Englishes in the 21st century schools A critical look on the linguistic and cultural representation of English as a lingua franca in textbooks

Englishes in the 21st century schools

A critical look on the linguistic and cultural representation of English as a lingua franca in textbooks

Camila Silva Viana

300314

MA Thesis

English Language and Culture

School of Humanities

University of Eastern Finland

May 2020

UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND Faculty

Philosophical Faculty

Unit

School of Humanities

Author

Camila Silva Viana

Name of the Thesis

Englishes in the 21st century schools: a critical look on the linguistic and cultural representation of English as a lingua franca in textbooks

Major

English language and culture

Description

Master’s thesis

Date

01.05.2020

Pages

91 pages + 31

Abstract

This study aims at analyzing which varieties of English and what kind of cultural representation linked to countries which have English as their official language are portrayed in the books ‘On track 8’ (2017) and ‘Go for it 6’ (2019) both from the Finnish publisher SanomaPro.

The goal of this thesis is to contrast the linguistic and cultural representations of countries from the Inner and Outer Circle, according to the classification done by Kachru (1985), as well as to analyze if there is any differences in the way these representations are done.

The methodologies used are content analysis, critical discourse analysis, and qualitative analysis. The theoretical framework was divided in describing the history of English from a small language to a lingua franca, according to Jenkins (2003, 2007), its process of dissemination and the origins of ELT, according to Phillipson (1992), Widdowson (1994), Pennycook (1998), Graddol (1997), Canagarajah (1999) and Fairclough (2001). Later one, a presentation of the new Englishes and its origins is done using Jenkins (2007) and Schneider (2003) as reference.

The findings of this study are that, although we have a large representation of the Inner and Outer Circle nations in the recent textbooks, we still have the Inner Circle countries, in special USA and the UK, as referential points in terms of linguistic standard, which reinforces the idea of ownership of the language. We were also able to notice that the cultural representations of the Inner and Outer Circle countries were rather different, being the former done under a positive light, while the latter was presented under negative tones.

Key words

World Englishes, Lingua Franca, Textbooks, Education, Language, English, Culture, Critical discourse analysis, Finland, Finnish.

I would like to thank my dad for supporting me and my academic life, making me believe that education is a delightful path, and all my family. My dear supporting caring friends, you are so many and I am so happy to have you. Special thanks goes to Guilherme, Paula, Marina, Stella, Greyce, Giovanna, and Douglas. To all the inspiring teachers and professors who changed my life, you are so many. To my supervisor Mikko Laitinen for orientating me and my research in a very thoughtful insightful manner. To my guide for helping me and opening all the doors I need.

AmE – American English BrE – British English

EFL – English as a Foreign Language EIL – English as an International Language ELF – English as a Lingua Franca

ELT – English Language Teaching ESL – English as a Second Language GB – Great Britain

L2 – Language 2 (not one’s native tongue) LF – Lingua Franca

NNS – Non-Native Speaker NS – Native Speaker

UK – United Kingdom

USA – United States of America

Abstract

Acknowledgments List of abbreviations

1. Introduction………...1

2. The rise of English as the dominant language………...6

2.1 How did it come to be what it is today?...6

2.2 The ideologies behind the language: who owned it then?...11

2.3 The ideologies behind the language: who owns it now?...16

2.4 The world of English Language Teaching.………..…...18

3. The many Englishes and the concept of norm and deviation.………...….26

3.1 Language attitudes over New Englishes.………..…………..26

3.2 An overview on the varieties of various Englishes……….30

3.3 What differentiates a deviation from a norm?...35

4. Previous studies ………..………37

5. Methodologies used………...………..………38

6. Where do we find ourselves now?...42

6.1 ‘On track 8’ introduction ...43

6.2 ‘On track 8’ analysis ……….……...45

6.3 Type of activity in ‘On track 8’ ………...………..53

6.4 ´On track 8´cultural representation………..……...…56

6.5 ‘On track 8’ imaging ……….……….60

6.6 ‘On track 8’ discussion ………..63

6.7 ‘Go for it 6’ introduction ………...65

6.8 ‘Go for it 6’ analysis ………..67

6.10 ‘Go for it 6’ cultural representation ...………..………71

6.11 ‘Go for it 6’ imaging ………75

6.12‘Go for it 6’ discussion ………..80

6.13 Comparison of ‘On the track 8’ and ‘Go for it 6’……….…...81

7. Discussion and conclusion ………...………..84

Bibliography………...…………88

Appendices……….………...………..94

Appendix 1………94

Appendix 2………95

Appendix 3………96

Appendix 4………97

Appendix 5………98

Appendix 6………99

Appendix 7………..100

Appendix 8………..…101

Appendix 9………..…102

Appendix 10………....103

Appendix 11………104

Appendix 12………....105

Appendix 13………....106

Appendix 14………107

Appendix 15………....108

Appendix 16………....109

Appendix 17………110

Appendix 19………....112

Appendix 20………....113

Appendix 21………....114

Appendix 22……….…...115

Appendix 23……….…...116

Appendix 24……….…...117

Appendix 25……….…...118

Appendix 26……….…...119

Appendix 27……….…...120

Appendix 28……….…...121

Appendix 29……….…...122

Appendix 30………123

Appendix 31………124

1. Introduction

As it is known, English not only is the native language of multiple countries but it is also the international language used in business, education, and art around the world. As observed by Graddol (2012), English became the language of diversity and cultural exchange in

international and intra-national contexts, allowing the spread of diversity and multiculturalism.

English is broadly diffused and is the most common second language and foreign language learned in the world (Graddol 1997), furthermore, it is the most used and popular lingua franca in the history of the world, according to Melitz (2018) and Graddol (1997). Such role performed by the language means English is used through different cultures and countries as the universal language that connects people.

However, despite its diverse use for connecting people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, it is not unusual to see English being defined as having only one or two

‘official’ varieties and only a few countries associated to it as official users of the language, as further observed by Widdowson (1994) and Davies (2009). After a quick observation, it is noticeable that English came to be a language with many varieties and uses throughout many different nations where it became an official language, but only a few of these varieties are legitimated and seen as the ‘correct’ or ‘official’ ones (Jenkins 2007).

Apart from having many new varieties, English became the world’s lingua franca, according to Jenkins (2007). Lingua franca is the function a language performs of being used

internationally as a common language among people with different linguistic backgrounds.

For being used by many people from different life contexts, cultures, and native languages,

the function of a lingua franca causes many changes and interferences in the English language, which is not well received by many native speakers. Jenkins (2007: 33-35) demonstrates that there is a strong anti-ELF (English as a lingua franca) sentiment in the English language teaching world motivated by conservative scholars and people involved in the huge business of ELT, which is very profitable through selling books, courses, proficiency exams, exchange programs, among others.

The ELT business thrives with the idea that only the varieties found in the Inner Circle (the definition used by Kachru (1985) to describe countries such as England, United States, Canada, and Australia, which would be the norm-providers of the language) should be taken into consideration and anything besides it is an unwanted deviation. This ideology works as a gatekeeper to research, validation, and study of any variety of the language that does not come from the Inner Circle nations, which is reflected not only in the academic field but also in the attitudes towards teaching and learning English (Jenkins 2007).

Still according to Jenkins (2007), another area immensely affected by this anti-ELF feeling is the teaching materials and classbooks, which end up not only bringing only one variation of the language when it comes to grammar but also only one cultural representation of the language, reinforcing the idea that English is owned by specific nations (Widdowson 1994) and anything other than that is an ‘error’ or ‘fraud’, as exemplified by Leung & Lewkowicz (2013). Leung & Lewkowicz (2013) exposes how class books often present sources

“predominantly from the Anglophone world, reflecting issues and topics of predominant interest to a limited audience primarily those familiar with British or American culture.”

(2013: 63) combined with the fact that the topics presented in those books were completely unrelated to the students’ realities. (2013).

With the aforementioned issues in mind, this study aims to analyze the English language class books ‘On track 8’ (2017), used in upper secondary education in Finland, and ‘Go for it 6’ (2019), used in basic education in Finland, both published by SanomaPro to investigate if this tendency of confining the cultural and linguistic representation of the English language only to a specific group of nationalities (when we know it is the official language of many nations) still prevails in current teaching materials.

With this overview in mind, the questions I aim to answer in my study are:

(1) Is the English language represented impartially in the books or is it associated with specific nations?

(2) What are the cultural aspects related to the English language in the books?

(3) What nations with English as their official language are represented in the book and how this representation is achieved?

I intend to achieve answers with the help of content analysis, which is a method of inferring meaning from the content of a book (White and Marsh 2006), critical discourse analysis, through spotting social or political influence in the content of the book analyzed (Litosseliti, L 2010), and, finally, qualitative research (Mligo, E. 2016) by drawing meaningful conclusion from the data gathered and analyzed.

SanomaPro, the publisher of the books analyzed in this study, kindly allowed the reproduction of some parts of its materials in this study. The latest books in each series, ‘On track 8’ and

‘Go for it 6’, were chosen to be analyzed so we could have the most up-to-date view and usage of the English language in the books. The aforementioned series were chosen for being

widely used in Finnish schools, therefore a good representation of the Finnish classroom practices when it comes to English teaching.

Figures 1 and 2. Cover of the book ‘On track 8’ and ‘Go for it 6’ by Sanomapro.

My book analysis is divided into cultural and grammatical aspects and will be executed as follows:

Cultural aspects: what cultural traits are being transmitted in the book? To what nations do they belong? Pictures, texts, discussion themes are to be analyzed, as well as the way the books portrait the culture and nation represented on them. What words are used to describe these nations and cultures? Is the representation done under a positive or negative

perspective?

The second part to be analyzed in my study is grammar and vocabulary. The topic to be observed is: What language varieties are present in the books when it comes to vocabulary and pronunciation? Is it just British and American varieties, or do we have new Englishes

varieties, such as Indian English, Singaporean English, Fiji English, among others being represented?

This part will focus on the lexicon and the IPA transcriptions in the glossary pages. The aim is to observe which variety (ies) of the language the lexicon and pronunciation presented are representing and how diverse they are.

Although both grammatical and cultural representations will be categorized and described as separate entities, the analysis of them will be complementary and juxtaposed. The first step of the analysis will be selecting pages of both books in which cultural aspects or language varieties are being transmitted. They are going to be displayed in the research as scanned pages.

After the first step, content analysis will take place as an objective description of what we find on each page and exercise selected and the entailments of them. As a research method, content analysis may be defined as “a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts (or other meaningful matter) to the contexts of their use (Krippendorff, 2004, p. 18).” (White and Marsh, 2006: 26-27)

Later on, a discussion will be held about the content observed in the book under a critical discursive analysis perspective, which can be defined as “(…) [A]research specifically considers how language works within institutional and political discourses (…) in order to uncover overt or more often, covert inequalities in social relationships.” (Litosseliti, L 2010:

139). (Emphasis added).

Once the three aforementioned steps are completed, the most relevant images carrying a discursive content in the books will be analyzed also under a critical discursive perspective and added to the written content as a complementary signifier.

Finally, a conclusion will be drawn and a discussion will be proposed through a qualitative analysis of all the data gathered. The aims of qualitative research can be described as a method used to provide description and interpretation of a phenomena, as well as to verify the validity of theories (Mligo 2016).

2. The rise of English as the dominant language

English has become the world’s language. It is the language of business, art, entertainment, fashion, and science. The language that crossed borders and became one of the most popular second languages learned around the planet (Graddol, 1997) and widely spoken throughout continents as the official language of countries in America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Despite its popularity, the expansion of the English language has been widely criticized by many authors, including Phillipson (1992), who attributes the spread of English to a dominant political project from England and the United States of America, Widdowson (1994), who criticizes the ownership attitudes from England and USA over English and discusses how learning and teaching the language might be used as an imposition of a dominant culture, and Canagarajah (1999), who exposes the difficulties Asian teachers face in keeping autonomous teaching practices when it comes to English, as, because of lack of resources, they have to resort to heavily biased educational books in terms of Western dominant discourses.

These aforementioned authors have something in common, they all criticize the spread of English through different angles as a phenomenon that happened as a product of imperialist acts of the United Kingdom and later continued by its former colony, the United States of America.

Although criticized, the language expansion is an occurrence which consequences linger until the current days, being some of them the worldwide spread of the English language, the emergence of nations with English as their official language, and new varieties of English.

Going back to the origins of English, Graddol (1997) explains how the growth of the language happened. It began with English being a tiny language spoken in an island in 1600, and, in less than four centuries, becoming the lingua franca of the world, spoken by billions of people in all continents. This is due to the actions of the British Empires in trading and colonization in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and, more recently, continued by the American cultural expansion, especially after World War II.

The spread of the language was also consolidated later with the huge investment both States, the UK and USA, did between 1950 and 1970 in propagating the English language, which Troike (1977) argues to be possibly the biggest investment a language has ever received in history. As a consequence of these empires and language propagation, we have in the current days more than 300 million native speakers of English in countries such Barbados Fiji,

Ghana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, Philippines, Rwanda, Singapore, South Africa, among others (Graddol 1997).

This expansion of the language happened after English was introduced in Asia and Africa through colonialism as the language of trade, commerce, and settlement in different kinds of

colonies, as further analyzed by Schneider (2003). After the introduction of the language, there was a propagation of it, which can be analyzed as a planned political act (Phillipson 1992). He provides a large list of short reports from different authors telling how the United States and the United Kingdom, under the excuse of ‘human aid’, disseminated English in Asia and Africa expecting that it would be taught to younger generations, as a way to expand their influence and dominance.

Phillipson (1992) proposes that there was the spread of a discourse in Asian and African nations that learning English was the key to academic success and professional development, and the USA and the UK, as native speakers of English, could help out in this task, providing teachers and materials for such. In the end, it was clear that there was no real intention from those two States in helping with the educational needs of these African and Asian nations, once the educational materials from the USA and the UK were not thought to be inserted into the African and Asian cultural and educational contexts. Instead of it, the materials were quite generic and were used by teachers who were also not aware of the needs and cultural

specificities of the places they were.

Through this happening, it became evident that the real intention was to propagate the language in these territories, with a political agenda behind it, rather than helping with the local education or empowering the local people with a second language acquisition.

As we observe the investment done in disseminating the English language, we can see that there is a lot behind language teaching, as well as how powerful a language with the role of an international language or lingua franca of the world might be. It is also important to reflect upon how much power and cultural dominance is given to certain nations that step as the owners of a language with such a high position of prestige. Political, cultural, and economic

power, as well as influence, are on stake and much can be done under the excuse of teaching a language, as the language comes with a huge background of discourse and values, as

illustrated by the metaphor of a language being “a dialect with an army and a navy” used by Fairclough (2001: 17).

Fairclough (2001) demonstrates how much language and culture are connected and how much of a biased perception of the world might be transmitted through language teaching. A

language is not just a combination of codes under grammatical rules, neither is just a means of human communication, it is an entity that works as a chain between society and individual consciousness, which makes it of extreme importance. A language is part of and composed by the subject and the society simultaneously in a symbiotic relationship. The beliefs, values, images, history, fears, and hopes of a society, as well as the concept that society has about

‘the other’, meaning everything identified as external from it, is expressed through language.

Through language, all these concepts and ideas of a society reach the members of that community. Hence, propagating a language is propagating concepts and ideologies.

When it comes to the educational context of language teaching, textbooks play an important role as the material used to present a language, its culture, and what they represent. Fairclough (2001), when analyzing textbooks, argues that often we find in them sections showing the relationship between language and society, which implies that both are independent of each other, when, in fact, there is an intrinsic, dialectical relationship between them. When we think about how powerful and influential a language can be, it becomes obvious why, when dominating a place, whether territorially or culturally, a nation would give so much

importance to the role of its language in this process.

Languages are powerful, yet mutable and flexible entities. They change according to the ones using them. Therefore, one should not expect to have any control over them, as they work as an organic system. With the spread of English, the language started having contact with different societies, cultures, and other languages, which, inevitably modified the English known and spread by the UK and the USA in the course of their colonization and language propagation.

As the language started to change, the academic communities of the States responsible for the spread of English, the USA and the UK, as well as the ELT community started to notice their ownership over the language go loose, which became a concern for them, as described by Jenkins (2007). The ownership over a language is the belief that a certain language belongs to a certain people and only their rules, perceptions, and views over that language are legitimate, giving them the final saying over it (Widdowson 1994).

With this happening, we come to a deadlock: on one side, we have the former colonies of the UK and the USA, which, through the passages of years and generations, not only entitled English as their official language but went through a ‘nativization’(Schneider 2003) process, which is part of the five stages of grammaticalization of a new variety of a language. In this specific step, people start making local input in the language, which is what later on will transform one variety into a distinct one, as further described by Schneider (2003).

On the other side, we have the ELT and academic communities in the UK and the USA denying the legitimacy of any other variety of the language but their own, and, therefore, denying the consequence of their historical actions by disseminating the idea that their versions of the language are the official ones and any other variety is nothing but ‘broken’

English, as described by Phillipson (1992), Pennycook (1998), Widdowson (1994), and Jenkins (2007).

In this part of the study, we could observe how English went through being an tiny language to being the official language of different countries in all the continents of the world. We went through the motivations behind the language propagation, how ELT was used as a tool of this expansion and the consequences of it. Among the consequences were the emergence of new varieties of the language and the rise of a protective feeling from certain intellectual

communities in the USA and the UK towards their linguistic variety.

2.2 The ideologies behind the language: who owned it then?

The dominant position English has today is not only a result of the colonization and cultural expansion executed by England and the USA over the centuries but the junction of them with a planned and extensively funded program of language propagation. In this propagation, an idealized, unrealistic image of English as a superior language, along with ELT as great allied, was spread, as analysed by Phillipson (1992). An example of ELT being used as a political act is the speech of the Minister from Sri Lanka in which it is said that with less money than used in the movie Star Wars ” the Americans can get the whole of Asia listening to their president.

English teaching is a bigger weapon in the armory of the English-speaking peoples than Star Wars” (Phillipson, 1992: 9).

With the speech from the Minister as an example, we can realize that there was a clear ideological and political agenda behind the propagation of English around the world, which happened because a language is a very important cultural trait that works as a representation of a culture and may carry powerful discourses and ideologies within it. Through language,

you communicate and share the beliefs, culture, concepts of right or wrong, and views over the world of a society.

An important tool in the spread of the English language was the ELT business with English courses, materials and, later on, proficiency exams. With the language propagation in African and Asian countries and the constant discursive propagation of English being a superior language and necessary for professional and educational success (Pennycook 1998), the interest in learning the language in those regions (and later on, in the whole world) became enormous. Because of this increasing interested in the language, ELT transformed into a very profitable business in addition to being a great tool to spread influence in those regions.

Part of the process of glorifying English as a superior language and culture was the attempt to belittle local languages and their cultural products, which could work as a way to reinforce the positive attributes of English and the cultures associated with it. As brought by Holloway (1951), it was a common discourse that the English literature was a “product of great

civilization” (1951: 45) and that should be presented in Asian and African countries once they did not have a literature of their own.

The phenomenon of teaching English as a political tool was not linked with one isolated event, but with many occurrences, as we can observe the same strategy used in Africa and Asia being used in Eastern Europe (Phillipson 1992). The British government, when greeting the end of communism, had its foreign secretary proclaiming that the UK aimed to replace Russian, which was taught as an official second language in that region, with English. This happening explicitly shows how spreading a language equals spreading political and cultural influence as well as dominance, and how teaching it may carry a political agenda. An example

of this fact was the content of the Seebohm committee report in which it was said that the kind of activity expected from the British council was to help “creating abroad an

understanding and appreciation of Britain', just as English teaching is not only profitable but 'an excellent way of establishing the Council' presence overseas” (Phillipson, 1992: 304) as well as using English as a tool to “transmit cultural values” (1992: 305).

A way to popularize English and make people want to learn it and associate the language with prestige and higher social status was to create and spread a close link between professional and academic success to having high proficiency in the language (Pennycook 1998). This discourse was so intensely propagated that it went from personal beliefs to a common-sense attitude, which was a massive internalization of the hegemonic ideology that being

professionally and academically successful was only possible for those who knew the language.

Pennycook (1998) also illustrates that these perceptions were not only attributed to the English language, but also to the literature, people, and culture associated to it, which, then, justified the need of them to be glorified, pursued, and held in the higher standard, with the justification that “´as the mind grows, language grows, and adapts itself to the thinking of the people. Hence, a highly civilized race will ever have a highly accomplished language. The English tongue is in all senses a very noble one´ (George 1867, p. 4)” (Pennycook 1998: 5).

Therefore, as English is a very ´noble language´, so is all the community of native speakers associated with it, hence the necessity of it to be disseminated.

It is important to notice that by ‘English’, as mentioned in the excerpt, it is implied the British variety of the language, which was considered the only authentic variety. This feeling of ownership of the language brings us to the English standard ideology (Jenkins

2007), which started when the new Englishes emerged and the control and ownership of the UK and the USA over the language (Widdowson 1994) started diminishing. English standard ideology is a discursive action to place one variety as the ‘authentic’ and others as

‘deviations’.

Jenkins (2007) demonstrates how the Standard English Ideology has been linked with

gatekeeping practice in SLA (second language acquisition) research, English language testing, ELT (English language teaching) material, and teacher education historically and in the current days. Through analysis of renowned ELT periodicals, she could prove how the anti ELF feeling is strong and influences the use and perception people have of the English language.

Currently, the anti-ELF feeling not only works as a gatekeeper for further research of the varieties emerged from the Outer Circle countries, also known as New Englishes, but also prevents people from studying, writing, teaching and learning any other variety that is not the BrE or AmE. Anything that goes beyond these varieties in terms of grammar rules or accent is considered wrong, unwanted, and as a variant of the standard and correct form of the

language. This ideology was so strong that it was common to see even linguists defending this idea (Jenkins 2007).

In Jenkins (2007), we are presented to the aversive reaction many native-speaker linguists from the USA and the UK had towards the many new varieties of the English language, which they described as something ‘spoiled’, ‘impure’, and ‘dangerous’ to be around the ‘real’

English from the Inner Circle. She also mentions how expected it is that some native-speaker

linguists feel very unease with the loss of control over the language by the USA and the UK, especially the linguists involved with ELT.

This aversion against the many varieties of English seems to have found space among not only grammarians but also sociolinguists, who do not hesitate in making dismissive

statements towards variations of the language, as brought by Jenkins (2007). Among them are Trudgill and Quirk, who stated in a conference in the Japanese Association of Language Teachers (JALT) that “students permitted to think their ‘new variety’ of English was accepted, would be defenseless before the harsher but more realistic judgment of those with authority to employ or promote them.” (Jenkins 2007: 9) meaning that the Japanese teachers should not ´permit´ their Japanese students to make their own interferences in the English language and should remind them of the ‘real’ standard English.

When we say one’s variety of a language is ‘not existent’ or ‘illegitimate’, we are implying the same values to the culture and identity associated with that language because, as we have seen, language is intrinsically connected and mingled with those. If we believe in respecting human diversity, we should do the same with the cultural product of it, which is language, and nothing that goes against it should be legitimated, but in fact, deconstructed.

In this section, we could observe that the consequence of the language expansion of English was the rise of new varieties of the language, which received a huge backlash from many linguists from the Inner Circle. Fearing the loss of the control over the language, there was the spread of an idea that only one version of English was the correct one, which was the one from the Inner Circle and any other variety should be considered as wrong and deviant.

Having control over the language was important because the language was used as a way to spread political and cultural influence around the world. An effective way to spread the language, therefore influence as well, was to make people want to learn it and, for that, a discursive work was done in associating being fluent in English with success. Part of this discursive work was to make local languages look inferior when compared to English, which was presented in an idealized manner. An important tool in this entire process was ELT with its educational books, courses, and teacher formation programs.

2.3 The ideologies behind the language: who owns it now?

It is undeniable that the discourses disseminated in origins of the spread of English and ELT had negative impacts in their colonized regions as we have seen described by Phillipson (1992), Widdowson (1994), Pennycook (1998), Fairclough (2001) and Jenkins (2007) in the previous discussion in this study, but it cannot go unnoticed the changes and positive

outcomes this expansion provided.

Graddol (1997, 2012) reported how much progress was achieved through English in

international communities, as the language made possible the internationalization of education in many Asian and African countries, as well as a more democratic, cheaper and inclusive online education.

Moreover, the idea of English as a property of the Inner Circle nations (Kachru 1985) and as a tool of dominance is no longer true, as observed and reported by Graddol (2012). Currently, it is possible to observe a more empowered, independent, and autonomous use of the language by NNSs when utilizing English as a lingua franca in various context, with no constraints over

local accents or borrowings from other languages, although there is still some discomfort when there is an NS in the interaction, as observed by Graddol (2012).

In addition to the empowerment of the international community in its use of English, Graddol (2012) observed an increasing appreciation for multiculturalism in companies and schools, in which multilingual professionals are put in an advantageous position when compared to monolingual ones, even when this monolingual professional is an English NS.

The perception of people over the importance of English has also been shifting. The Inner Circle (Kachru 1985) is no longer composed of people born in certain countries, but of highly proficient users of the language. In addition, other languages have arisen into a position of high influence and prestige, like Mandarin in Asia and other parts of the world. Furthermore, the prestige of the UK and the USA has been decreasing over the years in different

international contexts and its cultural influence has also lost its power, as observed by Graddol (2012).

In teaching, multiculturalism is more and more valued and sought and teachers are encouraged to bring diversity in their classrooms and make their students proud of their origins, bringing their own cultural imprint in the learning process of a new language, although teachers in multicultural environments still find challenges with traditional ELT materials which still bring to this day a biased and idealized representation of Western ideals (Graddol 2012).

However, although many ELT materials still bring a biased and idealized representation of the Inner Circle countries, we can also notice a change in this aspect of ELT, with materials that

bring a different approach over the language, shifting the focus from the USA and the UK to a more global and multicultural perspective “If we take the fourth edition of New Headway Intermediate (…) reading topics include a non-Anglophone perspective (…) which introduces a family from Kenya and China, and Unit 6, which compares the kitchens of women from Italy, the US and India.” (Empashis added) (Leung & Lewkowicz 2017: 63).

Therefore, we may conclude that, although English and ELT have been used in the past as a tool of dominance and influence, this attitude has been changing over the years. We can no longer portray English as an ‘imperialistic force’ as it was described in the past, but as a language of connection and international unity. However, although English and ELT have performed a different role in the past years, we still have some challenges to overcome as to make ELT entirely free of its colonialist remnants, as further explored in (2.4).

2.4 The world of English Language Teaching

English language teaching or, as it is commonly addressed, ELT, has historically had a

dubious origin. It was officialized as an attempt to bring English to other nations as a political agenda, which is demonstrated by Phillipson (1992):

A huge demand has been created for English and teachers of the language. As the director of a dynamic worldwide chain of English language schools puts it: ‘Once we used to send gunboats and diplomats abroad; now we are sending English teachers’. (International House brochure, 1979). ‘Africa is hungry for the English language… Support to the English language is and must remain an integral part of Britain’s technical assistance to Anglophone Africa* (The Director- General of the British Council, quoted in Clarke 1988:25) ‘The worldwide demand for high- quality English teaching is expanding fast.’ (British Council Annual Report, 1989/90:13)

(Phillipson 1992: 9)

As exposed by Phillipson (1992), the British Council was and still is an important institution when it comes to taking the English language and British culture overseas and played an

important role in the dissemination of the language over the years. Unlike what we may expect, they did not have any educational or pedagogical intentions at the beginning of the ELT regulation. The ELT started as an improvised attempt to spread the English language as a context to influence countries that sought for educational aid.

As the UK had commercial and strategic interests with the spread of English under an

educational pretext with ELT, the professionals sent to work in Africa and Asia were not well trained, or aware of their educational responsibilities and pedagogical tools necessary to teach a second language, neither were the materials adequate for the task. The ‘aid’ Britain often sold as educational help through ELT was often referred as ‘cultural diplomacy’ in many documents revealing its political agenda (Phillipson 1992).

After this great propagation of the language in African and Asian contexts, the spread of English became of great importance in those local societies, as knowing the language became something of "prestige", belonging to the upper class and educated people, therefore, highly sought. Besides it, the media, newspapers, books, official services, university, and academia were produced in English, which made people have no other choice but to wish to learn English and see the language as a necessary mean for thriving in that society.

ELT, which was in complete control of England and the USA then, became a business of selling English. It was profitable to sell books, courses, and standardized language proficiency exams, and the image of authority over English in the hands of the Inner Circle nations was vital for the maintenance of the business.

As previously discussed, much has evolved since the origins of ELT and we are no longer situated in the picture Phillipson (1992) and Pennycook (1998) brought us about the ELT world. However, we still have to this day some remnants from the period they describe, regarding lack of multicultural representation and the idealization of the Inner Circle nations, as we still have ELT course books with “restricted range of representations and the native speaker focus. Furthermore, data from teachers in his study reveals frustration at the lack of representation of English as an international language or lingua franca and the absence of locally relevant issues.” (Baker, 2015: 180).

In addition, when we have multiculturalism happening in ELT materials, they are often done in a “superficial level” (Baker, 2015: 76) and quite often receive an “uncritical focus” (Baker, 2015: 76). In terms of the function English performs in these teaching books, we may observe

“lack of awareness or willingness to engage with the implications of English used as a global lingua franca as opposed to a native language” (Baker, 2015: 77). This absence of portraying English as a lingua franca from the traditional ELT materials is also often represented by the insistent attempt to still associate the English language solely with American or British cultural aspects, which, in an international context may be read as irrelevant and

decontextualized, as discussed in Davis (2009). Some points that might be discussed in terms of relevance for international students are, for instance, ” British politeness conventions, and culturally-laded discourse samples such as British railway timetables and American

newspaper advertisements” (2009: 85) once the main function of English in the current days is as a tool for international communication between speakers of various languages.

These issues of lack of multicultural representation, biased perceptions over certain nations and lack of linguistic diversity in ELT textbooks make it very challenging for teachers to provide a different, inclusive, and diverse educational practice when it comes to teaching

English. In addition to it, we also have the English proficiency exams as another hurdle to innovative teaching practices once these exams, which focus on British and American varieties of the language, many times define what students want to learn and what language courses decide to teach (Baker 2015: 178).

Analyzing more in detail the English proficiency exams, such as TOEIC, TOELF, IELTS, FCE, CAE, and CPE, among others, we encounter, once again, a specific variety of English being shown as the correct and authentic one (Jenkins 2007). These exams perform an important role in the Standard English Ideology, once they are responsible for guiding the content language courses opt to teach as well as what the students all over the world will seek to learn.

These examinations play an important international role because they are used for university entrance qualification and immigration process. Thus, by having control over ELT business, meaning controlling these examinations and the material used for English teaching, the Inner Circle nations have great control over what content is being distributed and associated with the English language, as well as the image people will have over their culture and language variety. The ownership of the language is maintained through ELT.

Canagarajah (2003) also describes how imposing ELT was in the Asian context, and in the periphery countries in general. He shows how restricted it was for them the possibility of having an autonomous educational practice, due to the combination of English language textbooks carrying a heavy ideological agenda in its content, along with the lack of resources of the local teachers to print, make, or photocopy their own material, as a result of limited funding. Canagarajah (ibid.) also exposes how the textbooks not only provided one specific

variety of the language as the only authentic one but also idealized some cultures, through unreal representations of the Inner Circle nations. This was achieved through images and symbols, demonstrating a ‘dream life’ in the West, which should be copied and pursued by the students as a way to obtain success and happiness.

As an act of resistance, Canagarajah (2003) argues that, under such a dominant agenda, the teacher should remember the “oppressive history and hegemonic values associated with English” (2003: 2), and assume a critical perspective in the classroom, not endorsing what is being imposed in the books, but transforming teaching English in a tool of empowerment for their students. Instead of falling into the pattern of the dominated learning what the dominant wants, the teacher should aim at transforming this process into the dominated learning the parts they want of what the dominant has to offer. In this process, the dominated should attempt to add their own cultural and historical perspectives into the learning process, and transform learning English into a tool of empowerment instead of dominance. Therefore, taking ownership of the process.

Still on the topic of acts of educational resistance, in Kumaravadivelu (2008: 171 – 176), it is presented the Post method approach in teaching English, which is a critical angle in terms of teaching the language consisted of three parameters.

The first one is of ‘Particularity’ (Kumaravadivelu, 2008: 171) in which the educators are requested to “think locally” (Kumaravadivelu, 2008: 171). This means the local teacher needs to think locally in terms of culture, language, and educational policies. As a motivation for this item, he brings examples of teachers reporting how using European or American methods

in their African or Asian contexts did not have a positive outcome, once in many occasions it brought an enormous discomfort in the pupils and ineffectiveness in terms of teaching.

This discomfort and ineffectiveness was due to the fact that using books representing the Western way of life and asking the students to discuss and learn about it was not motivating or meaningful for them because it was a reality they did not know or could relate to. The classroom practices from the West also illustrated a reality those teacher did not share.

Usually, in the West and in their methods, they considered small classroom, with many resources, which usually was not the reality of those Asian and African teachers, therefore the need to adapt their learning goals and methods to their own reality, as trying to replicate the Western ones was often frustrating and ineffective.

The second parameter is called ‘Practice’ (Kumaravadivelu, 2008: 173) which asks the teacher to mingle established theories with their own “context-sensitive” (Kumaravadivelu, 2008: 173) input. The teacher is expected to theorize their practice and blend that with traditional theories. It is the balance between theory and practice. Hence, instead of devotionally following pre-existing methods, the teacher should adapt them into their

classroom, blend different methods, and observe the needs of their pupils, school, and society in terms of language and education and work from that, by testing different practices,

methodologies, and classroom management strategies.

The teacher should also systematize their practice through observation and annotation of what works in their context and with their pupils and what does not, to have a personal guide composed by a blend of different methods, and what serves that specific teacher and students in each of them, along with personal practices and inputs. This way, we may have optimized teaching practice.

The third parameter is named ‘Possibility’ (Kumaravadivelu, 2008: 176) which is heavily influenced by Paulo Freire and demonstrates how education may be used to maintain the status quo of a society in terms of inequalities, and how our duty under these conditions is to create new educational, and pedagogical practices to fight against them. Once again the individuality of the teachers and students should be taken into account, once what happens inside the classroom goes beyond the walls of the school, it is a mirror of the society, its economy, and politics.

Furthermore, Kumaravadivelu (ibid.) discusses how important and fundamental language classes, especially the ones dealing with an L2, are important, once they not only present another culture to the pupils but also contrast and compare their own culture with the new one presented. Therefore, if there are textbooks or pedagogical policies that reinforce the idea of inequality among nations and cultures, in which one is portrait in a better and superior light than the other, then that is what we will be teaching the students about themselves and the world.

However, despite the difficulties of providing a different attitude in educational contexts when it comes to teaching and representing diversity in English language, more and more frequently we are able to observe a shift in attitude in the ELT world, which has been acting less like a profitable business and more like an educational instrument (Tribble 2012). As an example of this fact, in Leung & Lewkowicz (2013), we encounter an illustration on how ELT materials are being more inclusive and diverse in their contents and trying to present English

performing the role of a lingua franca instead of associating it with certain nations

exclusively. The book discussed in Leung & Lewkowicz (ibid.) brings audios and videos with different accents and from different nationalities, making broader the idea of native speaker,

as well as introducing English with the function of a lingua franca, with exercises with dialogues “between an Argentinean and an Irish person and then a Canadian talking with a Turkish person, though the language-oriented tasks all focus on native-speaker English.”

(Leung & Lewkowicz, 2013: 65).

Language teaching is a complex topic to be dealt with, once we are handling with two intimate aspects of one’s identity: mother or foreign language and culture, therefore it

demands great responsibility from the teacher and all the educational instruments involved in the pedagogical process, such as textbooks, about the way these topics will be presented and portrayed.

In conclusion, the students’ social and cultural identity must be taken into consideration in the educational context, especially when dealing with language and culture, once those are two intimate topics, as discussed previously. Language classes can be used for perpetuating the status quo of inequality in a society, by reinforcing and spreading discourses of dominance, or it can be used as a tool to encourage the students to make their own imprint into the new language and adapt its purpose into their own realities.

ELT, although having a dubious origin, has been lately used to spread diversity and

multiculturalism regarding the English language and the cultures associated to it. We are able to observe more diversity, inclusion and multiculturalism in some recent textbooks, although there are still some remnants from the period in which ELT was use to spread political influence, especially in the language proficiency exams and some more traditional class materials.

3. The many Englishes and the concept of norm and deviation

When we talk about diversity and multiculturalism in English, we cannot help but to talk about new Englishes and the important role they play in international communication as well as the impact they have in English as a lingua franca.

In the classification designed by Kachru (1985), the Three Circle Model, we come across the classification of the different users of the English language, which are consisted of: the Inner Circle, countries such as The United States, England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which are nations seen as ‘real native speakers’, the ones that hold the ‘standard’ and

‘official’ variety of English. They are the ones to set the norms, therefore named norm- providing.

The second group in the model is the Outer Circle, which is consisted of former colonies of both, England and the USA, which have English mostly as a second language. These nations are entitled as norm-developing; they are India, Singapore, South Africa, Philippines, among others.

Lastly, we have the Expanding Circle, which is composed of nations that were never colonies of the Inner Circle countries. They learn English as a foreign language, thus English is not used in the official services of the country. They are classified as norm-dependent, as we may observe illustrated in Figure 1:

Figure 3. Adaptation of the Three circle model of Kachru (1985)

In this representation, which is widely used when discussing World Englishes, Kachru (1985) illustrates who is seen to ‘own’ the language, who sets the rules, and, therefore, the ones seen as the ‘proper’ and ‘central’ users of the language, while the others, the ones in the Outer Circle go to a peripheral position as users of the language.

As we place our sight into the globalized era of the 21st century, some relevant questions we may have are: how are the nations in the Outer Circle seen globally and how much power do they have over English? How much does the ownership feeling that the United Kingdom and the United States have over English influence the perception of the world over the varieties that emerged from the Outer Circle nations?

As previously presented, culture shapes language. It has the power to change vocabulary, accent, spelling, and grammar. It is a natural process that occurs internationally. Different countries may have different varieties of the same language and inside the same country we

Inner Circle (Norm

providers) UK, USA, Canada, Australia and NewZealand

Outer Circle (Norm – developing) Former colonies i.e India, Singapore, Fiji, etc. – New Englishes

Expanding Circle – (Norm –dependent) Nations where English does not perform any official function

may encounter different dialects of the same language. But, when it comes to ELT materials and methodologies nowadays, how much do we include the different varieties of English?

It is common to have editions of textbooks showing the lexical distinctions between AmE and BrE; for example, in AmE, we have ‘color’, ‘neighbor’, ‘toilet’, while in BrE, we encounter

‘colour’, ‘neighbour’ and ‘loo’. It is also not rare to observe references on the media about the common discourse marker ‘eh’ in Canadian variety, or the typical ‘mate’ from the Australian.

But why do not we hear much about the invariant question tag ‘isn’t it?’ used at the end of most sentences from spoken Asian English, as analyzed by (Parviainen 2016) as in “‘He is already scale three isn’t it?’; ‘It is not on cats isn’t it?’; ‘You have kids isn’t it?’; ‘I think the properties are very important isn’t it?’; ‘It’d be about a half-hour journey isn’t it?’”

(Parviainen, 2016: 102)? or the ‘3rd person zero’ (Dewey 2012), as in ‘she run’ instead of

‘she runs’ or ‘he eat’ instead of ‘he eats’, present in many Asian varieties, as further observed in (Jenkins 2003)? Not only do not we hear or learn about these varieties but we also actually would be naturally made to believe that those are ‘mistakes’ or ‘deviations’, therefore

‘unwanted’ features of the language.

So, what differentiates a ‘variant’ from a ‘deviation’? As we observed, there is no consistency when it comes to the legitimation from the Western societies over the varieties of English, once certain linguistic phenomena are seen as variations, while others are seen as deviations, depending on where the linguistic innovation comes from. Most times, what differentiates

‘errors’ from ‘variations’ is a matter of who we are talking about and their economic, historical, and power influence and not so much a matter of linguistic and sociolinguistic features per se, as explored further in Jenkins (2003).

At times, the common sense may answer this phenomenon by saying that the Outer Circle countries do not have their varieties validated as much as the ones from the Inner Circle, once they were not historically ‘original’ speakers of the language or because they are not

monolingual nations, or even maybe because of the way they use the language is different from the ‘original’ form of it.

If we take a closer look to these arguments, we see that they are flawed and biased. For the historical argument, although England can be seen as the ‘original owner’ of English for a historical reason, there is an inconsistency when it comes to this argument, once Australia and New Zealand have had the colonization process during approximately the same period as India, but the first two are placed in the Inner Circle, while the latter is placed in the Outer Circle.

Besides it, the aforementioned countries which share the Inner Circle with England have gone through the process of changing the language as much as the Outer Circle countries have, according to Schneider (2003), and Platt, Weber & Ho (1984). Both have made changes into the English that was first introduced with the arrival of the English people. They transformed that English into a new variety, adapting that language into their cultural context and

modifying its phonology, prosody, lexicon, and syntax. The only difference is that the changes done by the Inner Circle nations are accepted and seen as a ‘different norms’, while the differences made by the Outer Circle nations are seen as a ‘deviation’.

Lastly, the Inner Circle countries also had, and still have, a multilingual background, for instance, Canada with French, the USA with Spanish, both with various indigenous dialects

throughout the territory. Moreover, we have New Zealand with Maori language, Wales and Scotland with Welsh and Scots, respectively, to mention a few.

Therefore, what makes the former colonies in the Inner Circle ‘owners’ of the language, and

‘norm-providing’, while the same does not happen to many of the countries in the Outer Circle, even though the historical and linguistic conditions of them are so similar? It is very much likely that what divides the nations into ‘Inner Circle’, therefore ‘proper’, ‘official’, and

‘owners’ of the language and ‘Other Circle’, therefore, ‘broken English’ speakers is a matter of economic, power, and imperialism motivation, rather than linguistic, as it is explored in Jenkins (2007).

We may conclude that there is a clear distinction between people’s perceptions, and

acceptance over the varieties that emerged from the Inner Circle and the ones that emerged from the Outer Circle, even with the linguistic and historical conditions being quite similar among some of the nations. The possible conclusion for this phenomenon is that the legitimation of a language variety may have much more to do with economic and political power and influence than with linguistic motivation.

3.2 An overview on the varieties of various Englishes

As a recurrent topic in this study is world Englishes, in this section of the study the aim is to illustrate the specificities of some Englishes and the process of development of a new variety of English.

When it comes to the process a language goes through until it becomes a new variety,

Schneider (2003) has an influential representation of the phenomenon, known as the Dynamic

model, which describes the five processes that a language goes through to become a new variety. It is a process that all new Englishes have gone through.

The context we should have in mind is a land, which already has its native language, being occupied by either England (mostly) or the United States, with different purposes, which could be a settlement colony, plantation colony (which you would normally have creoles being formed), trade colony (where the formation of pidgins are common), and, lastly, an exploitation colony.

In each one of these colonies, there is contact between English and the local language.

However, each place, depending on the purpose of it as a colony, would reach a different phase of development of a new variety on English (Schneider 2003), which can be summarized as:

Phase 1: Foundation – English is introduced in a new place, leveling of the language happens (all dialects in contact mingle and settle as a uniform variety), emerging of bilingualism and lexicon borrowing. Pidgins are developed in this phase. (Schneider 2003).

Phrase 2: Exonormative Stabilization – English still follows strictly the normative rules of its origin country, bilingualism becomes broader, a positive attitude towards English emerges (Schneider 2003).

Phrase 3: Structural Nativization – Phonological and syntactical changes in the vernacular form of the language emerges, wide code-switching, code alternation, intense linguistic negotiation among the speakers of different languages, dual cultural identification (Schneider 2003).

Phrase 4: Endonormative Stabilization – Adoption and acceptance of indigenous linguistic norms, identity revision (detachment from the so-called ‘mother country’, which was often England), new national identity consolidation, codification (dictionaries, grammars) emerge (Schneider 2003).

Phrase 5: Differentiation – New varieties, such as regional or ethnic, emerge within the New variety of English (Schneider 2003).

After this process, a new variety of the language emerges with all its individualities, which will be described briefly in this section. However, the purpose of this part of the study is not to analyze the varieties and its individualities in detail but to bring simple and clear examples of what some of them are like, therefore, they are to be described in a general summarized manner.

The main features observed are considered to be standard in their local varieties, therefore there is a ruling system behind each of them. Thus, although they are not following the standard grammatical rules from the Inner Circle varieties, their norms are not ‘deviations’, but different varieties of the same language.

The following features are from Nigeria, Philippines, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, and Singapore.

Some of them are according to Jenkins (2003):

- The modal verb ‘would’ replacing ‘will’

(1) “We accept the verdict of the Kelantan people and we hope they would accept the verdict of the rest of the country” (Jenkins 2003: 109)

- The exchange between countable and uncountable nouns

(2) “Thank you for upkeeping the equipaments and facilities provided on this train”. (Jenkins 2003: 109)

- Prepositional collocations

(3) ‘West said they used a digital equipment that was capable of transmitting both video and still images”. (Jenkins 2003: 109)

About one of the most popular new varieties of English, the Singaporean English, we may encounter (Jenkins 2003):

In terms of pronunciation: “Replacement of final consonants such as [t], [d], [k], [g], [p], [b]

and [l] by a glottal stop, as in “Wan[?] or no[?]” (where [?] represents a glottal stop).” Jenkins (2003: 112) (emphasis added), the shortening vowels before stops, as well as the tendency to lengthen final vowels (Jenkins 2003).

In grammar, we find the generalized use of the question tag ‘isn’t it’ for all instances, for example, ‘you weren’t there, isn’t it?’ instead of ‘were you’ (Parviainen 2016). Moreover, we observe the ‘right or not’ form of question typical in the Chinese variety (Jenkins 2003), words such as ‘only’, and ‘also’ and ‘already’ brought to the end of the sentence (Jenkins 2003), changes in the countability of nouns, in which you see many uncountable nouns presented in the plural form, such as ‘equipaments’ ‘advices’, ‘furnitures’ (Jenkins 2003).

On a quick look on African Englishes, we encounter in Ghanaian English the following variants:

- Substitution, insertion or omission of the particle in phrasal verbs (Anderson, 2004: 26)

- “Tendency to substitute the past perfect for the present perfect and to use the present perfect with reference to a completed action” (Huber and Dako, 2004: 855)

- “Would commonly expresses definite future” (Huber and Dako, 2004: 856).

Taking a closer look into Jamaican English, we may observe:

- The use of ‘persons’ instead of ‘people’ in all instances (Mair, 2002: 43):

(1) “No, no but they’re not around but what you find is that the persons who are teaching JAMALs [Jamaican Movement for the Advancement of Literacy teaching modules] are person like me who no know nutten but are scared of word” (Mair, 2002:

43)

- ‘Several examples which could be regarded as phonetically conditioned deletion of do or are’ (Mair, 2002: 43):

(2) “What you think about that? (ICE-JA S1A-89)” (Mair, 2002: 48)

(3) “How we going to do it? (ICE-JA S1A-96)” (Mair, 2002: 48)

It is important to bear in mind that there are many more varieties of New Englishes, either in Asian, or in African nations, and the examples brought in this chapter are a limited illustration of what they represent.

3.3 What differentiates a deviation from a norm?

As discussed, quite often the new Englishes were described as being ‘broken’ or ‘wrong’

Englishes, which would be one of the justifications for its lack of representation in research and teaching. However, as exposed by Jenkins (2007), there is a clear distinction between

‘deviation’ and ‘variation’, to which she provides distinctive items to be observed. Jenkins exposes three different sets of rules created by 3 different authors aiming to clarify how to differ a new variety from errors.

The first set of rules belongs to Llamzon (1983) (Jenkins, 2007: 14):

- Ecological features – ‘code-switching and borrowing from other languages’ (Jenkins 2007:

14)

- Historical features – ‘recency of both the new varieties’ development from the dominant variety and of descriptions of them.’ (Jenkins, 2007: 14)

- Sociolinguistic features - use of the new variety in private domains, such as family or friends groups.

- Cultural features - local literature using this new variety.

The second description of what defines a new variety of the language belongs to Butler (1997:106), who claims a new variety of the language is happening when it is possible to notice pronunciation or lexicon patterns passing from one generation to another. It should also be taken into account the cultural and historical input the specific culture has done into the language, which would mean that that community really internalizes that language and owns it.

The third and last one mentioned is Bamukose (1998:3-5), who brings four features to be observed when spotting a new variety and differentiating an ‘idiosyncrasy’ from a new norm being established:

- Demographic, meaning how many people speak that variety and who are those people.

- Geographical, meaning in what places it can be found.

- Codification, in the sense that where does this variety appear in terms of dictionaries, grammars, international tests, literature, among others.

- Acceptability, which stands for how well accepted and received this new variety is.

As we analyze all the features necessary to separate a set of errors or idiosyncrasies from a new variety of a language, we may notice that many of the new Englishes emerged from African and Asian nations seem to check most of the requirements. Therefore, as discussed, these new varieties of English are not ‘random mistakes’ or deviations from the American or British version of the language, they are a new variety of their own.

They have their own grammatical, and phonological systems, new lexicon, new accent, which is shared within the society and transmitted through generations, which demonstrates that they cannot be considered as simply errors, but new varieties of the language, which should be legitimate as much as the ones in the Inner Circle. The only thing that they are lacking, in comparison to the Inner Circle varieties is the international recognition and approval, which is what prevents them from being seen as authentic new varieties of English and not just random variations.

4. Previous studies

Keeping in mind the importance of English in a globalized world like ours and the important role teaching has on the identity and behavior learners have over the language, it comes as no surprise that much research has been conducted on English teaching and teaching materials.

As an example of previous studies with similar goals of this research, we may find the content analysis and critical discourse analysis performed by Lima (2017), which aimed at analyzing the discourses behind the representation of English learners in textbooks created by a

language institute in Brazil. The study aimed to identify which speaker identity the book was portraying and what were the implications for the learner.

Another similar study is the analysis done by Fernandes (2018), which aimed at a critical discourse and content analysis of the representations of culture in EFL (English as a foreign language) and PFL (Portuguese as a foreign language) course books, as to see what

similarities and differences between the two cultural representations of Brazilian and American cultures and nationalities were displayed and the entailments of them in the teaching and learning process of English. On the English as a lingua franca matter, Majanen (2008) wrote about teaching English as a lingua franca and the discourses behind it when it comes to accent and speaker identity in the Finnish context through an interview study, also employing a discourse analysis methodology.

The methodology used in this study will be similar to the ones used in the aforementioned studies: content analysis, with scanning parts of the target books illustrating the content to be discussed and analyzed, followed by a critical discursive analysis of the material selected and qualitative method for the conclusion.