A Critical Analysis of Cultura in Spanish World Language Textbooks

• In Event: AERA Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: SIG-Semiotics in Education: Signs, Meanings and Multimodality Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

This multimodal discourse analysis explores: (1) how meanings regarding Spanish speakers, cultures, and linguistic/cultural dominance are construed in a mandated high school textbook series; and (2) the ways these textbooks position and engage students. Findings demonstrate that the textbooks linguistically and visually background Spanish speakers, particularly Black and Indigenous members of Spanish-speaking communities, as contributors to culture and construct membership in a nation-state as the most salient aspect of their cultural identities. Moreover, the textbooks position and engage students as elite bilingual tourists and cultural consumers. We discuss how these semiotic choices reproduce deficit raciolinguistic ideologies around Spanish speakers and cultures in the U.S. context, which has implications for world language teachers wishing to challenge these ideologies.

Authors

• Amanda Holbrook, Kutztown University
  Presenting Author

• Brenda Muzeta, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Kathryn Accurso, University of British Columbia
  Presenting Author