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44PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES
ГЕНДЕРНОЕ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЬСТВО: КРИТИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКОГО И КУЛЬТУРНОГО АСПЕКТОВ ДИСКУРСА ДВУХ ПОСОБИЙ ИЗУЧЕНИЯ АНГЛИЙСКОГО
ЯЗЫКА
Гордиенко И.А.
Старший преподаватель Досумбекова М.Т.
Университет Международного Бизнеса, Алматы, Казахстан
GENDER REPRESENTATION: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF TWO EFL TEXTBOOKS FROM
LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL ASPECTS
Gordienko I.
Senior teacher Dossumbekova M.
University of International Business, Almaty, Kazakhstan
АННОТАЦИЯ
Вопрос тендерной принадлежности всегда был в центре обсуждения, и факторы, стоящие за выбором изображения или слов для описания мужчин и женщин, находятся под вопросом. Для того чтобы ответить на них, необходимо понять, как тендерная принадлежность рассматривается и представляется в учебниках разных культур. Для того чтобы пролить свет на эту ситуацию, это исследование проанализировало и сравнило лингвистический и культурный аспекты дискурса двух учебников для изучения английского языка. Лингвистический аспект выявил как язык используется в различных контекстах, какие части речи описывают мужчин или женщин лучше всего и чаще всего. С культурной же точки зрения анализируется роль мужчин и женщин в обществе и их статус. В результате были выявлены различия в визуальных гендерных предпочтениях и в словаре, а также было дано представление о причинах гендерной предвзятости. Основываясь на этом исследовании, возникают два основных вывода: гендерная репрезентация в значительной степени зависит от общества и истории, и, несмотря на развитие движений за равенство, большинство учебников непреднамеренно остаются гендерно предвзятыми.
ABSTRACT
The question of gender has always been at the heart of discussion and the factors that stand behind the choice of a person to portray or words to describe men and women are under the question. In order to answer them, it is needed to understand how gender is treated and presented in textbooks of different cultures. In answer to this situation, this study analysed and compared the discourse of two English learning textbooks to see how they present men and women in different spheres of life. They have been analysed from linguistic and cultural aspects. The linguistic view covered the way how language was used in different contexts, what parts-of-speech describe males or females the best. Cultural perspective, however, analysed the role of men and women in society and their status. As a result, the differences in visual gender preferences and gender-marked vocabulary were revealed as well as the insight into the reasons of gender bias was provided. Based on this study, two major findings arise: the representation of gender highly depends on society and history, and in spite of the development of equality movements, the majority of textbooks unintentionally over represent males.
Ключевые слова: гендерное представление, пособие, предвзятость, мужчины и женщины, культура, общество.
Keywords: gender representation, textbook, bias, male and female, culture, society.
Introduction
Language learning course books have been investigated thoroughly for the last few decades due to having a tendency to portray men and women stereotypi-cally. The reason why textbooks have been in the spotlight is that they are considered to be the fundamental basis of gender interaction. One of the tools of human interaction is language with a help of which people communicate, learn another language, share their attitudes and deliver values and emotions. What is more, language is an important means to create and have social interaction with people. Thus, learning process and language contribute to the development of human social development.
In order to develop students' positive attitude towards social roles and responsibilities of men and women it is important to develop a curriculum that will expose boys and girls to gender-equitable view. According to Pierce [1, pp. 9-31], students' language usage reflects their social role, that is why they have to be carefully evaluated when creating an educational programme. A lot of studies conducted to find out the degree of gender bias in educational materials revealed that textbooks contribute dramatically to the formation of learners' gender perception. As a means of education, textbooks and manuals shape students' view towards the roles of males and females. Thus, to avoid
stereotypical thinking and portray both sexes equally, the representation of them should be balanced.
Blumberg [2, pp. 345- 361] states that an increase in studies of EFL textbooks coincided with a time of gender equality movements of 1960s. Due to them, textbooks designers and authors have been very careful about what should be included in order to avoid discrimination. However, recent studies have highlighted that in spite of having a downturn in gender inequality, gender bias does still take place. According to Sydney [3], gender biased textbooks affect social life negatively by making learners discriminate others on the basis of gender stereotypes.
The investigation of gender bias and stereotypes in textbooks is significant as they are the best source of providing both linguistic background and social features. Based on the previous research papers, the following assumption can be constructed: because of the differences of social, economic backgrounds and culture, EFL textbooks portray men and women differently depending on the region where they are used. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to analyse two British textbooks: Messages 3 for Kazakhstan and Messages 4. It is worth mentioning that one of them was designed and published by Cambridge and dedicated to Kazakhstan. To achieve this aim, discourse analysis was carried out, lexical and gender-marked items were reviewed from two different perspectives, namely, linguistic and cultural. The analysis used two approaches: quantitative to collect data and qualitative to interpret it. The analysis of textbooks on gender-bias presence is relatively new and widely examined. The findings of this study will contribute to the awareness of gender issues of all members of learning process and give a way for further research in this area.
The importance of textbooks in learning process and their influence on students
Learning a new language is always accompanied with the materials that help both teachers and students progress and acquire new knowledge. Foreign language textbooks are an essential part of every educational program as it sets the foundation of a whole learning process, thus, providing an environment where all the participants of learning are actively involved. As Crossley and Murby [4, pp. 99-114] defined, «textbook is a standard work on a particular subject designed for classroom use with appropriate vocabulary, illustrations, student exercises and teacher aids».
The core of any educational program greatly depends on textbooks since they are used by learners not only during the classes, but also outside the classroom on their own. Every year, thousands of textbooks are printed and distributed all over the world for the purpose of aiding those who embarked on a process of learning. Thus, student's attitudes and identity can be strongly affected by them. Hutchinson and Torres [5, pp. 315-328] claimed that without a textbook it seems impossible to complete learning process. Moreover, textbooks are especially created to meet the needs of students, ameliorate their receptive and productive skills. A textbook is created «to give cohesion to the language teaching and learning process by providing
direction, support and specific language based activities aimed at offering classroom practice for students» [6, 130-140].
The importance of textbooks is proved by the fact that students feel more confident and can visually see their progress moving from unit to unit. Textbook represents a wholeness of the learning process and provides students with all the information they will have learned by the end of it. Cortazzi and Jin [7, pp.196219] compared a course book with the second teacher as it has an authentic content that helps students to learn about the culture of a country where the particular language is spoken. In addition, using textbooks can develop learners' autonomy by providing the strategies for self-learning [8]. The vast majority of textbooks are equipped with additional materials such as workbooks, extra grammar and vocabulary assignments, i-tutor and answers so that learners can independently assess themselves and see their trouble spots.
However, some people find textbook useless and think that they have a negative impact on students. Richards [9] highlighted five major disputed points of course books: imported textbooks are pretty expensive, they can be biased, the material can be inauthentic, the needs of students can be ignored and lack of clear instructions. Also, textbook sometimes do not provide realistic situations and make students learn something by rote or drills. They put memorization above all and students try to learn something without understanding. For instance, when presenting grammar, textbooks provide the tasks based only on the structure that is given in the unit while in real life we never use one grammar point. This can lead to surface learning approach and lack of critical thinking. Allwright [10, pp. 5-18] claimed that teaching and linguistic ideas are presented in a limited manner.
Clarke and Clarke [11, pp.36-42] pointed out that English textbooks can sometimes have stereotypes, biased information and sexist language. This can have serious consequences as students' attitude and perception is being influenced. Other researchers found out that textbook is useless unless cultural information goes with it. It means that teaching the culture of a language is crucial as both concepts language and culture are interrelated.
If teachers decided to use a textbook within their course it is importance to choose the most relevant and effective textbook. And it is becoming hard due to the increase in the number of different materials. Some teachers choose a book just because they got used to working with it or because of the reputation of publishers without even realizing that this choice will influence all students, instructors and the learning process in all [12]. Besides, some textbooks may become a reason failing and giving up. It happens because they are designed in a way to comply with the requirements of education authorities while neglecting learners' needs. As Graves [13] believed, students might be demotivated because of inappropriate subject-matter or excessive focus on linguistics rather than language acquisition.
Therefore, textbooks have both positive and negative aspects. In order to make learning effective it is vital that a teacher analyses materials in advance by
pointing out good and bad sites and thinking of additional tools that will be used. It is also important to bear in mind that the textbook can be used as a tool of learning a language, but not as a final solution. Cunning-sworth [14] considers evaluation as a way of examining to what extend the content is appropriate and meets the requirements and goals of students.
Gender representation in language learning textbooks
Gender-bias in foreign language textbooks can be demonstrated through the language or through the visual tools. For instance, some pictures representing social roles, occupations, family relationships and status tend to trivialize or diminish women. Moreover, generic pronoun, sexist language, titles of articles can illustrate gender-biased language. Teaching materials often include gender prejudice [15]. Women tend to be depicted as shy, weak and sensitive while men are usually adventurous, powerful and heroic. Women are seldom represented as the ones who occupy senior positions such as scientists, lawyers, heads of states, chief executives. According to Michel [16], the situation is becoming even worse when textbooks represent only men as professionals in prestigious and authoritative work places. Women's status is usually defined according to their marital status while men's status does not depend on it. When talking about family roles, men are usually demonstrated as breadwinner and those who work hard to support their families. This is partly because school textbooks around the developing world portray women in traditional occupational roles and encourage stereotypes regarding the division of labour within marriage [17]. In the contrary, women are more likely to be depicted as caregivers without any possibility of fulfillment outside her household. As a result, these stereotypes shape students' point of view that some occupations can be either male or female.
Sunderland [18] highlighted that textbooks that have stereotypes negatively influence students' social behavior and gender roles cognition, especially women's. Moreover, if learners are not familiar with the attitudes of others towards gender, they can unintentionally use wrong linguistic patterns and belittle or humiliate either gender.
According to Haddad [15], the authors of textbooks should develop the awareness of gender issues and avoid stereotypes. In addition, he highlights the importance of a teacher in the classroom. It is crucial that he/she monitors language learning process and creates the environment that is free on any kind of gender-bias.
Thus, textbooks are a vital part of learning English as a second or foreign language. They are supposed to motivate students' desire to learn the language. That is why it is intriguing and valuable to explore gender po-trayal in textbooks as they impact learners' perspective about society and gender identity. Etymologysts and academicians accept that course books and methods of teaching in general tend to build gender roles in the mind of young learners [19].
Methodology
This research was aimed to analyse to what extent English textbooks, which were published by British scholars, are gender-biased. To achieve this, the following textbooks were chosen to be investigated: «Messages 4», «Messages 3 for Kazakhstan». These sources have been examined from two perspectives: linguistic and social. In order to consider linguistic aspect, different parts-of-speech used when referring to gender were analyzed, «firstness» and article titles review was carried out. The social aspect was studied by comparing visual tools, cultural stereotypes and gender social and family roles and responsibilities.
The analysis combined both qualitative and quantitative approaches. When content analysis took place, qualitative approach helped to study the context and concepts. Quantitative approach was used to gather information and sort it out by the following criteria: linguistic/visual, part-of-speech, the frequency of occurrence in the manuals. The analysis was focused on finding out the cases of gender inequality, stereotypes and attitudes towards their roles. The topics of family, education and social problems were studied thoroughly.
For this study, two textbooks for learning English were chosen: «Messages 3 for Kazakhstan», «Messages 4». The reason why these books were subjected was that they represent different countries and different cultural attitudes as well. The level of these books is appropriate because of having the topics of occupations, family roles and society.
The process of discourse analysis consisted of 3 stages. The first step included the analysis of Vocabulary bank of the textbooks and analyzing what words represented what gender. The second step was the analysis of the texts given in every unit. In this case the author, the title and content were taken into account. Lastly, visual aids such as pictures, photos and caricatures were examined. The gathered material was grouped according to the part-of-speech and being/ not being gender-marked.
Results
This study was aimed to investigate how women and men are represented in two EFL textbooks: Messages 4 (Textbook I), Messages 3 for Kazakhstan (Textbook II further). These textbooks were chosen intentionally to see if there are any cultural differences concerning gender. Based on previous research papers, the following categories were defined for analysis: social roles of men and women, female and male adjectives, verbs and pronouns, the authors of articles in the books and the number of pictures showing either men or women. The first stage of the analysis included the identification of men's or women's over representation in pictures. The results have shown that both textbooks tend to use more pictures with men than women. Moreover, the majority of articles given at the end of every unit were written by a male author. Overall, twelve units of each book were analysed and the results are shown in tables 1 and 2 below.
Table 1
The number of pictures in Textbook I
Male Female Both Not clear
38% 25% 30% 7%
Table 2
The number of pictures in Textbook II__
Male Female Both Not clear
41% 26% 32% 1%
It can be seen that men outnumbered women in both textbooks while the number of pictures of women only goes after the category «both», where a group of people was portrayed having both men and women. If the number of pictures of men and women was relatively the same within the units, the articles and text extracts overrepresented men. For instance, Textbook II had 70% of articles about men who were famous musicians, educationalists, famous sportsmen. When the extracts included both men and women, there was a ratio of two to one, men to women respectively. This tendency can be due to historical background. Because of having patriarchy in Kazakh society, women were not presented as the ones being well-rounded or occupying senior positions, but being caregivers without any possibility of fulfillment outside their household.
The second factor that this research looked at was about social roles. As previous investigations have shown, there are stereotypes about men and women social roles, namely, being a housewife for women or a mechanic for men. For this part of analysis the roles of men and women in a family and their duties were considered. As it was predicted, household chores such as cooking, doing the washing up, cleaning the house,
ironing were assigned to women, while having men do shopping for food, wash the car and read the newspaper when having breakfast. However, there was a difference between two textbooks. Textbook II engaged women only in housework, whilst Textbook I had 2 pictures of men tidying the kitchen, washing the pans and holding a recipe and cooking. Thus, Textbook II tends to be more gender-biased due to having women attached to the kitchen and doing all the housework.
Occupation is one of the gender-marked topics not only in textbooks but in society as well. As the analysis have shown, males outnumber females in labour market and higher positions whilst women dominate in artistic activities. It is worth mentioning that the jobs which require education and professional qualifications were mostly male. Textbook II had an article about Kazakh language in which there was a reference to an educated man, but not woman. Regarding sports activities, the majority of them were male, however, Textbook II had two articles about female players. Risky occupations such as firefighter, mountaineer, sailor, police officer were depicted as male. Based on these findings, the list of occupations of men and women is presented in table 3 below.
Table 3
Occupations
Male Female
Pilot, mechanic, explorer, inventor, chef, lawyer, architect, doctor, firefighter, police officer, football player Artist, teacher, designer, model, housewife, pharmacist, nurse
When reading articles, discourse extracts it was noticed that there is also a division of emotions and feelings attached to men and women. For this reason, adjectives were taken into consideration and grouped into two units. When textbooks introduce new vocabulary they give collocations using pronouns, thus, the third person pronouns «he», «she» were explored. In Textbook I women were present as emotional, fragile, feeling homesick, forgetful, angry and disappointed. Talking about positive features of their personality, there were loyal, nice and kind. In Textbook II, adjectives such as thin, long-haired, popular, unpunctual and polite prevailed. When analysing male adjectives, the first textbook included shy, clever, lazy, confident, hard-working, moody, easy-going, good-looking, independent. The second textbook had strong adjectives, namely, excellent, talented, and personality adjectives such as responsible, friendly and generous. When having dialogues, men tended to initiate the conversation, invite for a date, while women were presented as people who were late because of forgetting something or dressing up.
«Firtness» was another gender-marked category. The analysis has shown that the second textbook tends to introduce men first, for instance, Luke and Nadia, Mr and Mrs Grant, Jay and Ana. Textbook I had two patterns of «firstness»: man + woman, woman + man, however, the first one prevailed.
These textbooks differ from other British manuals due to having the same characters throughout the book. Textbook II had overall five characters, three male and two female ones, whilst Textbook I had an equal number, two men and two women. The last difference between two textbooks was about the dictionary. Textbook II, which was designed for Kazakhstan, has an alphabetically-ordered dictionary at the end of the course. It gives the translation of words in Russian and Kazakh. This dictionary was found to be gender-marked due to having only masculine form of Russian adjectives: friendly - дружелюбный, lonely - одинокий. Textbook I had a list of words and phrases in English only with the reference to units. Overall. The analysis of two textbooks revealed that both are inclined to be gender-
biased, especially regarding social roles and occupations.
Discussion
Student's perception of males and females and gender identity are strongly affected by the textbooks used in the process of learning. Language learning textbooks can sometimes have gender stereotypes, biased information and sexist language, and, thus, can lead to serious consequences on students' social behavior and attitudes. This research analysed two different textbooks (Messages 4, Messages 3 for Kazakhstan) to see to what extent they are gender-biased. These textbooks were chosen intentionally to check the assumption that EFL textbooks portray men and women differently depending on the region where they are used, differences in social, economic backgrounds and culture.
The significance of this research is proved by the fact that these textbooks are used a lot in Kazakhstan and, thus, they have an influence on shaping students' view on gender. In order to eradicate gender bias in teaching materials, it is important to develop a curriculum that will expose boys and girls to gender-equitable view. Also, to make learning effective it is vital that a teacher analyses materials in advance by pointing out good and bad sides and thinking of additional tools that can be used. In the classroom, teachers have to monitor language learning process and create the environment that is free on any kind of gender-bias.
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