Please cite as: Weninger, C. (2018). Textbook analysis. In Chapelle, C.A. (Ed.), The Encylopedia of Applied Linguistics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons. DOI: 10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal1489 Textbook Analysis Csilla Weninger Nanyang Technological University csilla.weninger@nie.edu.sg Abstract: Textbook analysis is a small but distinct subfield of applied linguistic research aimed at examining textbooks as curricular-cultural artefacts that communicate important meanings through their content and design. Orienting to an interdisciplinary, critical theoretical paradigm, researchers examine how the textual and visual material in textbooks represents people, places and languages as well as how it positions and shapes learners’ understanding. Keywords: discourse analysis; ideology; representation; culture 1. Introduction Textbooks are one of the most widely used types of learning material in language teaching. Today’s textbooks, especially those produced by global commercial publishers, often resemble magazines: they have a glossy cover, they are full of pictures and other visuals, and they typically incorporate current, popular cultural topics and genres such as movies, blogs and travel. Their design appeals not only to students; many teachers find them useful for their structured and sequenced introduction of aspects of language use as well as for the array of additional material most commercial textbooks now offer in the form of audiovisual/online/digital supplements. Due to the central role they play in language teaching and learning, textbooks have also become the explicit focus of applied linguistic research over the last three decades, with two, more or less distinct, lines of inquiry emerging. One of these, materials evaluation, which is an area within the domain of materials development, is mainly concerned with the systematic assessment of textbooks and other language learning materials in relation to their stated objectives or those of the intended learners (Tomlinson, 2011). Researchers working within this line of inquiry view textbooks first and foremost as pedagogic tools, that is, materials that through their design aim to facilitate the teaching and learning of languages. As such, evaluation has typically been restricted to the methodological aspects of textbooks and their linguistic content, often for a particular course or program. A second line of inquiry in applied linguistics connected to textbooks investigates the multitude of meanings textbooks communicate through their content and design. Such studies are less concerned with the appropriateness of the linguistic and language pedagogic make-up of textbooks or their appropriateness for particular groups of learners. Rather, they analyze textbooks primarily as cultural artefacts; as repositories of meaning about languages, people, places and the world (Weninger & Williams, 2005) that learners encounter as part of the process of language learning and socialization (Curdt-Christiansen, 2017). The purpose of analysis is to map the meanings encoded in the textual and visual choices made in the textbook in order to uncover what kind of worldview is presented to students through them and to reveal the practices, values and beliefs held in language teaching. Researchers