Didactic Symbol of Visual Images in EFL Textbook: Multi-modal Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The textbook plays an essential role for students in the teaching and learning process. Imagery, combined with texts in the textbook, makes subjects easy to understand. Images are generally used to convey things we can't tell in the text. Visual images help students make sense of output and input around them. This study investigates the representation of the visual image in the EFL textbook proposed by using a multimodal discourse analysis method. The researcher used the framework from Kress van Leeuwen. Information from all visual images consist of 158 images in the Indonesian EFL textbook is collected as the data in this study. The results showed that females (70%) portions were more commonly portrayed than males ( 30%). In terms of social roles, females have the same proportion of occupations as males. In terms of image appearance, the foreign and Indonesian cultures portrayed to show the tolerance culture. This study aims to explore the meaning of the integrated use of semiotic resources, such as visual image representation in the textbook. The researcher expected students and teachers as textbook users could increase their understanding with the subject of teaching and learning by interpreting the visual images effectively. This study recommends to the textbook user that visual images appearances can strengthen the text or written material in the textbook. Also, it suggests textbook publishers be more concerned and synchronize between the written content and the visual representation portrayed not to occur misinterpretation among the textbook users.

The Construction and Empirical Research of College English Multimodal Teaching from the Perspective of New Media

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Introducing a multimodal perspective to emotional variables in second language acquisition education: Systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis

“…In addition, Purwaningtyas (2020) examined the effective use of visual input in EFL textbooks using the SF-MDA. The framework employed in this study was derived from Kress van Leeuwen.…”

Indonesian Junior High School EFL Textbook: Intercultural Pragmatic Perspective

“…Therefore, teaching language is the same meaning as teaching culture because the two are interrelated with one another (Afriani, Mirizon & Sitijak, 2019). Purwaningtyas (2020) explains that there are many teaching materials that can be displayed to students in class such as images, arts and others that are related to culture so they become an important role for students. It can be seen that cultural content is very important for students in class so that they understand learning, especially in learning English.…”