A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of English Textbooks: -- A Comparative Study of Images in Old and New PEP 7A

Haonan Lin

doi:10.54097/h3555p30

Authors

Haonan Lin

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/h3555p30

Keywords:

Multimodal Discourse Analysis, English Textbook Analysis, Visual Grammar

Abstract

The reform of information technology is gradually blurring the boundaries between different modalities such as text, image, sound and video. Instead, multimodal ways are always chosen to convey information, with no exception of English textbooks. However, multimodal research on English textbooks has shown that there are some problems regarding images used, such as the over simplicity of the content of images, the monotonous forms of images, and the rigid functions of images. The new English Curriculum Standards, however, call for the development of students’ multimodal literacy and emphasize attention to multimodal resources in textbooks. In view of the implementation of new PEP 7A junior English textbook, this study adopted Kress and van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar, and took the images as the main research object, to observe and compare the old and new PEP junior English textbooks, to interpret the inter-semiotic relationship between images and text, and to examine how these change align with the new English Curriculum Standards.

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