Inclusive Language and Cultural Identity: An Interpersonal and Multimodal Analysis of ES/FL Textbooks

This article investigates the discursive nature of the verbal language and visual images as exemplified in ES/FL textbooks by exploring the interpersonal speech functions and appraisal meanings embedded in them. This article first makes a connection between two theoretical frameworks: Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It then examines patterns of interpersonal meaning distribution from the perspective of sociocultural power relations as implied in question and response turns. This exploration of discursive meaning implications is followed by a multimodal analysis of visual images from the perspective of appraisal theory. Social and pedagogical implications of this analysis are further elaborated on the basis of social actor analysis theory. The current analysis provides strong suggestive evidence that patterns of interpersonal meaning distribution in such innocuous materials as foreign language textbooks covertly create, transmit, and disseminate unequal linguistic and sociocultural relations between the target language and other languages and cultures.