Second National Conference on Language, Discourse and Pragmatics Ahvaz, Jan 23-25, 2013 Systemic Functional Linguistics: As an Innovative Approach to Language and Gender Study Abdullah Gharbavi Seyyed Ahmad Mousavi Pame Noor University

Outline of presentation Aim and purpose of the study Inspirational ideas led me to do this study Previous research and background Research questions Hypotheses Methodology Results and discussion Conclusion Pedagogical implications Suggested solusions

 The purpose of the present study is to find out whether Iranian high school English textbooks are sexist textbooks which discriminate between male and female students based on their sex. To this end, four English textbooks currently taught in the Iranian high schools were examined for that purpose. 1. Aim and purpose of the study

A conversational topic in a language institute, when I used to teach English there: Do teachers treat girls and boys equally and fairly? 2. Inspirational ideas led me to do this study Despite increased awareness of gender bias and attempt to counteract this, the problem persists, within education as in other contexts (Swann, 1992, p.34).

The problem of gender bias language has been around us for centuries and still does exist in the dot com era(Swann, 2005).

Generic nouns and pronouns (such as you and we) were observed not to be true generic ones because they are often associated with male pictures. See the following picture which has been taken from (English Book 2, p.13) If you want to take a photograph, you must have a camera. Is this fair?

3. Previous studies Porreca, 1984 Peterson & Kroner, 1992 Reese, 1994 Lesikin (2001) Ansary & Babii, 2003

4. Research questions

5. Hypotheses:

Thank you for being fair