




































English Language Teaching Educational Journal (ELTEJ) 
Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018, pp. 49-64 
E-ISSN: 2621-6485  

  
 
 

Traces of Linguistic Imperialism Enacted through 

Discursive Strategies in ELT Textbooks in Indonesia 

 
Ahmad Budairi 

Monash University, Australia 

ahmad.budairi@monash.edu  

 
Abstract 

Although in many educational contexts textbooks serve as the backbone of teaching, 

providing practical guides for teachers as well as useful references for learning progress, they 

could also serve as a site of struggle for many competing discourses. ELT textbooks bear 

particular relevance here, as they place English at the center of prominence while serving as 

a medium for knowledge transmission. This paper reports on part of the findings of a case 

study examining the exercise of dominant discourses in two ELT textbooks for high school 

in Indonesia. The analysis revealed that there are imbalanced power relations—enacted 

through such discursive strategies as  foregrounding,, backgrounding and framing in two 

areas: topics and visuals. These strategies were understood as part of the author’s attempt to 

preserve the hegemonic status of English and its associated dominant ideology in ways that 

reflect traces of linguistic imperialism. With regard to the pedagogical value of the textbooks, 

this paper offers some suggestions on how the textbooks could be more engaging and 

culturally sensitive towards learners’ socio cultural context. The discussion concludes with 

an appeal for more balanced representation between the discourse of the third world and that 

of Britain in ELT textbooks in Indonesia. 

Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, power relations, discursive strategies, power in 

discourse 

 

 

How to Cite: Budairi, A. (2018). Traces of linguistic imperialism enacted through discursive 

strategies in ELT textbooks in Indonesia. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 

1(2), 49-64.  

  

 

INTRODUCTION 

This article reports on part of the findings from a case study of two ELT 

textbooks for high school level in Indonesia: Real English 2 for Grade XI and 

Real English 3 for Grade XII. First published in 2008 by PT. Penerbit Erlangga 

Publishing Company, Jakarta, Indonesia, these textbooks were designated as 

supplementary under the so-called 2006 Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan 

/ KTSP (School Level Curriculum). The case study was conducted in 2012, 

during which the textbooks under investigation were being used in four 

prominent high schools in the special district of Yogyakarta. In 2013, the 

government introduced the K13 curriculum in place of the National School Level 

Curriculum (KTSP). However, due to a great deal of controversy surrounding 

the K13 curriculum, its status was declared as a pilot project, to be implemented 

in a limited number of schools by the newly appointed Minister of Education in 

mailto:ahmad.budairi@monash.edu


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2014. Schools were then advised to return to the 2006 School Level Curriculum. 

Following a cabinet reshuffle and the review of the pilot project, the K13 

curriculum began its full implementation nationwide in the 2016/2017 academic 

year. Whether the textbooks are still used after these curriculum changes remains 

a subject of enquiry, particularly because since the introduction of the School 

Level Curriculum in 2006, schools have been allowed greater autonomy to select 

their preferred textbooks in addition to those prescribed by the government. 

The pedagogical value of textbooks has been widely acknowledged by many 

scholars. Textbooks allow teachers to focus on the real work of teaching without 

having their energy dissipated by preparation of teaching materials (Edge & 

Wharton, 1998). They can function as a map, showing the teaching progress 

(McGrath, 2002; Ur, 1996) and providing direction and ideas in how lessons can 

be delivered (Tomlinson, 2008). The other advantage of textbooks, as Sheldon 

(1988) outlines, is their credibility, making them more reliable than teacher-

generated or in-house materials. Well-developed textbooks are designed by 

experts in the area, thereby assuring their pedagogical value, whereas classroom 

teachers in general undergo different training and in many cases their skills and 

knowledge are not suited to textbook production. Allwright acknowledges this: 

 

… we need teaching materials as carriers of decisions best made by 

someone other than the classroom teacher, not because the classroom 

teacher is deficient, as a classroom teacher, but because the expertise 

required of materials writers is importantly different from that required 

of classroom teachers – the people who have the interpersonal skills to 

make classrooms good places to learn it (1981: 6) 

 

While textbooks have become indispensable as a medium for 

transmitting knowledge in many educational contexts, they are not merely 

printed letters and visual images, nor just a teaching–learning resource. It is 

equally important to acknowledge that textbooks are socially motivated and 

constructed. Since they are produced within a certain social, political and cultural 

context, knowledge and culture presented in textbooks are not neutral but 

represent the interests of an individual, group or institution. Luke (1988) suggests 

that in any given era in the history of education, the selection of knowledge, 

competence and practices for transmission in school curricula is an ideological 

process, serving the interests of particular classes and forms of social control. In 

a more specific reference, Apple (1992) considers textbooks an ideological 

message system for the transmission of the dominant values and beliefs of a 

society. Within such frameworks, textbooks may be understood as not only 

reflecting the purpose and goals that a particular curriculum pursues, but also 

embodying a particular construction of the social world; particular ways of 

selecting and organizing the vast universe of possible knowledge (Apple, 1992). 

As such, textbooks might also reflect the working of power relations and 

ideological assertions among different interest groups and individuals that are 

inextricably related.  



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Along the same vein, it is interesting to consider the fact that being in a 

globally peripheral position, Indonesia is constantly under the influence of the 

ideological and cultural hegemony of advanced countries. Of special importance 

here is the notion of Discourse Imperialism which Pennycook (1994) refers to as 

the expansion of certain discourses dictated by the West, mainly by the White 

man but, most importantly, discourses conveyed by and through the English 

language which guarantee the supremacy of some countries over others. He 

further concedes that such a discourse is the source of regular inequalities in all 

fields: economics, politics, education, culture and communication. English 

expands hand in hand with it, it is the language of “international capitalism” (p. 

43). Phillipson (1992) warns against the implicit ideology of Anglocentricity and 

English linguistic imperialism behind ELT promotion. He suggests that 

“linguistic imperialism refers to a particular theory for analyzing the relations 

between dominant and dominated cultures, specifically the way English language 

learning has been promoted” (p. 15) and “the tenets of ELT have ideological and 

structural consequences. They serve to strengthen the hold of the center over the 

periphery” (p. 192). William (1989) proposes the notion of “selective tradition” 

in which the dominance of a specific class is maintained through the selection of 

certain meanings and practices to be passed off as a “tradition.” It is in this light 

that ELT textbooks may lend themselves to the analysis of power relations. 

Hence, it is worth investigating how the hegemonic discourses of the West and 

English as an international language might be constituted, produced, naturalized 

and circulated through the use of linguistic and other semantic features in texts 

such as textbooks. 
 

Viewed from its ontological standpoint, the study of language basically 

involves an analysis of language as speech.  It looks into different elements of 

speech such as sounds (phonetics and phonology), parts of words (morphology), 

patterned of words and phrases, sentences (syntax) and finally meaning 

(semantics) as the ultimate function of language.  Although this kind of analysis 

may offer in-depth knowledge of language features, it tends to disengage 

language from its social context in which language is used as a means of 

communication.  It fails to take into account such crucial questions as how 

language users seek to interpret meanings, become participants in a conversation 

and how language can be manipulated to accomplish certain goals in a 

communicative event. Referring to the lack of comprehensibility in the analysis 

of language from its linguistic features, de Beaugrande (1996) wrote : 

 
After three decades of research on syntax, no such system of underlying 

patterns and rules has yet been produced for any natural language. All we 

have is a pile of fragments such a system might contain, but no idea how 

they fit together and how we can supply the rest. The problem is simple 

and I am convinced, unsolvable: the arrangement of words in phrases and 

sentences is decided only partly by syntax and partly by speakers’ 

knowledge of the world and their society’ (p.35) 



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It is then impossible to analyze any given language, both spoken and 

written, without taking into account the various social contexts which contribute 

to the shaping and emergence of extensive linguistics variation of language use. 

This has created the need to look at the analysis of language by incorporating the 

language realities as used in various communicative events in society. A similar 

concern was echoed by Fairclough (1995b) upon his review of the contributions 

to the study of language made by many existing approaches such as linguistics, 

sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. He 

pointed to the lack of consideration of language as socially determined and as 

being in dialectical relation with society in such approaches. He proposed to look 

at the concept of language as discourse, that is, language as social practice.  

The term discourse can be understood in two ways.  Discourse, used as 

an abstract noun, refers to the “language use conceived as social practice” 

(Fairclough, 1993, p.138). It is not only concerned with language in use, but also 

the pervasive and invisible sets of values, beliefs and ideas in that social 

circumstances.  When discourse is used as a countable noun, it refers to a “way 

of signifying experience from a particular perspective” (Fairclough, 1993, 

p.138). Thus, A discursive event is an “instance of language use, analysed as text, 

discursive practice, social practice” (Fairclough, 1993, p.138). Discursive event, 

thus, refers to text, discursive practice (production and interpretation of the text), 

and social practice (including situational, institutional and societal practice).  

While taking the aforementioned concept of discourse analysis as the 

starting point, this research seeks to employ a further version of discourse 

analysis: Critical discourse analysis (CDA). As the word ‘critical’ suggests, in 

principle, CDA is concerned with studying and analyzing written and spoken 

texts to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias 

(van Dijk, 2001). A rather similar  definition is provided by Fairclough (1995a) 

who considers the aim of CDA as “to systematically explore often opaque 

relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, 

events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and 

processes; to investigate how such practices, events, and texts arise out of and 

are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power, and to 

explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society 

itself is a factor securing power and hegemony.” (p.132)  

Theoretical frameworks of CDA have been proposed by different 

scholars, each with their respective emphasis on different aspects, attribution and 

levels of analysis of discourse.  However, they all are essentially concerned with 

the same question of how language and society are dialectically related and how 

such relation is reflected through the use of language as social practice.  As van 

Dijk (2001) points out, “CDA is not a specific direction of research” and 

therefore “it does not have a unitary theoretical frame.”(p.353).  However, he 

further asserts that “given the common perspective and the general aims of CDA, 

we may also find overall conceptual and  theoretical frameworks that are closely 

related.”(p.353) Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 271-80) suggest that in general, 

CDA deals with the linguistic characteristics of social and cultural process. It 



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adopts a critical approach to social problem in its endeavor to make explicit 

power relationships which are frequently hidden. It conceives power relations as 

discursive and as such, it seeks to explain how social relations of power are 

exercised and negotiated in and through discourse. CDA considers discourse as 

constituting society and culture. This suggests that every instance of language 

use makes its own contribution to reproducing and transforming society and 

culture, including relations of power. CDA considers discourse as ideological 

and hence, an analysis of ideological discourse must extend beyond texts to also 

consider the discursive practice of how the texts are interpreted and received and 

what social effects they have. Discourse operates within historical terms in a 

sense that texts acquire their meanings by being situated in specific social, 

cultural and ideological contexts, time and space. (Wodak, 1995). Lastly, 

discourse is what links or mediates texts with society. Texts acquire their 

meanings by the dialectical relationship between texts and the social subjects. 

While in Fairclough’s view,  the mediating function is assumed by discourse 

practices –text production and consumption- (Fairclough,1995b), van Dijk 

(1995) considers it is the sociocognition –social cognition and personal cognition 

– that mediates between society and discourse. 

 

RESEARCH METHOD 

This study initially involved a corpus of six English textbooks for high 

school level in Indonesia: English Alive for Grades X and XI, English Zone for 

Grades X and XII, Real English 2 for Grade XI and Real English 3 for Grade 

XII. To approach the textbooks for this case study analysis, my initial strategy 

was to play the role of a typical reader who was trying to comprehend the texts 

in an uncritical manner. I then revisited the texts, this time critically, by raising 

questions about them, doing a brief comparative analysis of the six textbooks, 

and imagining how the texts could have been constructed differently. The focus 

of the analysis narrowed down to two ELT textbooks, namely Real English 2 and 

Real English 3, because their construction is strikingly different from the others. 

The analysis of the textbooks was done under the framework of Critical 

Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA is concerned with studying and analyzing 

written and spoken texts to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, 

inequality and bias (van Dijk, 2001). Similarly, Fairclough (1995) outlines the 

aims of CDA as “to systematically explore often opaque relationships of 

causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts, 

and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate 

how such practices, events, and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by 

relations of power and struggles over power, and to explore how the opacity of 

these relationships between discourse and society itself is a factor securing power 

and hegemony” (p. 132). In terms of CDA as a method, Dijk (2001) 

acknowledges that CDA does not have a unitary theoretical framework or 

methodology because it is best viewed as a shared perspective encompassing a 

range of approaches instead of one school. 

This case study therefore set out with a range of possibilities for applying 

the different classifications and categorizations of CDA. First, the six English 



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textbooks to be researched may or may not have had the data necessary for a rigid 

framework of analysis to be applied. In other words, to use a predetermined 

framework of analysis as a point of departure would have meant to force a set of 

assumptions on the texts in terms of how and what to analyze. Given the 

unpredictability of the nature and formal properties of the textbooks being 

selected, it was essential to explore the textbooks to their fullest extent in search 

of any traces of salient features pertaining to ideological discourses and power 

relations, while working out the most appropriate method and technique of 

analysis. Consequently, this entailed a recursive process of data analysis in which 

new categories emerged upon further readings, and subsequently required some 

reshaping and modification to establish the most plausible conceptualization, 

categorization, and classification. The recursive process thus worked alongside 

the inductive analysis under the framework of the case study approach.  

The early stage of the analysis entailed thematic classification and 

categorization of the texts. Different themes and topics were identified, classified 

and assigned to different thematic categories. A similar process was applied to 

the visual images in the textbooks. This process resulted in a set of data of texts 

and visual images in numbers and percentages. The data were then analyzed in 

terms of the macro structure of the textbooks; how the data contributed to the 

coherence of the texts as a whole. Next, the analysis proceeded with an 

examination of the texts at the micro level to look for instances of local semantics 

in the forms of propositions, syntactical structures, and lexicalization—instances 

of the use of language which contribute to the construction of the discourse of 

English as an international language. The next stage was to employ Huckin’s 

(1997) analytic tools for close textual analysis at different degrees of granularity. 

They are foregrounding, backgrounding, and framing, Foregrounding is the 

prominence given to parts of a text, either by their physical placement or size or 

by the emphasis given them through word choice or syntactic structure. The 

opposite of foregrounding is backgrounding, which is the de-emphasizing of 

parts of a text. The ultimate form of backgrounding is omission, or leaving 

relevant information out of a text. Framing is the slant the author gives to a text. 

It is the way the content of the discourse is represented, including the speaker’s 

perspective and others’ points of view. This includes the use of visual aids such 

as photographs, font of headings and diagrams. 

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

Using Huckin’s framework of analysis, I applied a close textual 

examination of the textbooks to investigate the extent to which different 

discourses had been represented. I discovered that a great deal of prominence 

was given to the Western discourses, in particular Britain's cultural, social and 

political practices, whereas discourses about Indonesia and the rest of the world 

were largely underrepresented, resulting in imbalanced power relations. At the 

same time, the texts had also been constructed to establish a strong link between 

Britain (and the inner circle countries) with its superior practices and the absolute 

role and high stature of English to guarantee access to many highly valued social 

goods. The analysis revealed the use of such discursive strategies as 



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foregrounding, framing, and visual images to construct Britain as a center of 

excellence. The following section presents evidence from the textbooks 

 

Foregrounding, backgrounding and framing  

Topics  

The textbook Real English 2 consists of 10 units and each unit features different 

themes such as geography, earth power, agriculture, welfare, history, 

communication and information technology, profession, money and international 

relations. Within each unit, the author introduces different topics which are 

associated with the theme of the unit. Having examined these topics, I classified 

them into four thematic categories: British social practices, general knowledge, 

science and technology, global issues, and social practices in Indonesia and the 

rest of the world. The use of foregrounding in the textbooks is reflected in the 

way the writer gives prominence to social practices and traditions in Britain. As 

can be seen from Table 1, texts about British social practices form the bulk of the 

textbook, while only a small percentage of the textbook is allocated to description 

of social practices in Indonesia and the rest of the world. 

 

Table 1.Text distribution in Real English 2 

 Thematic categories 

 British social 

practices  

General 

knowledge, 

Science and 

Technology  

Global 

issues  

Social 

practices in 

Indonesia and 

the rest of the 

world.  

Units   1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 

8. 9, 10 

1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 

8, 9 

1, 2, 6, 

10 

 2,4,6,8,9 

Number of 

texts  

23 16 10 7 

Percentage  41 % 28.5% 17.8% 12.5% 

 
The second textbook, Real English 3, shows an even more marked 

imbalance of text distribution. As in the case of Real English 2, the second 

textbook Real English 3 consists of 10 units, and each unit features different 

thematic titles such as economics, science and technology, politics, art and 

culture, society and population, trade and industry, international relations, 

energy, and the role of women. The distribution of texts based on thematic 

categories is presented in Table 2. 

 

 

 

 



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Table 2.Text Distribution in Real English 3 

 

As reflected in Table 2, in the second textbook the description of social 

practices in Britain takes up half of the total text distribution, while other 

discourses share the rest. The pattern of foregrounding in these two textbooks 

suggests that a great deal of prominence is being attached to Britain and its social 

practices, whereas the social practices in Indonesia and the rest of the world are 

given less or small significance. By doing this, the author constructs Britain and 

its social practices as the dominant discourse in the minds of readers. The 

pervasive accounts of British social practices and English as an international 

language simultaneously function to invoke the notion of Britain as a center of 

excellence, and mastery of English as key to many highly valued social goods. 

Tables 3 and 4 show the different themes about Britain which dominate the 

textbooks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Thematic categories 

 British social 

practices  

General 

Knowledge, 

science and 

technology  

Global 

Issues  

Social 

practices in 

Indonesia 

and the rest 

of the 

world  

Units 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10 1,2,6,9. 3,5,6,8,9,10. 1,4,5,6, 7, 

9. 

Number of 

texts  

36 11 13 10 

Percentage  51% 15.7% 18,5% 14.2% 



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Table 3.Themes about Britain in Real English 2 

Unit Thematic Titles Topics 

1 Geography  Weather conditions in Britain and Europe (pp. 

9-10). 

3 Culture  The city of London (pp. 44-45), holiday in 

London (pp. 56-57). 

4 Agriculture  How British authority handles animal disease 

(p. 73) animal inspection procedure (p. 74) 

British government ‘s compensation for 

farmers (p. 77). 

5 Welfare  British Welfare system (pp. 81-82), Illegal 

immigrants entering UK (p. 86), 

unemployment in UK (pp. 87-88), jobs 

allowance application, (p. 90), the influx of 

Eastern Europe immigrants, (p. 93). 

7 Communication 

and Information 

Technology 

Making an invitation in English (p. 132), 

British teenage party (p. 134). 

8 Profession Poll on public perception about professions in 

Britain (pp. 139-140),  most respected 

profession in Britain (p. 146), British lottery 

(p. 150). 

9 Money Credit card security (p. 162), the cost of going 

to university in Britain and Australia (pp. 163-

164).   

10 International 

Relations  

British protection for child education (p. 188) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Table 4.Themes about Britain in Real English 3 

Unit Thematic titles Topics 

1 Economics  Plain English campaign in Britain (p. 21). 

 

2 Science and 

Technology  

 

Early inventions by British scientists (pp. 27-28), 

medical research and inventions by British 

scientists (pp. 33-34), an interview between 

Thomas Alfa Edison with a reporter in February 

1991 (pp. 39-40).  

3 Politics  The British Parliament (pp. 45-46), the Queen‘s 

speech at the Parliament (p. 48), The British 

Monarch and the role of the Queen (pp. 49-50), 

British and American election (pp. 51-52), the 

British Prime Minister‘s Question Time (pp. 61-

62), the Hansard reporters, (p. 62) 

 

4 Arts and Culture  The history of Liverpool, a multicultural city and 

the European Capital of Culture (pp. 65-66), 

Audition at the Liverpool Institute for Performing 

Arts (pp. 77-78), successful story of a former 

Liverpool student (p. 82), prospectus of The 

Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (p. 83). 

5 Society and 

Population 

Early British Settlers in New England and 

Australia (pp. 87-88), illegal immigrants entering 

UK and Australia (pp. 92-93), a Somali refugee 

boy in England (pp. 101-102). 

7 Trade and 

Industry 

Early industrialization in Britain and Asian 

countries (pp. 134-135), British textile industry 

(p. 136), British call centers (pp. 138-139), the 

Royal Doulton Company, (p. 145). 

8 International 

Relation 

International Rescue Corps (p. 157) 

9 Energy  Power sources and Industrial Revolution in 

Britain (pp. 171-172). 

10  The Role of 

Women  

The Life Story of Lady Diana (pp. 191-192). 

 

As reflected in Tables 3 and 4, the topics about Britain are selected to 

allow the author to foreground the positive aspects of British social practices. On 

the contrary, not much is said about the positive aspects of social practices in 

Indonesia. As can be seen from Tables 5 and 6, topics such as earthquake in 

Jakarta, tsunami in Aceh, ATM fraud experience, Indonesian workers as 

domestic servants overseas, and Indonesian endangered orang-utans represent 

the bleaker sides of Indonesia. 



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The other seemingly positive topics such as crops grown in Indonesia, 

Indonesian fishing industry, Indonesian furniture export and Western company 

in Indonesia are nevertheless used by the author to indirectly emphasize the 

superiority of the West and the Center and to de-emphasize the positive aspects 

of Indonesia. For example, a topic such as ‘crops grown in Indonesia’ is 

presented with foregrounded elements of capitalism, hence ultimately serving the 

interest of the Center as an exporter of this ideology. This can be found in the 

sentence, “Crops such as sugar cane, spices, tea, coffee, palm oil, cocoa, rubber 

and tobacco all provide the country with much needed export income” (p. 66). 

Here, exporting crops to other (Western) countries is being framed as the primary 

purpose of growing crops in Indonesia. 

 

Table 5.Topics about Indonesia in Real English 2 

Unit Thematic title Topics about Indonesia 

 2 Earth’s power  Earthquake in Jakarta (p. 26), tsunami in Aceh 

(pp. 29-30), 

 4 Agriculture  Crops grown in Indonesia’s fertile land (p. 66), 

Indonesian fishing industry (pp. 68-69). 

 6  History  History of Indonesian struggle for 

independence (pp. 114-115). 

 8 Professions  Job adverts (p. 148). 

 9 Money  ATM fraud experience (p. 169). 

 

Table 6.Topics about Indonesia in Real English 3 

Unit  Thematic Title  Topics  

1 Economics  Indonesian craftsmen and women (pp. 10-

11), Indonesian furniture export (p. 13), a  

foreign buyer ordering furniture from local 

workshop (p. 16).  

4 Arts and Culture  Indonesia’s six World Heritage sites (pp. 

69-70). 

5 Society and 

Population  

Indonesian workers as domestic servants 

overseas (p. 97).  

6 Environment and 

preservation  

Indonesian endangered orang-utans (p. 

112), adventure holiday in Sumatra (p. 

121), preparation for adventure holiday in 

Sumatra (p. 127).  

7 Trade and Industry  A western company in Indonesia (p. 143). 

9 Energy  Indonesia’s different sources of energy (p. 

182). 

 

Similarly, topics such as ATM fraud experience and Indonesians working 

as domestic helpers overseas are included as part of the discursive strategy to 

construct the discourse of Indonesia as a backward and less civilized country. 

For example, in Real English 2 (p. 26), the author uses a character named ‘Mr. 



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Idi Otic’ to share his experience about the earthquake in Jakarta. The use of such 

a name for an Indonesian character is clearly condescending and reflects the 

binary perspectives and stereotypes long held by the West about the Third World.  

In fact, in Unit 4 of Real English 3, Indonesian culture is described as 

mainly constituting buildings and natural sites, viewing culture as being detached 

and separate from the people, instead of focusing on the creative minds and ideas 

found in the diverse and rich traditions of different ethnic groups in Indonesia.  

The dominant discourse of Britain serves more to highlight the many 

positive aspects of British social practices. Upon reading the texts, the audience 

is expected to build a mental model which links Britain with the notion of English 

as a key to acquiring many highly valued social goods. It is in this light that the 

author established a link between the dominant discourse of Britain throughout 

the text and the discourse of English being enacted in the texts. 

 

Visuals 

There are abundant examples in the textbooks where visual images have 

been used by the author to help foreground and frame Britain as a center of 

excellence. The images of Britain such as ‘The Prime Minister speaks’, ‘Indian 

in central London’, ‘Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre’, ‘London National History 

Museum’, ‘Liverpool’s Historic Saint George Hall’, ‘The Magical Mystery 

Tour’, ‘a Job center Plus’, ‘A Channel Tunnel Train’, ‘Mr. Marsh and John’ and 

‘Port of Dover’ all contribute to the foregrounding of Britain as a center of 

excellence. 

While images of Britain are generally positive, images of other countries 

like Indonesia and the rest of the world tend to be negative and bleak. Some 

images are even juxtaposed to provide a contrast between Britain or European 

countries and the Third World.  For example, in the text about weather (Real 

English 2, p. 10), the author included two contrasting pictures: the winter in 

northern Europe where people enjoy ice skating and the rainy season in southeast 

Asia where buildings are inundated by floodwaters. It might be hard to conceive 

such juxtaposition as merely a matter of text illustration. Rather, it may reflect 

the author’s discursive strategy to cast Britain in positive light while 

simultaneously invoking the grim picture of the Third World through the 

discussion of weather.  One might wonder if the author could have otherwise 

featured a picture of rainy season in Indonesia in a much more favorable way.  

A similar use of visuals to foreground the backwardness of the Third 

World can be found in the text about women's rights (Real English 3, pp. 192-

193) where the author presented two contasting pictures as text illustration. The 

first picture: ‘A man beating women’ projects the sweeping generalization that 

oppression against women’s rights is still rampant in the Third World and that 

the same never happens in the West. By contrast, the second picture: ‘British 

girls receive their exam results’ highlights absolute protection and respect for 

women’s rights, which guarantees them equal opportunities to pursue the best 

education. 

 



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Recommendations for pedagogical values  

In this section I would like to recommend some modifications to the 

textbooks under investigation. First the reading texts, which are mostly bland 

and unimaginative. The inclusion of approximately two to four reading texts in 

each chapter is something to be applauded, especially if it can lead to extensive 

reading. However, as the texts are organized around a chapter topic, there is not 

much variation of register and genre, and some are too technical and British-

specific to engage readers. For example, Chapter 2 of Real English 2 includes 

five reading texts of different length which discuss the British political system. 

They are ‘The British Parliament’ (pp. 45-46), ‘the Queen’s speech at the 

Parliament’ (p. 48), ‘the British Monarch and the role of the Queen’ (pp. 49-

50), British and American election, (pp. 51-52), the British Prime Minister’s 

Question Time, (pp. 61-62), and ‘The Hansard reporters’ (p. 62). It is worth 

questioning whether all of these topics are appealing and familiar to high school 

students in Indonesia. Similar tendencies in the two textbooks can be seen in 

Tables 3 and 4. There is a lack of attention given to the role of fiction as a way 

to engage learners in the pleasures of reading, and help them develop a reading 

habit. The inclusion of fiction in the textbooks is likely to cater for learners’ 

affect and imagination, which in turn would make learning more interesting and 

engaging.  

In the same vein, it might be worth considering incorporating a variety 

of cultures into the course books. In this regard, Bao (2006), suggests a number 

of reasons for the inclusion of international culture in course books. Among other 

things is the fact that English has become the language of the multicultural world. 

He argues that learners need to have a reasonable understanding of the 

sociocultural views of both native and non-native speakers of English, to enable 

them to become successful communicators, receptive to different interpretations 

of world views. Another kind of improvement can be made to the level of 

familiarity of topic contents, striking a balance between novelty and familiarity. 

As suggested by Bao (2016), good materials utilize learners’ individual 

knowledge. As the reading texts are predominantly about the discourse of Britain 

and the West, learners are barely given a chance to relate to their own cultural 

resources. For example, topics like ‘The Hansard reporters’ (Real English 3, p. 

62), and ‘Cyclone Hardy’ (Real English 2, p. 15) are likely to be alienating and 

boring for eleventh and twelfth grade students. The same is true of a speaking 

task in Real English 2 (p. 14) which asks learners to work in pairs to make up a 

dialogue in which one of them gives advice to the other about staying healthy 

during a visit to European countries. Obviously, the task could be very difficult 

for learners who have never been abroad or lived in such countries. Thus, it is 

important that learners are given a chance to utilize their personal knowledge in 

communication tasks; textbooks might then be more stimulating and engaging, 

both affectively and intellectually.  

 

 

 

 



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CONCLUSION  

The analysis of the two textbooks has strongly suggested the presence of 

imbalanced power relations enacted through discursive strategies. The textbooks' 

author has constructed the texts in a subtle way to propagate the superiority of 

the Western tradition and its contemporary practices. We could see how the 

discourse of Britain is socially constructed and produced to be circulated and 

consumed by the public, and in particular students. The two textbooks are laden 

with sprawling portrayals of the superior practices and values known in Britain 

(and the West). The discursive strategies such as foregrounding and framing 

enacted throughout the textbooks could be understood as part of the author’s 

strategy to control the audience's reaction to the text. The author of these 

textbooks applied constraint on content to achieve his goal: to promote and 

preserve the dominance of the West over the periphery countries like Indonesia. 

It is at this stage of discursive process that we begin to see the truth of the 

selective tradition: that the selection of certain meanings and practices to be 

emphasized is part of hegemonic practices by the more dominant class (William, 

1989) and how textbooks serve as an ideological messsage system for trasmitting 

the dominant values and beliefs of society (Apple, 1992). This reminds us of the 

notion of Discourse imperialism (Pennycook, 1994) and linguistic imperialism 

(Philipson, 1994) where the expansion of English also comes with the 

propagation of its many highly valued social and economic benefits that it brings 

so as to help expand international capitalism through ELT industry.  

It is also interesting to see how power relations may have come into play 

in the case of the textbooks under investigation. Given the author’s background 

(Peter James, a native Briton with a postgraduate certificate in ELT), we could 

imagine the power he assumed, generated both from his credentials, especially 

his being a native speaker, as well as the high stature of English as a foreign 

language in Indonesia. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the books were 

able to meet the requirements of being prescribed as supplementary textbooks. 

This study provides a glimpse of how the dominant, powerful inner circle 

countries have positioned peripheral countries like Indonesia; how they produce 

values associated with Britain to be consumed, circulated and naturalized. In all 

of these instances, we are reminded that literacy practice is always inextricably 

linked to cultural and power structures in society (Street, 1993). The textbooks 

under investigation have not, to a large extent, done justice to the discourse of 

the third world—by giving undue prominence to the discourse of Britain as a 

center of excellence with many highly valued social goods. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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