The cultural knowledge and ideology in Chinese language textbooks : a critical discourse analysis

This study has examined the official cultural knowledge and ideology that are constructed and legitimated in the Chinese language textbooks currently used for primary school students nationwide in China. Within the theoretical framework drawn upon critical curriculum theories (Chapter 2), this study has investigated what cultural knowledge and ideology are selected and legitimated, how they are constructed and whose interests are served in the textbooks in relation to the sociocultural context. This study has used critical discourse analysis as a research method (Chapter 3). It provides researchers with systematic and critical techniques for analyzing and describing both spoken and written texts while taking into account larger sociocultural context in which the texts are created. The study has examined the Chinese language education development and its sociocultural context (Chapter 4). Official knowledges transmitted through Chinese school curricular embody the selective traditions, and their selection and legitimacy are part of the state hegemonic projects. In the review, the present economic, social and cultural conditions are also elaborated with an emphasis on the social conflicts and ideological tensions caused by the current transformation from a socialist to a capitalist social order. As part of the new hegemonic project, the government and its cultural elites have transformed the selective tradition that has shaped the cultural knowledge and ideology in the language textbooks examined in this study (Chapters 5-8). In the data analysis, three dominant discourses and four major genres are identified and found to form an intertextual chaining system. Three areas of cultural knowledge are constructed in the discourses, namely, patriotism, cultural values and beliefs, and pro-science and technology. These discourses are constructed as a closed system with hierarchical levels, where the identity, interest, behavior and intersubjectivity of child readers are defined and constrained. The study concludes that these closed discourses serve the interest of the government but not the interest of the child reader. Since they are so exclusive and different from the social reality and child readers' own living experiences, they disengage and disempower child readers from their learning process. This study, therefore, suggests that open discourses should be constructed by integrating both visual and print texts children actually encounter in their daily lives.n