalism? Discourse, ideology and real world. In Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics, edited by D. Block and others, pp. 86-113. London: Routledge.
Kachru, B. B. (1985). Standards, Codification and Sociolinguistic Realism: The English Language in the Outer Circle. In English in the world: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures, edited by R. Quirk and H. Widdowson, pp. 11-30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2008). Cultural Globalization and Language Education. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012). Individual Identity, Cultural Globalization, and Teaching English as An International Language. In Principles and Practices for Teaching English as an International Language, edited by L. Alsagoff et al., pp. 9-27. New York: Routledge.
Lambert, S. J. (2008). Passing the buck: labor flexibility practices that transfer risk onto hourly workers. Human Relations 61(9): 1203-1227.
Lemke, T. (2001). ‘The birth of bio-politics’: Michel Foucault’s lecture at the college de France on neo-liberal governmentality. Economy and Society 30(2): 190-207.
Lentin, A. and Titley, G. (2011). The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age. London: Zed Books.
Littlejohn, A. (2012). Language teaching materials and the (very) big picture. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 9(1): 283-297.
Liu, C. Y. and Wang, S. (2007). Chinese cultural transformation in the context of globalization. Intercultural Communication Studies 16(1): 66-74.
Liu, Y. Q. (2009). Exploring the impacts of cultural globalization on cultural awareness/values and English writing in Chinese context. Intercultural Communication Studies XXI(2): 94-110.
Lu, L. and Cui, X. Y. (2017). A Review on the Influence of Neo-liberalism on College Students’ Ideology and Practice and Its Countermeasures. Studies in Ideological Education 23(2): 68-73. [in Chinese]
Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012). How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multi-modal Introduction. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Massey, M. (1972). The Original Massey Tapes. New York: Video Publishing House.
Mitchell, K. (2006). Neoliberal governmentality in the European union: education, training, and technologies of citizenship. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24(3): 389-407.
Narrog, H. (2005). On defining modality again. Language Science 27(2): 165-192.
Ndura, E. (2004). ESL and cultural bias: an analysis of elementary through high school textbooks in the Western United States of America. Language, Culture and Curriculum 17(2): 143-153.
O’Reilly, C. C. (2006). From drifter to gap year tourist: mainstreaming backpacker travel. Annals of Tourism Research 33(4): 998-1017.
Olssen, M. (2018). Neoliberalism and laissez-faire: the retreat from naturalism. Solsko Polje 29(1-2): 33-56.
Park, J. S. (2015). Structures of Feeling in Unequal Englishes. In Unequal Englishes: The Politics of English Today, edited by R. Tupas, pp.59-73. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pennycook, A. (2017). The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. London: Routledge.
Piller, I. and Cho, J. (2013). Neoliberalism as language policy. Language in Society 42(1): 23-44.
Saad-Filho, A. and Johnston, D. (2005). Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader. Michigan: Pluto Press.
Saunders, D. B. (2010). Neoliberal ideology and public higher education in the United States. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 8(1): 42-77.
Savitri, G. (2002). Discursive Strategies for Political Survival: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Thai No-Confidence Debates. Doctoral dissertation. University of Leeds, England.
Triandis, H. C. (2018). Individualism and Collectivism. London: Routledge.
Widodo, H. P. (2018). A Critical Micro-Semiotic Analysis of Values Depicted in the Indonesian Ministry of National Education-Endorsed Secondary School English Textbook. In Situating Moral and Cultural Values in ELT Materials: The Southeast Asian Context, edited by H. P. Widodo et al., pp. 131-152. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG.
Widodo, H. P., Perfecto, M. R., Canh, L. V. and Buripakdi, A. (2018). Incorporating Cultural and Moral Values into ELT Materials in the Context of Southeast Asia (SEA). In Situating Moral and Cultural Values in ELT Materials: The Southeast Asian Context, edited by H. P. Widodo et al., pp. 1-14. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG.
Xiong, T. (2012). Essence or practice? Conflicting cultural values in Chinese EFL textbooks: a discourse approach. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 33(4): 499-516.
Xiong, T. and Yuan, Z. M. (2018). “It was because I could speak English that I got the job”: neoliberal discourse in a Chinese English textbook series. Journal of Language, Identity and Education 17(2): 103-117.
Zhou, Q. (2012). A Corpus-Based Study on the Vocabulary in China’s Contemporary College English. Doctoral dissertation. Shanghai Normal University, China.