The power of language and ELT textbooks
Abstract This study investigates how language is employed in EFL textbooks to represent a society and its members. The idea that textbooks are neutral and they just serve to transmit knowledge is no longer accepted (Hodge and kress, 1993; van Dijk, 1998; Howard and Dedo, 1989). Howard and Dedo (1989) point out that textbooks can disseminate the idea of accepting power and taking it as natural. This pr study applies the CDA approach, more specifically Hodge and Kress's framework (1993), to a selection of texts found in Spectrum, as sample of EFL textbooks studied in certain EFL institutes in Iran.