A content analysis of ELT blurbs: reflections on theories

This study explores the back cover blurbs of ELT books to analyze the sequential pattern of organization and genre structure they are following to introduce the books. Moreover, it aims to identify what aspects of language material developers consider as primary and if the choice of language aspects is affected by teaching trends and methodologies in vogue during different eras of ELT. To this aim first, the blurbs of 50 books from different decades were analyzed for their moves and step sequence using the approach of Swales (1990) to genre analysis and next, a content analysis of the blurbs was carried outemployingWordtools Software for word counts and concordances. Finally, the most frequent items were investigated with regard to different trends of language teaching and methodologies to determine if the change of focus on different aspects of language was reflected in back cover blurbs. Analysis of results indicated a four-move schematic structure including situating the text as a product, situating the text as a process, establishing credentials, and presenting the accompaniments each of which having its own steps. The analysis of concordances and word frequencies also identified grammar and vocabulary as most frequent words in all decades indicating theircentral role during all language teaching methods and approaches with theimplication that there is at timesa disparity between what theorists recommend as the basis of syllabus design and material development and what material developers and teachers deemprimaryfor students and thus a disassociation between espoused theory and theory-in-use

کلیدواژه ها:

back cover burbs ، genre analysis ، concordance