“I’ll take your car in to the service station,” my husband
said to me as he left for work, dressed as usual in his suit, tie, and dress
shoes. The odometer on my Honda had just turned over 90,000 miles and, at the
same time, the heater went out. And it needed new brakes. And new tires. I
wondered why my husband was offering to deal with my car, as I knew he had a
busy day planned. Then it hit me: While he doesn’t know much more about cars
than I do, the people at the auto center were much less likely to pull a fast
one – to insist upon unnecessary repairs – if he, a male in a suit, took the
car in instead of me, a female in a cardigan sweater and jeans.
****
Flash backward five years, and I’m calling my husband to
vent in frustration. Two weeks earlier, the same Honda had been parked on a
street as I was going into a business. I had just reached the entrance to an
office building when I heard a sickening crash. Someone had backed into my car
as it was legally parked on the street. For weeks I’d been dealing with the
other person’s insurance company to settle the claim, but they’d been holding
out, continually telling me that they were still not ready to find their
policyholder at fault. The damage was estimated at nine hundred dollars, and so
I was desperate to get the claim settled and get my car repaired. “Let me see
what I can do,” my husband said. And with that, he called the insurance
company, introduced himself (as the co-owner of the damaged car and as an
employee at a rival insurance company), and asked to speak to a supervisor.
When he and the supervisor arrived at an impasse, my husband quietly said,
“This is unfair. Your policyholder is at fault. Would you like me to report
this to the Department of Insurance?” I had a check for the estimated damages
within two days.
****
In both of these instances, my husband had to “rescue” me by
dealing with situations in which his position as a male (and, additionally, as
one dressed in a suit and having a white-collar job) provided him more power
than I was able to muster. It irritates me, as I’m independent and do not want
to be in a position of needing help, just because I’m a female. In both
instances, my husband’s help was motivated more by the fact that he had a
financial interest as co-owner of the car than by the fact that I was a damsel
in distress. Oddly enough, I doubt he’s ever perceived me as such, as I’m so
fiercely independent and he doesn’t view women as subservient or less than
capable of anything a man can do. Unfortunately, due to stereotypes (and our
shared ignorance of automobiles), he had to step in.
Visual rhetoric and loaded gender stereotypes imply heavy
meanings, due to values placed upon them. The readings this week challenge ESL
textbooks on the visual rhetoric they include in illustrations and photographs.
Giaschi’s article examines thirty-five
images in what he considers “successful” ESL textbooks and finds the visual
rhetoric loaded with powerful male and not-as-powerful (often subservient) female
figures. In analyzing these images, Giaschi applies a modified version of
Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which Giaschi calls Critical
Image Analysis. Giaschi encourages ESL teachers to use Critical Image Analysis
to assess visual rhetoric in ESL textbooks to discern images that may
subliminally purport a rhetorical agenda of a dominant group or ideology over a
less-dominant one.
Taylor-Mendes’ article also discusses images in ESL/EFL
textbooks, but adds the focus of racial stereotypes. As a White woman from
Canada (married to a Brazilian male), Taylor-Mendes states that the interview
study she conducted of Brazilian students in Sao Paulo learning English as a
Foreign Language “led [her] to view EFL textbook images, [her] students, and
[her] position in the world in an entirely new way” (65). I found this study
interesting for a few reasons. While her study builds upon Giaschi’s Critical
Image Analysis techniques, the White participants were more likely to notice
the lack of images including minority people or those of color (74). Another
point upon which this article interested me is that it demonstrates that these
participants were sensitive to these images as depicting race based on
continent, ignoring the concepts of migration, immigration, and colonization as
hybridizers (75). The images, in Rivaldo’s words, did not “bring a new way of
viewing these countries” (75). Taylor-Mendes found, through her interviews,
that the visual rhetoric of the ESL/EFL textbooks her participants interacted
with presented images showing “a monocultural appearance divided neatly by
continent,” and that “this kind of world has never existed” (77).
Based on her study, Taylor-Mendes asserts that “it is
important for teachers to consider the images present in English-language
textbooks prior to entering the classroom” and that “teachers not only need to
draw attention to the content of the image, but they also need to initiate
discussions about the issues that the image implies” (77). Additionally,
teacher-educators should strive to place pre-service teachers in pre-teaching
situations (during clinicals?) in which they are the racial and/or linguistic
minority so that these teachers “develop a greater sensitivity to race and
power” in order for the teacher to appropriately guide discussions within the classroom
with EFL/ESL students regarding the visual rhetoric in their textbooks. At the
very least, EFL/ESL teachers and administrators need to evaluate textbooks
themselves and choose those that paint a more fair and accurate reality of
English-speaking communities (78).
One odd detail I noticed about this study was that, even
though Taylor-Mendes reports that “at the end of the study, nearly all of the
participants felt that it was [her] responsibility as a researcher to take the
necessary steps to improve the images in their EFL texts” (77), several of the
participants failed to continue the study (71). I realize that this probably
had to do with time and geographical space issues (as Taylor-Mendes reports she
had to leave the country). However, I’m wondering why the students were not
more invested in assisting with this study after the gravity of some of their
comments.
The Hinkel chapter (11) by Cortazzi and Jin addresses the
different types of rhetorical-cultural positions taken by EFL/ESL textbooks and
ways in which EFL/ESL teachers can evaluate these textbooks (the authors
discuss strengths and weaknesses of various checklists published for this
purpose). [This makes me wonder about the Spanish textbooks I learned from last
year. The images and rhetorical angles were primarily those of the target
culture(s). I was assumed to be an American who spoke English, learning Spanish
in order to travel to Spanish-speaking countries and to possess a rudimentary
knowledge of cultural practices.] Within the discussion of these positions are
evaluations of different types of textbooks. One type of EFL/ESL textbook is
based on the source culture, one is based on the target culture, and one is
based on international target cultures (ESL/EFL textbooks that demonstrate
cultures in which English is not a first or second language but rather an
international language). Within these types are open texts and closed texts;
open text invite reader participation in the form of interpretation,
elaboration, and discussions. Closed texts shows images of cultures that are
meant to be unchallenged as they are meant to reinforce the stereotypical
images and beliefs that the readers already hold.
Asserting that teachers are “’ambassadors of culture’”
(Nayar, 1986; quoted in Nelson, 1995, p. 30; quoted in Hinkel, Chapter 11 by
Cortazzi and Jin, p. 210), Cortazzi and Jin put responsibility on teachers to
ensure that their students acquire intercultural competence, that they learn to
negotiate meaning and identity within other cultural contexts when they are
learning a second or other language (here, in EFL/ESL contexts) (p. 210). Thus,
evaluation checklists of textbooks need to reflect this goal, teachers (and
students) need to serve as researchers of the textbooks they utilize and
critically evaluate them based upon their cultural content, and teachers and
textbook publishers need to strive to enhance students’ intercultural
competence by developing and utilizing textbooks that further this goal
(Cortazzi and Jin in Hinkel, 217).
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