AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER... OR DID THEY? THE PORTRAYAL OF OLD AGE AND OLDER PEOPLE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING TEXTBOOKS

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the results of an analysis of the presence of topics concerning old age both as a social phenomenon and as a stage in human life in mainly German, foreign language teaching textbooks. The evidence shows that this subject only appears as a separate thematic unit in textbooks for teaching German as a foreign language. The question, therefore, arises as to why it is only covered in this group of textbooks, but is missing in textbooks used to teach English, Russian or Polish as foreign languages. The subject of old age is becoming more and more widespread in Polish public debate where seniors are slowly becoming not only the object, but also the subject of this discussion. However, this tendency is not reflected in textbooks used to teach Polish as a foreign language. Perhaps Polish textbooks have not yet managed to react to demographic changes in society? Or maybe old age, and the problems of elderly people are not important enough to devote a separate place to them in a medium, which is designed for and mostly used by young people. A textbook is understood in this context as a social medium that co-shapes the image of non-linguistic reality, just like other mass media. On the basis of the analysis of textbooks and the ways various social phenomena are presented in them, it is possible to reconstruct not only scientific discourse in the mother country of a given textbook, but also its social discourse, the thinking of language communities and the changes taking place in individual communities. On the one hand, textbooks present reality as it is, and on the other, they construct its results.

Keywords

• old age
• the image of old age
• seniors
• textbook
• textbook for teaching/learning a foreign language
• discourse