Journal Article

Agency, Growth, and Ownership on African Soil: an SFL Analysis of a World History Textbook

Wadhwa, Kanushri

2022

Overview

The persistent narratives favoring dominant groups make it necessary to investigate the way these groups are portrayed in textbooks, which though they are meant to provide neutral information, often have an agenda that disempowers individuals from marginalized groups. This systemic functional linguistics text analysis of 362 passages of a world history textbook’s sections on African participants asks the following question: How, if at all, does the use of different verb processes position individuals of different ethnic and racial identities? The findings indicate that different processes are used to legitimize European control and other Western involvement in African nations and remove their culpability in the exploitation of African resources. Meanwhile, the textbook authors remove African agency in the time periods following medieval and ancient Africa.

• Publisher: Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: African Americans / African history / American Studies / Black Studies / Culpability / Current Events / Elementary Secondary Education / Ethnic identity / Exploitation / Historical text analysis / History Instruction / Language Usage / Learner Engagement / Linguistics / Literature Reviews / Marginality / Middle Ages / Minority groups / Mythology / Ownership / Racial Identification / Racial identity / Racial Segregation / Social Problems / Student Empowerment / Student Participation / Students / Systemic functional linguistics / Text analysis / Textbook Content / Textbooks / Time periods / United States History / World history