Gender representation in Solutions textbooks: A multimodal analysis

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

HỒ NỮ NHƯ Ý

GENDER REPRESENTATION IN SOLUTIONS

ELEMENTARY TEXTBOOKS: A MULTIMODAL

ANALYSIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

HỒ NỮ NHƯ Ý

SỰ THỂ HIỆN GIỚI TÍNH TRONG GIÁO TRÌNH

SOLUTIONS ELEMENTARY: PHÂN TÍCH ĐA

PHƯƠNG THỨC

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8220201

Người hướng dẫn: PGS. TS. Nguyễn Thị Thu Hiền

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify that this thesis ‘Gender representation in Solutions

Elementary textbooks: A multimodal analysis’ has not been accepted for

the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary

institution, and that it does not contain material previously published or

written by another person, except where due acknowledgement has been

made in the text.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study could not have been accomplished without the invaluable

assistance of individuals and organizations to whom I feel profoundly

indebted. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and

sincere appreciation for my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu

Hien, who has supported me throughout my thesis with her endless patience,

gentle encouragement, constructive comments and valuable materials.

Without her, this thesis would not have been completed. Secondly, I am also

grateful to all the lecturers of the relevant courses for their valuable lectures

and discussions, which provide essential insights for this thesis. Thirdly, I

would like to express my special thanks for the Department of Foreign

Languages for giving us the permission to carry out this project. Last but not

least, this would be a golden opportunity for me to exhibit my endless love

and indebtedness to my family who are the tower of hope and strength for

during the time I carried out this study.

iii

ABSTRACT

The growing popularity of English teaching has been paralleled by the

growing investigation of gender representation and gender stereotyping in

ESL/EFL textbooks. The aim of this study is to uncover how males and

females are represented in in the Solutions Elementary students’ books. To

achieve this aim, the Systemic Functional Grammar by Halliday &

Matthiessen (2004) and Grammar of Visual Design by Kress & van Leeuwen

(2006) were employed to explore the experiential meaning of the written texts

and representational meaning of the images. This study was conducted with

both quantitative and qualitative methods. On the one hand, the text analysis

reveals that males are more visible than females in the important roles of

Actor, Carrier/Identified, Senser, Sayer and Behaver. Males are generally

portrayed as being more competent, creative, and dominant than females, and

many other gender stereotypes are perpetuated. On the other hand, the image

analysis shows that males enjoy higher visibility than females yet with small

differences. Many stereotypes perpetuated in the 2nd edition are subject to

rejection in the 3rd edition, which might indicate the textbook authors’

growing recognition of the gender stereotyping issue. These results highlight

a need for teachers and learners to pay more attention to gender stereotyping

conveyed in the ESL textbooks.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP...................................................................................................................... I

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................................... II

ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................................................. III

TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................. IV

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS........................................................................................................ VI

LIST OF TABLES .........................................................................................................................................VII

LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................................ IX

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................... 1

1.1. RATIONALE ........................................................................................................................................ 1

1.2. AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY..................................................................................................... 3

1.2.1. Aims.............................................................................................................................................. 3

1.2.2. Objectives...................................................................................................................................... 3

1.3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS .......................................................................................................................... 4

1.4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY............................................................................................................................. 4

1.5. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ................................................................................................................ 5

1.6. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS.................................................................................................................... 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................... 7

2.1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS ................................................................................................................ 7

2.1.1. Multimodal Discourse Analysis..................................................................................................... 7

2.1.2. Systemic Functional Grammar...................................................................................................... 7

2.1.3. Grammar of Visual Design.......................................................................................................... 14

2.2. PREVIOUS STUDIES .............................................................................................................................. 23

2.2.1. Gender and textbooks................................................................................................................. 23

2.2.2. Gender representation in EFL/ESL textbooks.............................................................................. 25

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .....................................................................................................................29

3.1. RESEARCH METHODS........................................................................................................................... 29

3.2. DATA COLLECTION............................................................................................................................... 30

v

3.2.1. Data source................................................................................................................................. 30

3.2.2. Collection of written texts........................................................................................................... 30

3.2.3. Collection of images.................................................................................................................... 32

3.3. DATA ANALYSIS.................................................................................................................................... 33

3.4. PROCEDURE......................................................................................................................................... 34

3.5. VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY................................................................................................................... 35

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................36

4.1. REPRESENTATION OF MALES AND FEMALES IN WRITTEN TEXTS......................................................... 36

4.1.1. Linguistic-gendered clauses........................................................................................................ 36

4.1.2. Distribution of process types in linguistic-gendered clauses....................................................... 37

4.1.3. Representation of males and females in material processes...................................................... 39

4.1.4. Representation of males and females in relational clauses........................................................ 41

4.1.5. Representation of males and females in mental clauses............................................................ 44

4.1.6. Representation of males and females in verbal clauses ............................................................. 48

4.1.7. Representation of males and females in behavioral clauses ...................................................... 50

4.1.8. Representation of males and females in different social contexts ............................................. 51

4.1.9. Discussion on the findings of gender representation in the written texts .................................. 55

4.2. VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF MALES AND FEMALES ........................................................................... 65

4.2.1. Distribution of narrative processes in images............................................................................. 65

4.2.2. Representation of males and females in actional processes ...................................................... 65

4.2.3. Representation of males and females in reactional processes................................................... 71

4.2.4. Representation of males and females in verbal processes ......................................................... 75

4.2.5. Representation of males and females in mental processes........................................................ 76

4.2.6. Representation of males and females in different social contexts ............................................. 77

4.2.7. Discussion on the findings of gender representation in the images ........................................... 80

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ........................................................................................89

5.1. CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 89

5.2. IMPLICATIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 91

5.3. LIMITATIONS........................................................................................................................................ 92

5.4. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH............................................................................................. 93

REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................................94

vi

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

[a] Abbreviations

READ Reading comprehension texts

GRAM Grammar examples and exercises

DIA Dialogues

[b] Conventions

- Boldface is used to mark the first use of technical terms or to highlight

the focus point.

- Italics is used for examples.

- Underline is used to mark the words or phrases that are being

discussed.

For example:

[E3-626] She likes Leonard and Sheldon. [M]

The phrase Leonard and Sheldon is underlined to show the positioning

of males as Goal.

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table Name Table Page

2.1 Terminology for the three metafunctions 14

4.1 Distribution of linguistic-gendered clauses 36

4.2 Distribution of process types 38

4.3 Distribution of male/female Actor in the 2nd edition 39

4.4 Distribution of male/female Actor in the 3rd edition 40

4.5 Distribution of male/female Carrier/Token in the 2nd edition 42

4.6 Male/female Carrier/Token in subtypes of relational processes in

the 2nd edition

42

4.7 Distribution of male/female Carrier/Token in the 3rd edition 43

4.8 Male/female Carrier/Token in subtypes of relational processes in

the 3rd edition

44

4.9 Distribution of male/female Senser sections of 2nd edition 45

4.10 Distribution of subtypes of mental processes in the 2nd edition. 45

4.11 Distribution of male/female Senser in the 3rd edition 46

4.12 Distribution of subtypes of mental processes in the 3rd edition 47

4.13 Distribution of male/female Sayer 48

4.14 Distribution of male/female Behavers 50

4.15 Distribution of male and female participant roles in the 2nd

edition

55

4.16 Distribution of male and female participant roles in the 3rd

edition

60

4.17 The distribution of male and female participants in the three

sections

63

4.18 The proportion of males and females in important participant 63

viii

Table Name Table Page

roles

4.19 Distribution of narrative processes 65

4.20 Frequency of males and females as participants in actional

process

66

4.21 Frequency of males and females as participants in reactional

process

71

4.22 Distribution of males and females in the participant roles in the

2

nd edition

81

4.23 Distribution of males and females in the participant roles in the

3

rd edition

84