书讯 | 张伟年博士《以语类为视角的英语教材评价》出版
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近日，国防科技大学张伟年副教授的英文专著《以语类为视角的英语教材评价》由国防科技大学出版社出版发行。2018年该著作入选出版社出版选题计划项目。张伟年副教授的专著是其博士论文，指导教师是李战子教授。
李战子教授评价该专著“从语类角度进行英语教材评价，不仅对英语教材的编撰和英语教学法具有实际的意义和价值，而且为文化模式和语类知识的学习和教学提供了新的视角，对教学中文化意识和语类意识的培养有重要意义。其创新体现在两个方面：理论视角上，作者能够把多种理论进行有效整合建立教材研究框架；实际研究上，作者对中外六套知名教材进行全面具体的分析。这在国内英语教材研究中当属罕见。”
中国ESP专业委员会副会长、享受国务院特殊津贴专家、北京语言大学语言服务研究院首席教授王立非评价道：“作者熟悉教材评价的各种理论，能够对这些理论提出批判性的观点，并以系统功能语言学的主要思想及文化模式理论为基础构建英语教材分析框架，所进行的分析能够有力地说明其研究框架的可行性以及英语教材评价中意识形态这一参考值的重要性。”
中国语言学会语言政策与规划专业委员会会长、《语言战略研究》主编、北京语言大学李宇明教授也对该专著高度赞扬，认为“体现了作者对系统功能语言学和叙事学理论的熟练掌握，通过构建英语教材评价的新框架，分析语类类型、子语类类型和文化模式，揭示英语教材中所隐含的意识形态。研究思路清晰、方法新颖、引证资料丰富准确、研究分析深入、结论令人信服。”
前言 Preface
English language teaching (ELT) textbook evaluation has increasingly attracted widespread attention. This book reviews the study of ELT textbook evaluation from different perspectives: the Empirical Perspective; the Linguistic Perspective; the Cultural Perspective; the Sociolinguistic Perspective. The above theories evaluate textbooks from the different perspectives with their own focuses and advantages. This study has established a new framework of ELT textbook evaluation from Systemic Functional generic perspective, according to the aforementioned overview of the ELT textbook evaluation theories and the understanding of genre theory and the theory of cultural model in order to decode the genre system and ideology in ELT textbooks.
The new framework has also accepted Bernstein and Martin’s definition of Ideology and thus reconstructed the ideology in ELT textbooks through analysis of genre types, appraisal resources and cultural models. Ideology shapes coding orientations, distributes control over the privileged genres of modernism, the patterns of distribution of material and semiotic resources in a society. Ideology is a way in which relationships are made and realized, exists in every level of semiosis and takes roots through language in social context (Bernstein, 1996:31; Martin, 2005: 17, 18). Conversely, all these relations and meaning making resources as a whole can reveal how ideology is constructed.
Genre types, appraisal resources and cultural models are such relations and meaning making resources. Cultural models are “our first-thoughts or taken-for-granted assumptions about what is typical or normal.” “It is part of the function of cultural models to set up what count as central, typical cases, and what count as marginal, non-typical cases.”(Gee, 1999:59)
Gee (ibid: 68-69) distinguishes between cultural models based on how they are put to use and on the effects they have on us:
Espoused models, that is models which we consciously espouse;
Evaluative models, that is models which we use, consciously or unconsciously, to judge ourselves or others;
Models-in-(inter)action, that is models that consciously or unconsciously guide our actions and interactions in the world.
Appraisal resources also set up the rules about centrality and marginality, typicality and non-typicality, and normality and abnormality. Appraisal resources are the important part in interpersonal meanings and also the core of cultural models. The appraisal resources are the key to study cultural models, which both reflect what ideology conveys.
This study is theoretically based on systemic functional genre theory for the following reasons:
1) Genre is responsible for coordinating the recurrent configurations of meaning in a culture. Culture is mapped as a system of genres, as “staged goal-oriented social processes” (Martin, 1986:246) Patterns of social organisation in a culture are realised as patterns of social interaction in each context of situation, which in turn are realised as patterns of discourse in each text. (Martin, 2005:9)
2) Genre is the interface of ideology and language (Martin, 1992: 495-496) and is the way of exploiting language to accomplish different tasks enacted by culture (Eggins & Martin, 1997:236).
In this study ELT textbooks will be deconstructed as systems of genres and systems of cultural models, and ideology which the systems construe in the textbooks will be analyzed.
According to the above theoretical foundations, this study proposes a new ELT textbook evaluation framework. This framework describes and interprets two planes of relations within ELT textbook evaluation system, in which both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations are considered. The two planes of relations are main genre plane and sub-genre plane. In main genre plane, paradigmatic options of cultural models and appraisal resources and syntagmatic options of generic types are considered. The paradigmatic options of cultural models are the same as the units in the same position in language structure. These units have same functions and can be substituted. Although the cultural models are different, they can be substituted in the same position in language structure because of their same characters and functions and they make different meanings after substitution. The relation among the different cultural models is paradigmatic relation, which comes into being not because these different cultural models have to appear simultaneously in the same structure, but because they all belong to the category of ideology and they make relations due to their similarities and differences.
In different ELT textbooks, different genre types are selected. Why some genres are privileged and how they are maintained, distributed and challenged are the consequences of the choice of cultural models. The privileged use of some genres and the maintenance and distribution of the symbolic control should be taken into account in ELT textbook evaluation. All these meaning making resources can reveal how genres construct meanings. The relations among the constituents of genre types are syntagmatic relations. The relations between genre types and the constituencies are the relations between whole and parts, just like cooccurrence relations in syntagmatic relations. So in ELT textbook evaluation it’s proper to put the study of genre types in the dimension of syntagmatic relation.
The two dimensions of paradigmatic choices of cultural models and syntagmatic choices of genre types are combined together as a whole system to reveal more clearly the ideology and the relations among genre types in ELT textbooks: what kind of ideology is reflected and how the chosen genres are related with each other in the textbooks.
Sub-genre plane analysis of ELT textbooks includes paradigmatic options of cultural models in sub-genres of ELT textbooks and syntagmatic options of genre family members. In this plane, cultural models will be analyzed in paradigmatic dimension, while genre family members in syntagmatic dimension. In Systemic Functional Linguistics paradigmatic relations are foregrounded, and each feature in a system is realised as ‘syntagm’. The syntagms are given functional labels, which describe as a whole the contribution they make to syntagmatic structure (Martin & Rose, 2008:20). The different cultural models are taken as the features in system of ideology, which are realized as “syntagms” ---- genre family members, so cultural models guide the choices of genre family members. This also makes sense why we study cultural models in paradigmatic dimension while genre types in syntagmatic dimension and combine them to analyze ELT textbooks. The two planes and two dimensions of cultural models and genre types make a whole to reflect genre relations and ideology which ELT textbooks convey to the learners.
In order to prove the feasibility and practicality of the new framework, we choose six sets of ELT textbooks as samples and then make a detailed description and explanation about genre types, cultural models, appraisal resources and ideology in the textbooks.
There are four major findings that we have obtained from the research. Firstly, ideology is a useful tool to analyze ELT textbooks. It can be reflected through genre types, genre relations, appraisals and cultural models. All these meaning making resources as a whole construct ideology.
Secondly, this study has emphasized the role of ELT textbooks from Systemic Functional generic perspective and generalized more roles of ELT textbooks as the following: (1) a resource of genres, generic structures and generic systems, which reflect an integration of content, form, function and context of situation; (2) a resource of culture mapped with systems of genres and cultural models, which construct meaning, value and ideology; (3) a resource of learning how language functions in specific contexts and how language is used to achieve purposes.
Thirdly, this study has established a new framework of ELT textbook evaluation from this perspective according to genre theory, and the theory on cultural models in order to decode genre system, cultural models and ideology in ELT textbooks.
Fourthly, the phenomenon exists in ELT textbooks that the distribution of cultural models and genre types and sub-genre types is unbalanced. There is sharp difference of the number of the same genres, the same sub-genres and the same cultural models in the six sets of ELT textbooks. The unbalanced introduction of cultural models and lack of genre consciousness in ELT textbooks will lead to unbalanced distribution and control over the privileged genres and incomplete coding orientations of college learners. The variety and the sum total of genre types and cultural models serve as the concrete realization of culture and ideology.
The new framework of ELT textbook evaluation from SFL generic perspective can facilitate English learning and teaching, and also can offer insights into the ways of teaching and learning genres in recontextualized teaching situation, into the understanding of English social and cultural knowledge and into the enhancement of the ability of discourse and genre analysis, into the future direction of the writing of textbooks and upgrading the quality of textbooks.
封底介绍：
This book has established a new framework of ELT textbook evaluation from systemic functional generic perspective, according to the overview of the ELT textbook evaluation theories and the understanding of genre theory and the theory of cultural model, in order to decode the genre system and ideology in ELT textbooks. The new framework can facilitate English learning and teaching, and also can offer insights into the ways of teaching and learning genres in recontextualized teaching situation, into the understanding of social and cultural knowledge of English-speaking countries, into the enhancement of the ability of discourse and genre analysis, and into the future direction of writing textbooks and upgrading their quality.
图文编辑：应用语言学研习 梁国杰
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