Textbooks are considered the backbone of education. They serve as the main teaching tool in the curriculum, having great impact on teaching and learning and effectively contributing to the improvement of educational quality (Besser, Stone, & Luan, 1999). Choosing an appropriate textbook for a course in the diversified English Foreign Language (EFL) textbook market has become harder (Minoo & Nikan, 2012). This study investigates linguistic complexity in English textbooks used in the teaching of English as a second or foreign language to speakers of other languages. It employs systemic functional grammar as the main theoretical framework to examine grammatical features in reading passages. The focus of the study is the investigation of the four grammatical features which are considered the typical complexity of written language namely, lexical density, nominalisation, Grammatical metaphor and thematic structure (Halliday, 1985a, 1985b, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, 2014). The presentation reports on findings of an on-going Ph.D research on linguistic complexity in two English textbooks at elementary and pre-intermediate levels. The results will provide criteria in choosing English texts or textbooks, which are based on the grammatical features.
History
Publication title
Australian systemic functional linguistics association conference 2014 - Program & Abstract book
Editors
H Caple & P White
Department/School
Faculty of Education
Publisher
ICMS Australasia
Place of publication
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Event title
Australian systemic functional linguistics association conference 2014
Event Venue
Brisbane, Australia
Date of Event (Start Date)
2014-09-29
Date of Event (End Date)
2014-10-02
Repository Status
Restricted
Socio-economic Objectives
Assessment, development and evaluation of curriculum