Reviving the Nation: The discursive construction of national identity in Sri Lankan English Language textbooks

Abstract

This study examines the way Sri Lankan national identity is construed in texts found in the local Grade 11 English Language textbooks that were produced during the ethnic civil war in Sri Lanka and which are still used in Sri Lanka today. The textbooks, created and published by the National Institute of Education, are used for teaching English as a Second Language to students across the public school system. The study uses a systemic functional linguistic (SFL) framework to explore how national identity is recontextualised in these texts for pedagogical purposes, examining the linguistic resources the texts draw on to discursively construct national identity. The thesis argues that within these texts, a homogenous Sinhala and Sinhala Buddhist identity is privileged and promoted as common to all Sri Lankans, while excluding the diverse ethnic, religious and cultural practices of minority ethnic groups in Sri Lanka. A selection of nine texts from the Grade 11 textbooks are analysed for text types and icons, to determine what kinds of texts are privileged in a pedagogic context and how these texts construe national identity. In order to identify the patterns of choices that create text types or ‘genres’ (Martin, 1992; Martin & Rose, 2008) and ‘icons’ (Martin, 2010, 2016; Tann 2010, 2014), the selected texts are analysed using the lexicogrammatical systems of transitivity and theme (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004) and the discourse semantic systems of Appraisal and periodicity (Martin & Rose 2007; Martin & White. 2005). Genre is used to explore the kinds of texts used in the service of national identity, while ‘iconography’ (Tann, 2010b; 2013) is used to explore how choices combine across lexicogrammatical and discourse semantic systems and are stabilised over the course of a text in construing communal identity. The analysis shows that while the focus of these texts appears to be on teaching students how to read and write valued text types in English, these texts are heavily dependent on shared understandings of socio-cultural, religious and cultural ethnic identity for making meaning. These socio-cultural meanings focus on projecting a homogenous national identity through the use of a number of ‘icons’ including valued people, things and activities that are representative primarily of Sinhala or Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. By examining national identity and its construction in the context of Sri Lanka, this thesis to contributes to the broader research area of nations, nationalism and national identity and uncovers how pedagogical texts contribute to the creation of a ‘national consciousness’ (Bernstein, 1996/2000). In addition, this thesis contributes to research that explores textbooks and their construction of identity in the field of English as a Second Language, and explorations of ‘the discursive construction of national identity’ (Hall, 1996) through the use of a socio-semiotic framework for the exploration of national identity. This study also contributes to the relatively new research on communal identity in SFL by examining its construal in pedagogical texts. In addition, it proposes an extension to the existing ‘iconography’ framework to account for the valued activities, or ‘rituals’, that affirm membership in a community. This study shows that in maintaining Sinhala Buddhist identity as the dominant identity, these textbooks shape the next generation of Sinhalese students to align with the ideologically motivated and symbolic disempowerment of minority ethnic groups in Sri Lanka.