PRAGMATIC REPRESENTATION IN A LOCAL ENGLISH TEXTBOOK

Abstract

Textbooks play an important role in language learning as they contain language input for language learners. It may assist learners to be able to communicate in the target language effectively. This implies that learners learn how language is supposed to be used in daily communication. Therefore, other than linguistic competence which covers grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, the learners should be exposed to pragmatic information to be knowledgeable of language use appropriateness. For this reason, the study explores pragmatic information in a local English textbook written for Indonesian secondary school students. Content analysis deploying pragmatic references was used to conduct this study. Findings show that pragmatic information is still under-represented in the textbook. It contains less metapragmatic information, e.g. in dialogues or conversations, which resulted in the inappropriateness of language use. Consequently, the dialogues do not serve communicative functions. The implications of these results for teachers and textbook writers are discussed