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THESIS DEFENSE
Topic: Representation of the theme “Future" in new English textbooks for Vietnamese high school students
METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
LITERATURE REVIEW
CONCLUSION
FINDINGS & DISCUSSION
Student: Chu Thành Đạt
Class: QH2018.F.1.E2.SP.CLC
English language:
English language textbooks:
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)
Interpersonal
meaning
Ideational
meaning
Textual
meaning
(processes, participants, circumstances)
=> Textbook developers' opinions, viewpoints, attitudes
4 main themes in the high school level:
Dispatch No. 32/2018/TT-BGDĐT by the Ministry of Education & Training
Representation of familiar themes (gender, culture, family): Jati (2016); Moecharam & Syifa (2017); Cahyati (2019); Maya (2020), etc
Research aim:
Research question:
Scope of the study
Framework
Data corpus
All the texts that fall into units belonging to the theme “Future” in six new English textbooks
+ Transitivity system (representing experiential meaning)
+ Logical meaning was not addressed
Significance of the study
Practice
Theory
Existing body of literature on the analysis of textbooks
+ Curriculum developers/designers of English textbooks
+ English language teachers at high schools in Vietnam
- Developed by M. A. K. Halliday in the 1960s
- investigates the relationship between grammatical structures and its communicative functions in different social situations
- Convey our thoughts, ideas, experiences about what is currently occurring in the world
- Realized through the transitivity system consisting of three basic elements (namely process, participant, and circumstance);
- The number and classification of participants in the transitivity system are determined by the process of that clause
- Halliday and Matthiessen (2014): No matter what type of clause is, it should include at least one participant
Extent: how far, how long, how many times
Location: where, when
Manner: how, what like, how much
Cause: what for, who for, why
Contingency: why
Accompaniment: who with, what with
Role: what as, what into
Matter: what about
Angle: according to what/whom
A variety of textbook types:
- Vietnamese science textbooks: Van Van Hoang (2018)
- English textbooks: A variety of reading text types:
Theme representation: “Gender" emerges as one of the most extensively researched theme
English 11 – Unit 7 (Further Education)
English 11 – Unit 9 (Cities of the Future)
English 11 – Unit 10 (Healthy & Longevity)
English 12 – Unit 7 (Artificial Intelligence)
English 12 – Unit 8 (The world of work)
English 12 – Unit 9 (Choosing a career)
English 12 – Unit 10 (Lifelong learning)
The majority of units were quite easily recognized to be related to the target theme
Exceptional cases:
Picking language texts from all the sections within one unit, but just the ones whose content revolves around the chosen theme.
5 main sub-themes
- Material & Relational: the two most common processes
- Behavioral: the least popular process (the only process that lacks the presence of all six process types in the transitivity system)
- Clauses are most commonly distributed in three sections: Getting Started, Listening, Communication
- Location: the most commonly found type of circumstance (found most in Communication, Listening, Getting Started, Reading)
- Manner & Cause: the second & third prevalent
- Matter & Angle: the least commonly identified (only found in one section)
Processes:
- Material: the most dominant
- Relational & Mental: the second most popular (with the dominance of attributive & cognitive clauses)
- Behavioral: the least commonly found
Participants:
- Material: Actor & Goal are two most popular types (Actor > Goal), low frequency of Range, Beneficiary, Recipient
- Verbal: Low frequency of Receiver & Target (besides the basic elements)
Representation of the sub-theme:
- The dominance of Material process => High school and university students’ observable daily activities
- The high percentage of the participant “Actor” and Active Voice => Students are depicted as active participants in academic settings
- The utilization of positive adjectives & Factitive participants => The further education for Vietnamese high school students is expected to be futuristic
- The great number of cognitive mental clauses => Vietnamese high school students should contemplate before making their critical decisions
Processes:
- Material: the most dominant
- Relational & Mental: the second most popular (with the dominance of attributive & cognitive clauses)
- Behavioral: the least commonly found
Participants:
- Material: Actor & Goal are two most popular types (Goal > Actor), low frequency of Range & Beneficiary
- Behavioral: Behaver (the main one) & Range (the optional one)
Representation of the sub-theme:
- The outnumbering of Goal when compared with Actor => Changes and developments to the cities are the central concerns
- The appearance of Goal in various life aspects => Transformations to the cities in the future exert considerable influences on various critical life aspects
- The outnumbering of positive adjectives when compared with less positive ones => A positive futuristic scene of cities in the future rather than investigating the negative sides of developments.
Processes:
- Material: the most dominant
- Relational: the second most popular (with the dominance of attributive clauses)
- Mental: the third most prevalent (the number of four sub-types is nearly equal)
- Existential & Behavioral: the least commonly found
Participants:
- Material: Actor & Goal are two most popular types (Actor > Goal), low frequency of Range & Beneficiary
- Verbal: Occasional presence of Receiver (besides Sayer and Verbiage)
Representation of the sub-theme:
- The dominance of Material process (around frequent habits of eating, drinking, exercising) => People, especially students, should pay attention to physical and detectable changes to our bodies rather than complex transformations that happen within the internal organs
- The equal distribution of four sub-types of mental process => What we think or believe about changes to our bodies, and how we sense and react to rising demands for adjusting unhealthy behaviors are both crucially important
- The pretty high frequency of certain verbs (advise, suggest) in Verbal process => Useful advice on a healthy lifestyle
Processes:
- Material: the most dominant
- Relational: the second most popular (with the dominance of attributive clauses)
- Mental: the third most prevalent (3 out of 4 sub-types are detected with the highest number belonging to cognitive clauses)
- Verbal & Behavioral: the least commonly found
Participants:
- Material: Actor & Goal are two most popular types (Actor = Goal), low frequency of Range, Receiver & Beneficiary
- Hardly any supplementary participants are identified in other processes
Representation of the sub-theme:
- The dominance of Material process => Scientific changes are generally external ones, and therefore, observable.
- The almost equal number of Actor & Goal, a large number of Actor referring to the world of developing science => An overwhelming development that it can gradually replace the role of humans
- The prevalent use of Circumstances of Location & certain circumstances of manner (globally, automatically, widely) => A high likelihood of people being gradually replaced by technological advances comprehensively
Processes:
- Material: the most dominant
- Relational & Mental: the second most popular (with the dominance of attributive & cognitive clauses)
- Verbal & Behavioral: the least commonly found
Participants:
- Material: Actor & Goal are two most popular types (Actor > Goal), significant frequency of Range, frequent presence of Factitive
- Verbal: Sayer, Receiver & Verbiage
- Behavioral: Behaver & Range
Representation of the sub-theme:
- The dominance of Material process & the use of certain factitives (“a good CV and a covering letter”, “work experience", "long reports", etc) => The journey to an ideal job in the future is not always easy
- The use of certain verbs (advise, tell, wish) in Verbal process => Mental support by their beloved parents and friends
- The outnumbering of positive adjectives when compared with negative ones & the mixture of both types within the theme => Irrespective of great difficulties, they still stand high chances of landing their most ideal jobs
Material process is always the most widely employed process
=> Similar to that of Moecharam and Syifa (2017), Rhayu and Efransyah (2020) and Mulyanti and Wati (2022)
=> Message: The future will undergo several transformations, most of which are perceived as physical and visible to humans
“Actor” is also significantly more popular than other sub-types
=> Message: Humans (especially students) play a key role in shaping the future of ourselves rather than getting controlled or overwhelmed by futuristic changes.
A significant difference in the number of Relational and Mental processes
=> Contradict the findings made by Jati (2016), Marhamah and Mukhaiyar (2018):
=> Message: Textbook writers prioritize the act of portraying the characteristics of humans and futuristic changes (so as to contrast the nature of changes with humans’ capabilities) over digging deeper into humans’ thoughts and perceptions.
OVERALL: Humans in general (and high school students in particular) are considered to be active future shapers in almost every aspect of their lives.
EDUCATION IN THE FUTURE: Vietnamese high school students, portrayed as competent and ready for the global trend of education, have been actively preparing for undergraduate and graduate studies.
CITIES IN THE FUTURE: Transformations of cities in the future subject of the seem to exert more positive impacts than harmful ones on people’s lives.
HEALTH & LONGEVITY: High school students should acknowledge the importance of a healthy lifestyle (either by themselves or be made to be fully aware by others) from which “unhealthy” daily routines are encouraged to adjust.
SCIENCE IN THE FUTURE: The advanced developments of science in the future are regarded as imminent threats to the existing human roles in a comprehensive manner.
CAREER IN THE FUTURE: Vietnamese high school students are perceived as active and passionate job seekers in the world of jobs in the future.
Focusing on main clauses and ignoring hypotactic and embedded ones => Investigating all types of clauses
Examining the linguistic mode of the textbook without analyzing the visual one => Incorporating the investigation of multimodal modes of information
The possibility of minor mistakes despite careful analysis (not altering the overall outstanding trends or findings)