Language, Power, and Ideology in High School EFL Textbooks in Saudi Arabia

243 Pages·2017·27.55 MB·English

University of New Mexico
UNM Digital Repository
Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs Education ETDs
7-1-2016
Language, Power, and Ideology in High School
EFL Textbooks in Saudi Arabia
Abdullah Al Jumiah
Follow this and additional works at:https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_llss_etds
Recommended Citation
Al Jumiah, Abdullah. "Language, Power, and Ideology in High School EFL Textbooks in Saudi Arabia." (2016).
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_llss_etds/57
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LANGUAGE, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY IN HIGH SCHOOL EFL TEXTBOOKS IN S.A. i

Abdullah K. Al Jumiah
Candidate

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies (Educational Linguistics)
Department

This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication:
Approved by the Dissertation Committee:

Dr. Richard Meyer, Chairperson

Dr. Katherine Crawford-Garrett

Dr. Ruth Trinidad Galvan

Dr. Pisarn Bee Chamcharatsri
LANGUAGE, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY IN HIGH SCHOOL EFL TEXTBOOKS IN S.A. ii

Language, Power, and Ideology in High School EFL Textbooks in Saudi Arabia

By
Abdullah K. Al Jumiah

DISSERTATION

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctoral of Philosophy
Educational Linguistics

University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
July 2016
LANGUAGE, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY IN HIGH SCHOOL EFL TEXTBOOKS IN S.A. iii

Dedication
I dedicate this research to all those who believed on me and inspired my academic willingness,
passion, and endeavor in various ways!
LANGUAGE, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY IN HIGH SCHOOL EFL TEXTBOOKS IN S.A. iv

Acknowledgements
I owe a great debt of gratitude to my parents, Nawal and Khalid (May his soul rest in
peace and may Allah forgive him and be pleased with him) for their enduring love, motivation,
inspiration, and for being my mentors and role models since my birth. I also have a great deal of
gratitude to my wife Eman, and my daughters Gharam, Lana, and Nawal, as well as my sisters
and brothers for their continuous love, priceless support, and limitless encouragement, and
patience on me throughout this journey. I am also grateful to my father, mother, sisters, and
brother in law for their generous love and support. Much of my appreciation and gratitude goes
to all my respectful relatives, friends, and teachers who believed on me, supported and inspired
me each in his/her unique way.
Special thanks and a great debt of gratitude to my professors, my dissertation and
program of study committee members at both Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH,
and University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM for their diverse inspirational and
enlightening support and encouragement: Dr. Ricky Allen, Dr. Lois Meyer, Dr. Pisarn Bee
Chamcharatsri, Dr. Katherine Crawford-Garrett, Dr. Ruth Trinidad Galván, Dr. Carlos
LópezLeiva, Dr. Holbrook Mahn, Dr. Tryphenia Peele-Eady, Dr. Lucretia (Penny) Pence, Dr. Jill
Morford, Dr. Kimberly Emmons, and Dr. Judith Oster. Very special thanks and a great deal of
respect and gratitude to my dissertation advisor Dr. Richard J. Meyer, who has continuously
supported, guided, and inspired me, and who was always there for me whenever I needed a help
or consultation.
Finally, special thanks and gratitude to all my students and colleagues, especially in
University of New Mexico, Jubail University College, Royal Commission, and Saline Water
Conversion Corporation in Saudi Arabia for their continuous support.
LANGUAGE, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY IN HIGH SCHOOL EFL TEXTBOOKS IN S.A. v

Language, Power, and Ideology in High School EFL Textbooks in Saudi Arabia

By
Abdullah K. Al Jumiah

BEd, English, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, 2002
MA, World Comparative Literature, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, 2008
PhD, Educational Linguistics, University of New Mexico, 2016

Abstract
Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a research method, I investigated in the
present study the discursive intersections between language and ideology with respect to social
power and identity in two high school English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) textbooks in Saudi
Arabia. Specifically, I critically analyzed how social power and identity based on gender and
race were discursively represented in these EFL textbooks. I also critically examined how
banking education and neoliberalism as a western political and socioeconomic ideology shaped
the content of these EFL textbooks. The results indicate that the overt and hidden discourses in
the EFL textbooks I analyzed serve as a state apparatus to reproduce and perpetuate certain
neoconservative and neoliberal ideologies and interests including males’ supremacy and
dominance, patriarchy, sexism, women’s subordination and marginalization, functional illiteracy,
meritocracy, individualism, and the achievement ideology. The results also reveal that the EFL
textbooks I explored serve to promote banking education, depoliticize English language teaching
and learning, legitimate and perpetuate white male supremacy, institutional colorblind racism,
LANGUAGE, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY IN HIGH SCHOOL EFL TEXTBOOKS IN S.A. vi

and the racialization of the English language and the idealized native-speaker’s identity of
English.
Keywords: language ideology, language and power, social identity, critical literacy,
critical pedagogy, critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, critical discourse analysis,
neoliberalism, banking education, race, gender, hidden curriculum, Standard English, TESOL,
EFL, ELT, textbooks, and Saudi Arabia.
LANGUAGE, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY IN HIGH SCHOOL EFL TEXTBOOKS IN S.A. vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION.........................................................................................................................iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................iv
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................vii
LIST OF FIGURES ...............................................................................................................xiv
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................xvi
CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................................................1
Introduction .............................................................................................................................1
Background of the context of the Study…………………………………..…….........2
The progression of my consciousness …………………………...………......3
Research Problem……………………………………………………………………5
Language as an ideology and schooling……………………………………..8
Language as an ideology and textbooks………………………………….....10
The Purpose of the Study………………………………………………………........10
Research Questions.....................................................................................................11
Overview of the Research Design and Analysis……………………………….........12
The Significance of the Study………………………………………………….........13
Empirical significance……………………………………………………….13
Professional significance…………………………………………………….13
Methodological and conceptual significance……...………………………...14
Personal significance…………………………………………………….......15
LANGUAGE, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY IN HIGH SCHOOL EFL TEXTBOOKS IN S.A. viii

Definitions of Key Terminology…………………………………………………..…16
Summary…………………………………………………..……….………………...19
CHAPTER 2 ............................................................................................................................22
Review of Literature ................................................................................................................22
Introduction…………………………………………………………….………….…22
The socio-historical and sociopolitical contexts of English in Saudi Arabia……...…23
The spread of English in Saudi Arabia……………………………………….23
English in the Saudi educational system……………………………………..25
Post-9/11 educational reforms in Saudi Arabia……………………………...27
Functions of English in Saudi Arabia……………………………………......29
Conceptual Frameworks……………………………………………………………..30
Critical literacy……………………………………………………………….30
What is critical about critical literacy?.................................................31
How can a text be critically read in critical literacy?...........................31
Lewison’s et. al (2015) instructional model of critical literacy……...32
Janks' (2000 & 2010) interdependent model of critical literacy……..38
Critical pedagogy………………………………………………………….…40
Critical race theory (CRT) and critical whiteness studies (CWS)…………...41
Colorblind racism…………………………………………….............41
Whiteness as property………………………………………..............42
Epistemological racism………………………………………….…...43
The theory of the neoliberal globalization of white supremacy……..44
Neoliberalism…………………………………………………….………..…48
LANGUAGE, POWER, AND IDEOLOGY IN HIGH SCHOOL EFL TEXTBOOKS IN S.A. ix

Neoliberalism in Saudi educational system………..……...………..50
How do neoliberalism, banking education, social power and identity in
terms of gender and race overlap?..……………....………………………...53
Systematic functional linguistics (SFL)…………………………………....54
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)………………………………………………..55
The historical development of the study of language and discourse…........55
Language as a system…………………………………...................56
Language as a discourse……….…………………………………..57
Language as an ideology……………………………………..........58
The historical development of CDA as a discipline…………...………….59
CDA approaches…………………………………………………………..60
Fairclough's (1989 & 2013) dialectical-relational approach…...…63
EFL Textbooks………………………………………………….…………….......66
Western social and economic ideologies in EL and EFL textbooks……...67
The discursive representations of social, economic, and
cultural ideologies……………………………………………………..….68
Gender representations in EFL textbooks………………………….….….71
The discursive representations of social power and
(in)equality in the portrayals of characters in EFL textbooks……………73
The representations of Standard English ideology in EFL textbooks…….74
The use of CDA as a research method in the literature of EFL textbooks..75
Summary…………………………………………………………………....……..76
CHAPTER 3 .......................................................................................................................78