Images of educational discourse participants in foreign language textbooks

The textbook is studied as a special form of communication between participants in the educational process, within which it is important to model the images of the teacher and the student, which is realized in texts using specific discursive means. The purpose of the article is to reveal the content of the images of participants in the educational discourse presented in textbooks on a foreign language and implemented in statements that appeal to students; determine the discursive means of their formation. The study was conducted on the material of the texts of 10 textbooks of English and Russian languages studied as foreign languages. Research methods are determined by the specifics of the educational discourse and the textbook as a complex genre included in its structure. For methodological substantiation, the concept of discursive strategy is important – as a way to implement an image, which, in turn, is comprehended as a variant of implementing a discursive role that clarifies the manifestation of a social position in a situational-personal aspect. The image of a discourse participant is a set of its features, manifested in a special discursive orientation, not going beyond the typical, given by the discourse and aimed at achieving a discursive goal. The study showed that the specific situational genre goals of a foreign language textbook, set in accordance with the type of regulated educational activity, determine the formation of three types of images of participants in the educational discourse: 1) the author prescribes the performance of the corresponding task; the student is their executor; 2) the author is the organizer, “producer” of a communicative situation of a certain type; the student is a participant in this situation, its “actor”; 3) the author is a leading participant in a communicative situation of a certain type; the student is an equal participant in this situation. Their third type differs from the previous ones in its low orientation. Within the framework of the strategic implementation of the goals under consideration, the individual-personal ideas of the compiler of the textbook about the form of interaction between the participants in the educational process determine the choice of speech means, which sets a further variation in the image of the author and the image of the student. Further variation of the images is carried out on the basis of the individual-personal intentions of the compiler of the textbook and manifests itself in aspects of their individualization.

educational discourse, foreign language textbook, role structure of discourse, image of a discourse participant, discursive strategy