‘Ignoring the elephant in the room’: (Under-)representation of impoliteness phenomenon in popular ELT textbooks

Abstract

One of the underrepresented aspects of pragmatic competence development is perceiving and responding to impoliteness acts. The present study reports on a quantitative and qualitative investigation of two international English language teaching (ELT) textbook series published by Oxford and Cambridge University Press; it focuses on the books highly popular among a thriving representative sample of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) across four language proficiency levels and explores their coverage and treatment of impoliteness acts and their responses. Drawing on stringent models and taxonomies, the findings reveal that this unpleasant side of language is ignored and misrepresented in the textbooks, particularly at lower proficiency levels. We draw on our own and others’ previous incivility studies and argue for the inclusion of impoliteness especially from earlier stages of language learning owing to its saliency in authentic interactions. The study concludes with implications and suggestions for language learners, instructors, textbook writers, and researchers.