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A Critical Analysis of \u3ci\u3eCultura\u3c/i\u3e in Spanish World Language Textbooks
Get PDFThis action-oriented multimodal discourse analysis explored how a high school Spanish world language textbook series construes Spanish speakers and cultures and invites students to engage with them through written texts and visual images. Through a lens of analysis based on systemic functional linguistics and influenced by critical discourse analysis and critical literacy pedagogy, this study found that the textbooks erase Spanish speakers as active creators of cultures, construe them as a standardized monolithic group when present, and construe cultures as tied to the interests of tourists and linked to place. Moreover, the textbook series invites students to engage with Spanish speakers and cultures in written texts and visual images as elite bilingual tourists. The findings of this analysis have implications for K-12 teachers seeking to integrate critical approaches in world language teaching in ways that allow students to contest the marginalization of Spanish speakers and cultures in the United States as they forge identities as Spanish language learners other than those of tourists and cultural consumers
