The Representation of Male and Female Social Actors in Prospect EFL Series of Iranian Junior High School: A CDA Perspective

Abstract

This study sought to investigate the representation of male and female social actors in EFL series of junior high school in Iran, namely, Prospect 1, Prospect 2, and Prospect 3. To this end, Fairclough’s (1995) three-dimensional model was used in order to investigate the way gender is represented in the three textbooks to unveil ideologies behind their manifestation. In the first stage of Fairclough’s (1995) framework, i.e., the description stage, five criteria were selected based on Amerian and Esmaili’s (2015) study, i.e., I) visibility of women and men, II) women’s and men’s social and domestic roles, III) women’s and men’s semantic roles, IV) women’s and men’s activities, and V) pictorial representation. Then, these factors were interpreted and explained. The results of the study revealed that, in most cases, these textbooks presented a sexist attitude in favor of male actors. It was discussed that this attitude follows a systematic way based on the ideology inherent in Iranian culture.

Keywords

• Social Actors
• Critical Discourse Analysis
• Textbook
• EFL
• Prospect