A diachronic analysis of the cultural aspect of local English coursebooks

Abstract

Delving into a wide range of the cultural elements, the current study endeavoured to reveal the tortuous path the secondary school English coursebooks have passed in Iran. To this end, the secondary school coursebooks of level one were diachronically investigated for the commonly unnoticed side of culture, ie the perspective aspect of culture, names, and images. In so doing, the above‐mentioned elements of culture in the coursebooks from 1939, when the very first English coursebook was introduced to the country, till the latest series published in 2016 were scrutinised. The results suggested that not only have cultural elements lacked a coherent framework to be translated into English coursebooks, but they have also been an uncharted island on the English coursebook authors’ map. Additionally, the researchers suggest that the haphazard representation of culture might be partly due to the fact that a viable definition of culture, at least in the realm of applied linguistics, does not exist and some studies may need to be carried out on this issue.