A Content Analysis of the Ninth Grade English Textbook according to Iranian-Islamic Culture and Identity

Abstract: Cultural patterns could be expressed explicitly in the language and language teaching. Today the educational content of English textbooks has become a cultural tool which conveys the cultural content. This article examines the cultural content of ninth grade English textbook from the viewpoint of Iranian-Islamic culture, target culture and international culture. This analysis is conducted based on Brown (2012), Lee (2009), and cultural subcategories of Davari Ardakani’s proposal (2007). The research method is text based, non-experimental and descriptive, which is done based on content analysis. The corpus included ninth grade English textbook (prospect 3) with relevant workbook, published in 2015 (first edition). The units of analysis include vocabulary, visual and image themes and texts. The findings revealed categories of words, images and text including 427 cultural cases: 315 cases of which equivalent to 73.77% include culture and Iranian-Islamic ulture and identity.