Gendered Discourses in Moroccan EFL Textbooks: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The general objective of this paper is to examine the problem of gender inequality in Moroccan textbooks of English as a foreign language (MEFL). Nine MEFL textbooks published and sponsored by the Ministry of Education in Morocco have been sampled to serve this purpose. The written discourse of these textbooks has been examined employing Van Dijk (1995, 2001); Wodak (2001); and Fairclough’s (1989) theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The results of this inquiry do suggest that much remains to be done regarding the predominance of male-centered patterns characterizing the discoursal practices of these textbooks. There is a general tendency to depict women as subservient housewives, subordinate, disempowered, marginalized, silenced, and even excluded from the written text. Their portrayal is sill connected with less intelligence, lack of independence, submissiveness, and social inferiority. The sampled textbooks are fraught with myriad instances of power relations of dominance and hegemony, thereby accentuating the gender gap between the two sex groups to men’s favor.