Tài liệu Gender representation through conversations in english textbooks 10, 11, 12

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN ANH GENDER REPRESENTATION THROUGH CONVERSATIONS IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS 10, 11, 12 (Biểu hiện về giới thông qua các đoạn hội thoại trong sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh 10, 11, 12) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 HÀ NỘI – 2021 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN ANH GENDER REPRESENTATION THROUGH CONVERSATIONS IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS 10, 11, 12 (Biểu hiện về giới thông qua các đoạn hội thoại trong sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh 10, 11, 12) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 Supervisor: Dr. Lưu Thị Kim Nhung HÀ NỘI – 2021 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby declare and confirm with my signature that the Master‟s thesis entitled “Gender representation through conversations in English textbooks 10, 11, 12” is my own original work for the degree of Master of English Linguistics under the guidance and supervision of Dr. Lưu Thị Kim Nhung. I have not used any sources other than those listed in the bibliography and identified as references. I further declare that no part of the paper has been submitted in any other institutions for other degree or professional qualification. Finally, I agree that my original paper should be kept and consulted in the library for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with conditions established by the library for the care, loan, or reproduction of the paper. Hanoi, October 12th, 2020 Signature Nguyễn Thị Vân Anh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my patient and dedicated supervisor, Doctor Luu Thi Kim Nhung, who convincingly guided and encouraged me to be professional and do the right thing even the road got tough. Her insightful feedback did push me to sharpen my thinking. Without her invaluable support, the thesis might not have been completed. Special appreciations are given to Professors, Associate Professors, and Doctors in Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of International and Languages Studies, who have delivered valuable lectures with useful knowledge of English Linguistics. Their support and guidance during my studies are extremely valuable. Last but not least, I would like to send my deepest gratitude to my friends and the members of my family, especially my dad and my husband, for their patience and sympathy. Their encouragement when the times got rough is much appreciated. It was a great comfort and relief to know that they are always there for me, believe in me and support me whenever I need. My heartfelt thanks to all of you. ii ABSTRACT The present study explores gender representation through conversations in English as Foreign language (EFL) textbooks used in Vietnamese high schools with an emphasis on the visibility and the speech acts performed by male and female speakers. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the study. Specifically, AntConc software was applied to investigate the frequency of turns, utterances, and speech acts produced by speakers in conversations. John Searle‟s taxonomy (1975) was used in order to analyze the speech acts produced by the speakers. The results revealed that males were more visible than females considering both single-gender and mixed-gender conversations while as regards mixed-gender conversations in particular, the number of turns of two genders are nearly equal, and slightly more utterances were even uttered by female speakers than male speakers. In terms of speech acts produced by two genders, male speakers seem to be more knowledgeable and more powerful than females as making more assertions, commands, and advice while females were represented to be more dependent and more emotional than males when asking more questions for information and using stronger exclamative adjectives. Key words: gender representation, EFL textbooks, conversations, visibility, speech acts iii LISTS OF TABLES Table 3.1 Number of conversations conducted by male and female speakers in English textbooks 10, 11, 12 ………………………………………………….........8 Table 4.1 Number of utterances uttered by male and female speakers in the singlegender and mixed-gender conversations in English textbooks 10, 11, 12 ..............275 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 Number of turns taken by male and female speakers in single-gender conversations .............................................................................................................26 Figure 4.2 Number of turns taken by male and female speakers in mixed-gender conversations .............................................................................................................26 Figure 4.3 Types of speech acts performed by male and female speakers in three levels of English textbooks .......................................................................................33 Figure 4.4 Assertive speech acts produced by male and female speakers in the mixed-gender conversations of English textbooks 10, 11, 12. .................................36 Figure 4.5 Directive speech acts produced by male and female speakers in the mixed-gender conversations of English textbooks 10, 11, 12. .................................36 Figure 4.6 Commisive speech acts produced by male and female speakers in the mixed-gender conversations of English textbooks 10, 11, 12. .................................37 Figure 4.7 Expressive speech acts produced by male and female speakers in the mixed-gender conversations of English textbooks 10, 11, 12. .................................37 v LIST OF PICTURES Picture 3.1 Frequency of the characters‟ name in English textbooks 10, 11, 12 ......20 Picture 3.2 Total number of turns taken by male and female characters in single-gender conversations and in mixed-gender conversations then were calculated manually. ................................................................................................19 Picture 3.3 Illocutionary verbs used were noted down and then added next to the symbol SPM/SPF in the Search Term so that the occurrence of the speech acts would be calculated. ..................................................................................................22 Picture 3.4 Searching for the speech acts performed by male/female characters. ....22 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP .................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii LISTS OF TABLES ................................................................................................ iv LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................v LIST OF PICTURES .............................................................................................. vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................1 1.1. Rationale to the study ...........................................................................................1 1.2. Purpose of the study .............................................................................................3 1.3. Research questions ...............................................................................................3 1.4. Significance of the study ......................................................................................4 1.5. Scope of the study ................................................................................................5 1.6. Structure of the study ...........................................................................................5 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................6 2.1. Discourse ..............................................................................................................6 2.2. Discourse analysis ...............................................................................................7 2.3. Discourse and gender ...........................................................................................8 2.3.1 Turns and Utterances........................................................................................10 2.3.2. Speech acts ......................................................................................................10 2.5. Previous research on gender in textbooks ..........................................................12 CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY .........................................................................17 3.1. Corpus ................................................................................................................17 3.2. Analytical framework.........................................................................................19 CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...................................................23 4.1. Number of turns and utterances produced by male and female speakers in single-gender and mixed-gender conversations ........................................................23 4.1.1. Number of turns in single-gender and mixed-gender conversations ..............23 vii 4.1.2. Number of utterances in single-gender and mixed-gender conversations ......27 4.2.3. Discussion .......................................................................................................29 4.2. Speech acts performed by male and female speakers in single-gender and mixed-gender conversations......................................................................................31 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION ...............................................................................42 5.1. Summary of major findings ...............................................................................42 5.1.1. Number of turns taken by male and female speakers in single-gender and mixed-gender conversations......................................................................................42 5.1.2. Number of utterances produced by male and female speakers in single-gender and mixed-gender conversations ...............................................................................42 5.1.4. Speech acts performed by male and female speakers in single-gender and mixed-gender conversations......................................................................................43 5.2. Implications for professional practice ...............................................................44 5.2.1. Pedagogical practice........................................................................................44 5.2.2. Implications for material writers and publishers.............................................45 5.3. Limitations and suggestions for further studies .................................................46 5.4. Concluding remarks ...........................................................................................46 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................49 viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale to the study The reforms in 1986 bridged Vietnam with foreign countries around the world despite the differences in political systems. As a result, not only was the market-oriented economy adopted but the number of English-speaking visitors along with products and advertisements in English coming to Vietnam also increased, which was responsible for the expansion of English. For more than 30 decades, English has become more popular in Vietnam. After the first National Strategy for Foreign Language Teaching and Learning throughout All Levels of Education (MOET, 1994, cited in Do, 1999: 30), Vietnam has been through changes in teaching and learning English in order to meet the need for wider international integration in modern society. English was officially assigned as a separate subject taught for students from grade 6 and since 2002, several schools decided to include English as an optional subject in the curriculum for students at grade 3 (age 8), or even grade 1 while it remains compulsory for students from grade 6 to grade 12. A majority of Vietnamese students have accessed to English language from an early age in recent decades. Woodward (1997) claims that a textbook is a ubiquitous part of most classroom instruction. Teachers and students definitely can use textbooks as a valuable resource in the classroom and also use them to self-study at home with the relatively sufficient knowledge provided. In the EFL context, textbooks even play a more important part in teaching and learning as they are believed to be “the visible heart of ELT program” (Sheldon, 1988, 237). The quality of textbooks, thus, is clearly responsible for students‟ effectively gaining the knowledge. Furthermore, in countries where English is taught as a foreign language and approaching native English speakers or materials in English is not easy, English textbooks used in schools may become the major or even the only source of input with proper language use for students to learn and practice the language both inside and outside of class. 1 ELT textbooks are designed with a variety of texts and genres including different types of discourse in both written and spoken form, which helps learners be exposed to authentic communication and be able to obtain the appropriate uses of language in various contexts. Besides, Jane Sunderland (2002) pointed out that foreign language textbooks are characteristically densely populated with people who are not only in social relationships with each other, but also those who continually interacts verbally with each other. That is to say, language presented in textbooks can be widely used in various conversations of everyday life in reality. Apart from the language, the knowledge of the outside world is also adopted by students through textbooks because this kind of material “represents the everyday for children” (Kereszty, 2009). One of the issues presented in textbooks that has considerable influence on textbooks users is gender. Gender does not only concern the physical difference between having two X chromosomes or having one X and one Y chromosomes but also something people “bring into being through their practices" (Kendall, 2007:126). It is undeniable that biological traits impose the differences in capabilities and dispositions of two genders. For example, the higher level of testosterone is said to be responsible for males‟ aggressiveness while women‟s emotional inclination results from the lack of lateralization in their brains. However, the gender identity cannot be freely determined by their initial biological endowment. Yule (2006) pointed out that each individual learns how to become a boy or a girl and acquires characteristics which are considered masculine or feminine. In other words, gender is culturally and socially constructed. Masculinity and femininity are acquired by individuals not only through the socialization process (Tannen, 1994) but also through the expectations in certain contexts in which what a man or a woman should be like are emphasized (Mills & Mullany, 2011). Every society has its own norms and values, therefore, individuals may already have a view of gender from their society‟s perspective (Cameron, 1992:161). They differ in the way they behave and use language due to the 2 differential treatment they receive from socialization agents in which school plays a crucial part. In short, textbooks and gender have close connection to each other. Textbooks have big influence on learners‟ gender. Therefore, gender representation in the textbooks need to be taken into consideration. 1.2. Purpose of the study The aim of this study is to analyze how genders are represented in the English textbooks 10, 11, 12 published by Vietnam Educational Publishing House (VEPH) in collaboration with one of the world leading publisher, Pearson Education in 2015 by examining the conversations in English textbooks. Textbooks are the major source for teaching and learning in most of schools in Vietnam. Therefore, the provision of language and the messages conveyed in textbooks, in which gender is involved, play important roles in influencing learners‟ language usage or even students‟ behaviors. Identifying the gender representation in textbooks might make valuable contribution to appropriate adaptation while using the textbooks. In this study, researcher wants to investigate the frequencies of turns and utterances produced by male and female speakers so that the visibility of two genders, which, according to Cambridge Dictionary, is the degree to which something is seen or known about in public, is identified. The difference in number of turns and utterances taken by males/females depicts the difference in these two genders‟ visibility while communicating. The visibility of male and female speakers partly implies the opportunities the students have to practice English both inside and outside class. Besides, investigation of speech acts produced by male and female speakers is also very important in analyzing gender representation in textbooks. Some inferences about male and female speakers‟ characteristics can be drawn basing on differences in speech acts performed by these two genders. 1.3. Research questions As mentioned above, the purpose of this study is to detect the gender representation in terms of turns and speech acts employed by male and female 3 characters through the conversations inset of English textbook 10, 11, 12. In order to achieve the aim of the study, the following questions were addressed: 1. How many turns and utterances are produced by male and female characters in conversations in English textbooks 10, 11, 12? Which gender possesses more turns and utterances overall? 2. What speech acts are frequently performed by male and female characters in the conversations in English textbooks 10, 11, 12? What characteristics of male and female speakers may be inferred basing on identified speech acts? 1.4. Significance of the study The present study may contribute to investigation of language and gender and the research of gender representation in textbooks. In addition, the result of the study may help to draw some important implications for teachers, students and even the textbook writers in order to improve English language teaching and learning in Vietnam. A number of studies have been conducted to evaluate the quality of the resources for English language input in Vietnam but studies concerning gender representation in textbooks and stories are inappreciable. With analysis of the turns taken by male and female characters and the illocutionary acts that males and females perform in both single-gender and mixed-gender conversations whereby the distribution of turn-taking and also the characteristics of males and females are represented, the study has made significant contribution to language and gender research field. The awareness of unbalanced representation of male and female speakers if any may prompt the textbook users including teachers, students or even parents to determine the appropriate use of the conversations such as assigning the roles and changing the name of the characters, etc.. Adaptation will make the learners possible to achieve the objectives of the unit and acquire the language items their best. Implications for textbooks writers and publishers are undeniable. The result of the study will show the representation of gender in textbooks regarding the 4 visibility and the speech acts produced by two genders, which helps textbooks writers and publishers reflect themselves in writing and publishing textbooks. Changes in future textbooks may be needed if the gender is asymmetrically represented. 1.5. Scope of the study This study will focus on investigating representation of gender regarding the number of turns and utterances taken as well as the speech acts produced by male and female speakers through conversations in English textbooks 10, 11, 12. The scope to the study is limited to 59 conversations, including 14 single-gender and 45 mixed-gender conversations in three levels of English textbooks used in high schools. The other types of text such as passages, narratives, stories, etc. will be excluded from the study. In terms of turns and utterances taken by male and female speakers, the turns and utterances will be noted manually and then counted by software AntConc. Besides, the speech acts are classified by Searle‟s Taxonomy of Illocutionary acts, then the speech acts are also counted using AntConc software. 1.6. Structure of the study This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 provides the background to the study and introduces the needs for the research, the aims, research questions, scope to the study as well as the organization of the study. Chapter 2 provides a review of basic concepts and relevant knowledge to the study. In addition, previous studies are also listed. In Chapter Three, an overview of the corpus and analytical framework used for the study are presented. Chapter 4 represents the results of the study and the discussions of the findings are also included. The last chapter, Chapter 5 summarizes the major findings, some implications for the professional practices. In this chapter, the limitations of the study and some recommendations for further studies are also presented. 5 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, the researcher will discuss some published information regarding discourse and discourse analysis. In addition, previous studies on relationship between discourse and gender as well as gender in textbooks are taken into consideration. The chapter also mention a review of writings on turns, utterances and speech acts taken by speakers in conversations. 2.1. Discourse Discourse originates from the word “discursus”, which means “conversation” according to Dictionary of Medieval Latin. Since the 20th century, the definition of discourse has witnessed important changes. Stubbs (1983) viewed discourse as “language above the sentence or above the clause”. In 1993, Nunan asserted that discourse meant “a stretch of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as related in some way”. Sharing quite similar ideas of discourse to Nunan and Stubbs, Fillingham (1993) defined discourse as anything written or said or communicated using signs. Discourse, in these ways of defining, is conceived purely a series of sentences or utterances connected together. However, some other linguists offer different definitions of discourse. Coulthard (1977:7) argues that discourse is not merely composed of “grammatically well-formed utterances or sentences”. Moreover, it is seen as “chunks of language in actual use”. People do not only produce discourse to just write or just talk but they also use discourse purposively. This view is supported by Foucault who defines discourse as “systems of thoughts” that consist of “ideas, attitudes, and courses of action, beliefs, practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak” (Lessa, 2006: 285). In addition, vann Leeuwen (2008 : 6) sees discourse as social cognitions, socially specific ways of knowing social practices”. To put it simply, discourse helps to bridge our personal worlds to the social worlds. It provides readers and listeners ideas about the world they are living in, which in certain conditions can be turned into common truths and finally these truths may construct our perceptions about the world around us. Discourse may be defined in 6 various ways but in this paper, the researcher will follow the definition of discourse that discourse is the language formulated for actual uses. 2.2. Discourse analysis The variety of discourse definitions leads to numerous views on analyzing discourse. Harris (1952) observes that language “does not occur in stray words or sentences but in connected discourse”. He also tries to discover the connection between sentences by applying the tools of sentence grammar such as segmentation and substitution. Besides, he also indicates another approach to discourse analysis that is the correlation between culture and language. Although such analysis is not taken into further consideration by Harris, the idea of correlating discourse of a person, social group, etc. has been later developed by Halliday and Hasan. They claim that the coherence of a discourse is created with the certain lexical and grammatical choices regard to situational contexts (1976). However, no specific apparatus has been built to clarify this coherence. Showing the differences in the approaches to discourse analysis, Labov (1970) points out that “there are some areas of linguistic analysis in which even the first steps towards the basic invariant rules cannot be taken unless the social context of the speech event is considered”. The analysis of discourse in Labov‟s viewpoint is connected to social actions, which is quite similar to what Brown and Yule (1983)‟ conclusion that study of discourse is the study of language in use. Simply talking, discourse analysis involves the analysis of language above the sentence, in situational and cultural context. Basing on two functions of language, on the one hand, interactional and transactional, the discourse analysts may adopt different approaches to identify whether the language is used to convey factual or propositional information or to negotiate role-relationships, peer-solidarity, or saving-face of both speaker and hearer (Brown & Yule, 1983). On the other hand, the investigation of contents revealed through language is not only the focus of discourse analysis regarding Jones‟ paper, “The Role of Discourse Analysis in Devising Undergraduate Reading Programme in EST (1976). He mentions four 7 units set up in discourse : plan, stages, moves, and acts. A plan covering the whole text is composed of two or more stages like “Problem Identification” and “Solution Presentation”. A stage comprises of two or more Moves such as “Problem Deduction” and “ Problem Amplification”. A move is made up of Acts such as “Ascription, Exemplification, Differentiation and Justification”. Act, then is corresponding to a sentence. In this study, the researcher concerns two different approaches to discourse analysis. Both language itself and the function of language are taken into account. The dialogues in which the turns taken by the male and female characters in English textbooks 10, 11, 12 will be analyzed and counted to find out males or females have more opportunities to practice English. Besides, the speech acts employed by male and female characters are also interpreted to detect the different gender identities expressed. 2.3. Discourse and gender According to the perspective on natural language of Noah Chomsky (1959), a language is a natural object, a component of the human mind. However, it is not simply the physical representation of the entities in the brain but it also reflects the mind of human beings. This means people will produce and understand different expressions basing on what they have had experiences of previously. Therefore, language in use, which is understood as discourse; definitely partly originate from their social roles including gender as one of the determinative elements. To put it simply, language users, and more specifically, individuals use discourse to portray themselves and conversely their identities are depicted. Since the 1970s, language and gender have become a research field that attracted special attention from scholars around the world. Lakoff in Language and the Woman’s Place (1975) indicated that woman‟s language has its foundation the attitude that women are marginal to the serious concerns of life, which are preempted by men”. He pointed out that women use a large set of words specific to their interests, ask more questions and use more tag questions as well as rising intonation in statement context. Marry Haas (1994) investigated men‟s and 8 women‟s speech in Koasati identified the differences in the phonological and morphological features. Considering the utterances produced by men and women, Holmes (1992) detected that women‟s talk is often associated with effective functions such as expressing emotions, maintaining social relations and men‟s talk conversely is associated with referential/ instrumental functions which are related to conveying information or establishing facts. It can be inferred that gender has an influence on the language uses in almost all aspects such as phonology, lexical choice, syntax, etc.. On the other side, gender is represented through language. Stuart Hall (1997:15) defined representation as “using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people”. It is the way that a person is shown or described by their language using; specifically, through their talking and writing about something (Montgomery, 1995). Representation of gender can be found in spoken, written texts and visual illustrations. In the two first form of discourse, the researcher can consider the lexical choices; for example, nouns/pronouns, verbs, adjectives; clause and clause complex such as “transitivity”, which means the passive or active construction of the clause (Montgomery, 1995; Vann Leeuwen, 2008). To be more specific, in order to convey one message in which the boy is the actor, the girl is the goal and help is the material process, the clause can be “the girl was helped by the boy”. In the sentence, the boy and the girl were assigned an agent and a patient respectively. Additionally, the occurrences of male and female in the text or illocutionary acts performed by them in the discourse also describe their being. Most simply, Pearson et al (1991) indicated that the honorific titles addressing males and females are Mr. and Ms respectively. However, regarding the marital status of a woman, people may use Mss. or Mrs while there is only one option to address men despite the fact that they are married or not. In addition, another difference mentioned is men and women who have never got married are called distinctively (p94). While men are referred to as “bachelor”, 9 people use the term “old maid”. Although the new term “bachelorette” is becoming more popular, it stems from the male version (p99). The similar word pairs can easily be found in language use to address male and female like governor- governess; master- mistress; hero-heroine, etc.. In broader research field where identities are characterized through discourse, there have been a large number of studies conducted. Speakers and writers can choose the language to represent males and females differently. In this study, conversations in English textbooks 10, 11, 12 were interpreted to figure out the manifestation of male and female character‟s identity. 2.3.1 Turns and Utterances Conversation analysis has been pioneered by Harvey Sacks, a sociologist, since the 1960s. Conversation analysis studies the methods by which the speakers are oriented to employ when structuring the conversation- social action through the talks. One of the domains of research within conversational analysis is turn-taking. Sacks et al. (1974) claimed that turn-taking for conversations can be built in various ways depending on the types of conversations. It is ubiquitous and can be noticed in debates, interviews, speeches, conferences, talk shows, formal and informal mode of conversation. Sacks et al (1974) provided some rules for organizing the turns taken in a conversation by groups. The turn taking is a process in which the turns are allocated for the participants. The current participant talks then stops and has rights to select the next one to speak. There is a time gap between turns but it is only a few fractions of a second and one party speak or only one turn is taken at a time during the conversation. One speaking turn is composed of one or more utterances that represent the contribution of speakers in a conversation (Laver, 1994: 116). An utterance is “any stretch of talk” constructed by one person, before and after which there is silence on part of that sentence. It is the use of a piece of language such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase or even a single word. 2.3.2. Speech acts Speech act, the speaker‟s intended meaning in an utterance (Yule, 2006) has greatly developed from the work of linguistic philosophers (Brown & Yule, 1983) 10