TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
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FINAL PAPER
A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family and Friends 4
Textbook (American English – Viet Nam Education
Publishing House): Representation of Genderism
Course: Discourse Analysis
Course code: FL701100
Students: Le Quoc Mong Bao
Instructor: Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thu
December 2019
196018001
TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
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DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Family and Friends 4
Textbook (American English – Viet Nam Education
Publishing House): Representation of Genderism
Course: Discourse Analysis
Course code: FL701100
Students:
Le Quoc Mong Bao
Instructor: Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thu
December 2019
2
196018001
ASSESSMENT
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENT
PAGE
Table of content
4
Abstract
5
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
6-7
1.1. Introduction
6
1.2. Objectives
7
1.3. Research Question
7
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
8-9
2.1. Introduction
8
2.2. Related previous study
8
2.2.1. In foreign context
8
2.2.2. In Vietnamese context
8
2.2.3. Research gaps
9
Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
10 - 17
3.1. Introduction
10
3.2. Methodology
10
3.3. Results
10 - 13
3.4. Discussion
13
3.5. Conclusion
13 - 14
3.5.1. Conclusion
13
3.5.2. Implication
13 - 14
3.5.3. Limitation
14
3.5.4. Further Study
14
BIBLIOGRAPHY
15
APPENDICES
16
4
ABSTRACT
The study is to analyse the presentation of genderism in the Family and Friends
4 Textbook (American English – Viet Nam Education Publishing House). This study
focuses on analyzing the non-linguistic features - visual images in terms of gender
representation in an effort to extract the ideology behind their constructions. The
research approach is based on critical discourse analysis in combination with methods
of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The results reveal that the textbook
presents that there is no gender discrimination between males and females or boys and
girls presented visually. The proportion of females to males in illustrations is the same.
It is considered that gender equality is no longer a controversial issue in Viet Nam
society and Vietnamese people have gradually paid much attention to women’s roles
in the society, which is shown in the textbook.
Key words: critical discourse, genderism presentation, textbook, ideology
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Introduction
Vietnam is a multi-nationality country with 54 ethnic groups. The Viet (Kinh)
people account for 87% of the country’s population and mainly inhabit the Red River
delta, the central coastal delta, the Mekong delta and major cities. The other 53 ethnic
minority groups, totaling over 10 million people, are scattered over mountain areas
(covering two-thirds of the country’s territory) spreading from the North to the South.
Viet Nam’s education in certain respects is not different from that of other
countries around the world in such a way that there still exists problems within its own
system no matter how well-constructed it used to be; as a result, there is an urge to
reform the education system to meet the expectations of the society. It is undeniable
that the innovation should be comprehensive as each part of the educational system is
of equal importance and they are mutually related. Therefore, the change in the
curriculum should go with the alteration in teaching methodologies as well as
textbooks (Markee, 1997).
Textbooks may involve in the ideological development of one person.
Therefore textbooks with the knowledge they contain could affect individuals’
perception. It is apparent that linguistic features are not the sole components of one
textbook. It appears the contribution of non-linguistic elements such as images or
pictures. The visual images utilized in textbooks not only are meant to delight the
lesson, to assist the reading passages or any kinds of activities but also affect the
students’ awareness of specific issues (Fang, 1996). Pictures and photographs present
meanings of their own (Kress; Leeuwen, 1996); therefore the misapplication of them
could lead to the negative effects such as showing the discrimination of race, sex,
religion and so on.
Genderism is one of the most important aspects in the content of textbooks that
is the concern educators. Since, a biased attitude of writers may sometimes have
destructive effects on students that will remain in the student’s mind. It should be
noted that gender identity cognition begins from childhood and it will remain constant
when children reach puberty. Therefore, attention to create a balanced atmosphere in
textbooks should be considered severely. The traditional stereotypes and exclusion of
social actors in textbooks may impair learners’ attitude and also lead to have negative
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attitudes towards opposite sex. Educators usually are concerned about sexism in
textbooks because it can have terrible effects on students' personality. As mentioned,
genderism or gender perspective is a phenomenon that can be transferred alongside
other matters as a drawback. Gender-biased language and unequal treatment will
change students’ attitude about society and social actors. For example, in many
textbooks mostly females are usually considered as an inferior to males in societies. In
this regard, critical discourse analysis will be useful to reveal these inequalities in
textbooks and also unravel policies and ideologies underlying them. Critical discourse
analysis not only attempts to find drawbacks in texts but also to inform language users
to backstage events.
1.2. Objectives
At the center for foreign languges – An Giang Continuing Education Center,
the Family and Friends 4 Textbook is used for the elementary level. It means that
students from primary and low secondary schools can access this textbook. They may
pay attention to the gender and the actors that are presented in the textbook. Therefore,
there will be attitudes from learners to the characters in the lessons.
In order to clarify the aspects of male and female characters appearing in the
lessons, investigating gender representations via pictures utilized in the thextbook is
carried out to check whether these representations promote or challenge gender
equality in education.
1.3. Research Question
How are different genders demonstrated via pictorial representations in the
textbook?
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Introduction
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) focuses on power abuse that usually occurs in
discursive conditions by institutions or elite groups. In recent years, CDA has attracted
many researchers to work on various sectors such as textbooks, newspapers, media etc.
Researchers have analyzed the various text features such as male’s or female’s names,
pronouns, images, stereotypical roles, social actors activities and other aspects. Such
studies mostly are quantitative or qualitative in which male and female social actors
are counted. In this section, the related literature of the previous studies on ELT
textbooks for gender analysis will be elaborated.
2.2. Related previous study
2.2.1. In foreign context
Coles (1977) analyzed five of prevalent sets of adult basic educational
materials. The results indicated that male social actors were portrayed three times
more than females. He also found that males are indicated as breadwinners but on the
contrary females are viewed as housewives or workers.
Dominguez (2003) made an attempt to analyze New Interchange Intro to
explore how males and females are represented. To this end, he analyzed the book in
terms of word level, male and female characters, occupational roles, amount of talk
and male and female illustrations. Regarding data collected, he concluded that the
book is not biased toward any of the sexes.
2.2.2. In Vietnamese context
The studies of gender discrimination in textbooks in Vietnam have been
concerned with researchers. In Vietnam, few linguists have paid their attention to the
issue of gender discrimination in language in general and in textbooks in particular.
The pioneer linguist devoting his effort to study sexism in language is Trần Xuân
Điệp. In his work (Sexism in language) published in 2002, he discussed the
manifestation of sexism in language. Trần Xuân Điệp, 2002 argued that gender
discrimination may be found in the use of he/his/him to refer both sexes in some cases.
Furthermore, numerous of vocabulary showing women’s jobs are derived from the
men’s jobs such as actress and waitress. The book marks a turning point in considering
genders factors in materials; however it just examines the linguistic part of materials.
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2.2.3. Research gaps
The compositions of one textbook include linguistic part (texts) and nonlinguistic element (illustrations). The results showed that there existed the
stereotypical images of women/girls and men/boys affected by the traditional social
ideologies.
In the study, the Family and Friends 4 Textbook (American English – Viet Nam
Education Publishing House) is selected. This textbook is written for primary learners
by different authors Tamzin Thompson and Naomi Simmons (2016). For analyzing
the representation of genderism, the present study specifically goes to the
conversations, the reading section of the book. Family and Friends series is one of the
most popular and also prevalent international textbooks in the world. The popularity
and prevalence of these textbooks motivated researcher to investigate them critically.
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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1. Introduction
In the first stage the gendered clauses of the reading sections of textbooks were
isolated for analysis. Afterward participants and processes were examined in clauses.
Participants in each gendered clause were underlined and analyzed in two
distinguishing types i.e. males and females. Thus, it clarified that what the gender of
social actor was and also it revealed which gender was responsible for the conducted
process types in gendered clauses. After all, in the present study because of the narrow
borderline and the semantic load of material and behavioral processes researcher did
not make any distinction between them, so the researcher decided to transfer
behavioral processes into material category.
3.2. Methodology
The study adopts the critical discourse analysis approach. CDA is defined as a
special approach to study the text, emerging from critical linguistics. It is
fundamentally interested in analyzing relationships of dominance, discrimination,
power and control as manifested in language. CDA offers not only a description and
interpretation of discourses in social context but also offers an explanation of why and
how discourses work. The discourse analysis is suited for this research as it is the
method for analyzing texts (verbal and non-verbal) which convey a power relationship.
The critical discourse analysts also treat the text not merely as a piece of information
but a social action; as a result, the text is seen to be the product of the dominant
ideology and to fortify this dominant ideology within itself. In this study, the gender
visual representations are scrutinized thoroughly with a native understanding into
Vietnamese culture to discovery any hints of gender discrimination.
The choice of this method provides an insight into pictures presenting different
genders in the data. The quantitative content analysis provides a statistical and
comparative evaluation of the number of male and female characters featuring in
illustrations. It is qualitative in the sense that it requires an exhaustive description of
the gender roles or characteristic attributed of the female and male images in the
textbooks.
3.3. Results
The distributions of male and female characters in the text book:
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Picture 1: Distribution of males and females in illustration
Picture 2: Distribution of males and females in illustration
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Picture 3: Distribution of males and females in illustration
Picture 4: Distribution of males and females in illustration
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The above findings show that the number of male and female characters is
equal in illustration. There are families containing the same number of members; the
boys and the girls are in nearly the same ages. The figures above initially show that
there are no signs of gender discrimination between females and females. Both
genders represent the roles in the families and even in conversations.
3.4. Discussion
The present study aimed to explore gender representation in the first unit of the
Family and Friend 4 Textbook. From the data collected, it was explored that in Family
and Friends 4, male social actors were represented as frequently as females.
This manifestation does not affect people’s acceptable gendered behaviour.
Furthermore, it contributes to portraying the social reality as in photographs equally
applied for both genders.
3.5. Conclusion
3.5.1. Conclusion
This essay provides information about exploring trace of sexism bias or equal
manifestation of men and women. A detailed image of distribution of biased and nonbiased stance for genders was illustrated by applying van Leeuwen’s (1996)
representation of social actor framework and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004)
transitivity theory. According to van Leeuwen framework it came out that the
inclusion of male and female social actors is near to 1:1 and based on this claim, males
participated in activitiesas much as females. It was revealed that there was equality
between male and female social actors. From the analysis, it can be said that females
and males represented as active social actors and they had their roles in society.
3.5.2. Implication
Gender consists of social thoughts and roles in which dominant culture of
society carries them on men and women. One of the main purposes of critical
discourse analysis is identify and discover gender issues such as difference between
male and female in society which is stated through language, in this way, power
structure and hidden ideology of power group could come out. With regard to study of
CDA and its analyses and results, curriculum developers should consider these studies
and provide unbiased content to improve equality between male and female in society.
The results of this study can be useful for policy makers, material developers, teachers
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and students to interpret its findings to find a way to revise or reform the content of the
books which will be published in future.
3.5.3. Limitation
The study was conducted and carried out in a short time, and sources of
information were not searched and digested enough. Therefore, it cannot cover as
many aspects of the differences as gender discrimination between the two groups.
3.5.4. Further Study
It will be able to gain more value if the research is invested in more. There have
still been a lot interesting things in this textbook. Researchers and scientists can join in
searching to find more about the differences as well as the similarities in making fair
between males and females. If possible, researchers as well as authorities go on editing
books covering no gender discriminatiion.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Coles, G. (1977). Dick and Jane grow up: Ideology in adult basic education readers.
Urban Education, 12(1), 37-53.
Dominguez, L.M. (2003). Gender textbook evaluation. TESL Canada Journal, 8(1),
32-46.
Fang, Z. (1996). Illustrations, Text, and the Child Reader: What are Pictures in
Children’s Storybooks for?. Reading Horizons, 37(2), 131-141.
Halliday, M. A. K & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An introduction to functional
grammar: 3rd Edition. London: Arnold.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images. London: Routledge.
Markee, N. (1997). Managing curricular innovation. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Tran, X. D. (2005). Sexism in language. Ha Noi: Hanoi National University of
Education
Van Leeuwen, T. (1996). The representation of social actors in disourse. In CaldasCoulthard, C. R, & Coulthard, M. (Eds.), Text and Practices, London: Routledge.
Van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse
analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
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APPENDICES
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