ABSTRACT

Increasingly, studies are taking account of multimodality when analyzing language textbooks. Due to the diversity of multimodal frameworks used in analyses, and the interdisciplinary nature of language textbook studies, conceptual differences arise that are important to discuss – which is the purpose of this paper. Specifically, I argue that multimodal analyses of language textbooks can be divided into two groups based on how they conceptualise meaning. One examines how textbooks’ textual-visual content encodes and communicates ideas about the world, treating meaning as representation. A second set of research studies is focused on how multimodal elements in textbooks foster interpersonal relations between text producers and readers, thus viewing the meaning textbooks communicate as interaction. While each approach is valid, I argue that neither places sufficient emphasis on the fact that textbooks are a didactic genre where learners’ engagement with any meaning is heavily guided. As such, critical textbook analysis should attempt to demonstrate the ideological nature of meaning-making by examining the interplay of multimodal representations, the interactive meaning of textbooks’ multimodal material as well as the pedagogic-didactic frame within which learners encounter them. The article utilises an example from a popular English as a foreign language textbook to illustrate these points.

摘要

越来越多的研究在分析语言教科书时考虑了多模式性。由于分析中使用的多模式框架的多样性，以及语言教科书研究的跨学科性质，因此出现了需要讨论的概念差异，这就是本文的目的。具体来说，我认为对语言教科书的多模式分析可以根据它们对概念的概念化将其分为两类。其中一个研究了教科书的文本视觉内容如何编码和交流有关世界的思想，将意义视为代表。第二组研究集中在教科书中的多模式要素如何促进文本生产者和读者之间的人际关系，从而将教科书的意义视为互动。尽管每种方法都是有效的，但我认为，这两种方法都没有充分强调教科书是一种教学形式，在这种形式下，学习者对任何意义的参与都受到严格的指导。因此，批判性教科书分析应试图通过检验多模式表示的相互作用，教科书多模式材料的交互意义以及学习者在其中遇到的教学方法框架，来证明意义形成的意识形态本质。本文利用流行英语的示例作为外语教科书来说明这些观点。