Pre-publication version of Gray, J.

(2010) The Branding of English of English

and the Culture of the New Capitalism: representations of the world of work in
English language textbooks, Applied Linguistics, 31/5: 714-733.
Introduction
The global explosion of commercial English language teaching (hereafter ELT) is
largely coterminous with the arrival of the so-called new capitalism (Fairclough
2002; Gee et al. 1996; Sennett 2006) ushered in during the Thatcher and Reagan
periods. Central to the exponential rise in commercial ELT is the development of a
sizeable and financially lucrative publishing industry in which textbooks aimed at the
global market are core products. As has been argued elsewhere (van Dijk 2008), such
artefacts can be seen not only as mediating tools of subject knowledge, but also as
organs for the ideological reproduction and legitimation of particular constructions of
reality (Apple and Christian-Smith 1991: 3). In 1990, as the countries of the exSoviet Union prepared themselves for a shock therapy approach to the introduction
of market economies (Klein 2007; Stuckler et al. 2009; iek 2009), The Economist
magazines Intelligence Unit published a detailed report on the state of English
language teaching throughout the region (McCallan 1990). The report noted with
approval that the state school sector in most countries was ill-prepared to meet the
anticipated demand for English and urged the rapid development of private sector
provision. In this way, it was suggested the state sector would find it difficult to catch
up, while at the same time British ELT would find itself well-placed to promote
further opportunities for British trade. In paving the ground for the development of
markets favourable to the UK, the timely provision of ELT textbooks was identified
as a strategic initial move (Gray 2002). Such a perspective, underlining the way in
which ELT is imbricated in the extension of a globalised capitalist economy,
resonates with analyses both within applied linguistics (Phillipson 1992; Pennycook
1994) and beyond. Thus Ives (2006: 136-137), writing from the perspective of
political science, has suggested that the teaching of English in the global private
sector is a crucial element of an international business class structure which
facilitates the growth and spread of multinational corporations and trade. Although
Ives does not mention textbooks, the specific role that the content of such mediating
tools might play in this process is one that merits attention.

Textbook analysis
1

My approach to the study of textbooks has its roots in cultural studies and in
particular the work of Du Gay et al. (1997) and their seminal study of the construction
and circulation of meanings associated with the Sony Walkman. Du Gay et al. (1997)
argue that culture is an endlessly recursive process of meaning making and meaning
taking. Their theoretical model for conducting a cultural study known as the circuit
of culture (ibid: 3) analyses five key moments in the life of a cultural artefact:
representation; identity; production; regulation; and consumption. From this
perspective, textbooks can be seen not simply as curriculum artefacts (Apple and
Christian-Smith 1991: 4), but also as cultural artefacts or communicative acts
(Singapore Wala 2003a) which serve to make English mean in particular ways
although the meanings which are inscribed on the page cannot ultimately be
guaranteed. As Hall (1980) has argued, the dominant-hegemonic position in which the
reader accepts the preferred meaning is only one of several reading positions which
are possible. And indeed research confirms that oppositional readings do occur and
that teachers and students can seek to subvert specific ideological content
(Canagarajah 1999; Gray 2010). However, in this paper my focus is on the inscription
of meanings rather than on the ways in which such meanings may be challenged in
the classroom. Here I am concerned primarily with identifying what Du Gay et al.
(1997) refer to as the representational repertoires related to the world of work
namely the stock of ideas, images and linguistic choices which are deployed in the
creation of meanings, and the identifications that these seek to create in readers. The
rationale for this choice is that work is a recurrent theme in ELT textbooks aimed at
the global market (Gray 2010), and also because the specific discourse of new
capitalism (see below) represents the world of work along ideological lines which
have been transformed since the 1980s (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007).

The global coursebook

The textbooks analysed here are all examples of global coursebooks that is, they
each form part of an incremental general English course aimed at the global market.
These commodities, generally produced by prestigious UK academic publishers and
frequently marketed aggressively to compete with locally produced materials
(Thomas 1999), are increasingly accompanied by a range of expensive technological
2

supplements (Masuhara et al. 2008). Consumed primarily by the global commercial

sector, they are also used in colleges, university language centres and in some state
schools. In general, they differ from materials produced to meet the curriculum
requirements of state education or many of those designed to enable students to
develop a particular skill such as reading or writing. Indeed textbooks such as these
may deploy very different representational repertoires - thus the former are frequently
more educational in orientation (e.g. the Ministry of Education requirement of a
culture syllabus in textbooks produced for the Italian state school market). The latter,
on the other hand, can be more serious in tone and aim to produce greater engagement
with specific topics as a way of developing a particular skill (e.g. Wallaces (2004)
reading and writing textbook which contains readings drawn from sources such as
The British Journal of Psychology). Given the need to maximise sales in the greatest
number of markets, the thematic content of global courses is highly regulated by ELT
publishers, whether through guidelines for authors which may list supposedly
controversial topics to avoid (e.g. politics, religion, sex) or through more informal
editorial advice (see Gray 2010 for detailed discussion). One of the effects of this
regulation is that generations of successful ELT global courses rely on a narrow range
of topics and tend to resemble each other although, as we shall see, there are
exceptions (cf. Singapore Walas (2003b) case study of commercial considerations in
a local market). Not surprisingly, many of these materials have been criticised for
their pedagogical shortcomings and the highly selective representational repertoires
they deploy in the construction of mainly benign versions of a globalizing world
(Wajnryb 1996; Tomlinson et al. 2001; Tomlinson 2003; Masuhara et al. 2008; Gray
2010)i .
At the same time, Wajnryb (1996) and Leung (2005: 137) have also been
critical of their representation of language, with the latter arguing that their
reductionist and static idealizations are at best partial representations of social
reality a feature which he suggests stems from the absence of any serious
ethnographic orientation to language-in-use in textbook production and which
Wajnryb (ibid) suggests effectively turns language into a manageable, indeed a
marketable product ... more like a discrete item on a shop-shelf. An appropriate (if
pedagogically questionable) strategy, one might conclude, for the commodification of
English as a global lingua franca. Before addressing the representational repertoires

related specifically to the world of work, I now consider briefly some key features of
the new capitalism.

The new capitalism

Following Doogan (2009) I take the view that what is new about contemporary
capitalism is the extent to which it is characterised by the ideology and the practices
of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism refers to the political and philosophical ideas
originating in the work of Friedrich von Hayek who argued that an unfettered market
economy was the only means of preserving a free political order and that the whole
conception of social or distributive justice (Hayek 1978: 110) being pursued by many
post-war social democratic European governments was the enemy of this version of
freedom - what future generations of media commentators in the UK would refer to as
the nanny state. According to the neoliberal view, the role of government is
primarily to guarantee and extend the reach of the market. Hence the deregulation of
financial markets; the privatization of state assets; and the marketization of areas of
life which were previously seen as the preserve of the state (to list but a few of the
interventions associated with neoliberal government).
The enthusiastic uptake of these ideas in Britain and the US entailed a
reconfiguration of the public sphere with implications both for language and the world
of work (discussed by Fairclough (2006) under the heading of globalism). Thus we
see the rise in customer care culture, the accompanying communication skills
training and the imposition of regimes of scripted and stylized talk in the work place
(Cameron 2000; Bourdieu and Wacquant 2001). More recently Holborow (2007) has
referred to the re-semanticisation of the lexical field of business to include more and
more areas of life, such that in modern Ireland even asylum seekers are positioned as
customers of the Irish state in official documentation. As Cameron (2000) has pointed
out, such changes fulfil the important ideological function of establishing the market
as the model for all interaction in the public sphere. At the same time, with regard to
foreign language learning, Heller (2003) argues that the new economy (Castells
2000) results in the commodification of language, as languages are learnt increasingly
in terms of their perceived usefulness for employment (see also Block 2008; Tan and
Rubdy 2008).

One of the many consequences of these changes is that the world of work
becomes both highly insecure and stressful (Bourdieu 1998; Sennett 2006; Stuckler et
al. 2009). Castells (2000:12) also sees the emergence of two kinds of labour in this
economy what he calls self-programmable and generic labour. The former is
described as labour which is equipped with the ability to retrain itself, and adapt to
new tasks, new processes and new sources of information, as technology, demand and
management speed up their rate of change (ibid: 12). Such labour is referred to by
Bauman (2007: 9) as having zero drag, a term which originated in Silicon Valley in
the late 1990s and refers positively to the kind of employee who is able to switch jobs
and countries with a minimum of effort. Generic labour, on the other hand is
exchangeable and disposable, and co-exists in the same circuits with machines and
with unskilled labour from around the world (ibid: 12). It is those in this second
group who are most disadvantaged in the neoliberal economy.
While this state of affairs has provoked varieties of critique (Hertz 2002;
Harvey 2005; Fairclough 2006; Doogan 2009), others have seen and celebrated a
brave new world of risk and opportunity. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the
self-help literature aimed at white collar workers, which argues that the
reconfiguration of the world of work requires nothing short of a reconfiguration of the
self and it is in this respect that I will argue that parallels with ELT textbooks
become most apparent.

Reconfiguration of the self

With regard to the reconfiguration of the self in the new capitalism, Klein (2000),
Cameron (2000) and Lury (2004) all refer to the work of the self-styled marketing
guru Tom Peters, who argues that the way for individuals to survive in a neoliberal
climate is effectively to brand themselves in order to stand out from the growing army
of generic labour. In the same way that commodities are branded to give them a
distinct market identity, it is suggested that individuals too need to image and promote
themselves along similar lines (cf. Bauman 2007). For those with sufficient
wherewithal, the challenge of the new capitalism is enthusiastically presented as a
matchless opportunity for liberation (Peters 2008: x). The blurb on Peters (2008)
self-help manual The Brand You 50: Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an

Employee into a Brand that Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!

addresses the reader in a hectoring style which sets the tone for the entire volume:
The fundamental unit in todays economy is the individual, a.k.a. YOU! Jobs
are performed by temporary networks that disband when the project is done.
So to succeed you have to think of yourself as a freelance contractor-Brand
You! (bold in original).
Peters assessment is entirely congruent (although from an altogether different
perspective) with that of Castells (2000) and Bauman (2007) - namely, that selfprogrammable labour with zero drag is what the new capitalism requires and values.
To become a brand, Peters recommends what can be identified as six broad steps.
Firstly, there is the need to be distinct individuals, he suggests, need to break out of
the pack and give full rein to their individuality and their quirkiness if they are to be
noticed. Secondly, there is the need to be committed. Individuals have to be prepared
to put in the work that is necessary to create a brand identity. Thirdly, there is the
need for passion. Here Peters points out that the successfully branded individuals to
whom he frequently refers, such as Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and Steven
Spielberg, are consistently passionate about the work they do. Fourthly, he argues for
the need to think and act strategically and he suggests that people who seek success
can get to the top through being prepared to move sideways within an organisation or
even to move downwards, as this can be an opportunity to learn new skills which may
be of use later on. And of course, being strategic can also mean being prepared to
relocate. Fifthly, he suggests that individuals should exercise choice and only do work
that is cool and fun; and finally, he urges his readers to begin branding themselves
immediately if they wish to succeed in a rapidly changing world. With this in mind, I
turn in the following sections to the textbooks themselves.

Criteria for selection and methodology

For this paper I have revisited a small set of textbooks analysed in another study
(Gray 2010): Streamline Connections (Hartley and Viney 1979); Building Strategies
(Abbs and Freebairn 1984); The New Cambridge English Course 2 (Swan and Walter
1990); and The New Edition New Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars 2003a).
The selection of these courses was based on the fact that they are recognised within

the industry as major global bestsellers (OUP, personal communication, 2000; UK

booksellers Waterstones, personal communication, 2004). However, given the
spectacular success of the Headway course since its first publication in 1986, I have
augmented this sample by including an additional set of textbooks from the series.
This course has been described by Holliday (2005: 41) as one of the cultural icons
of Western TESOL that is as a revered and commercially successful artefact
which exerts a powerful influence on textbook design and pedagogic practice
globally. Sales figures for the Headway course are not available, but one editor I
spoke to admitted that sales from the course alone were sufficient to fund an entire
publishing house (OUP, personal communication, 2000). I have also included a
further two textbooks from the Cutting Edge course as examples of what another
contemporary bestselling course contains. Altogether the additional textbooks are:
New Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars1996); New Headway UpperIntermediate (Soars and Soars 1998); New Headway Elementary (Soars and Soars
2000a); New Headway Pre-Intermediate (Soars and Soars 2000b); New Headway
Advanced (Soars and Soars 2003b); New Headway Upper-Intermediate (Soars and
Soars 2005); New Cutting Edge Intermediate (Cunningham and Moor 2005a); New
Cutting Edge Upper-Intermediate (Cunningham and Moor 2005b).
In identifying the representational repertoires related to the world of work I
initially adopted a content analysis approach and began by counting the number of
units in each textbook which used the topic of work for a skills-based or grammarbased activity. In this way, (following scholars such as Littlejohn 1992 and Sercu
2000) I was able to make quantitative statements about the extent of work as a theme
across each textbook (see Table 1 where these are represented proportionally). I then
followed this up with a more qualitative analysis in which I sought to identify the
correlations between representations of the world of work and the specific values
associated with the new capitalism. My approach here was to code any work-related
text which explicitly featured self-programmable labour, zero drag, or individuals
who displayed any of the Brand You characteristics as indexing new capitalist values.
Take, for example, the following profile of a young businessman:

Roberto came from Acapulco to New York ten years ago. At first he missed
everything the sunshine, the food, his girlfriend. But now he has a successful
business with his three brothers and his sister. They run a soccer store in New

Brunswick. Robertos girlfriend is now his wife, and they have two children
who go to American schools.
When asked why he came to the US, Roberto says without hesitation,
Because I wanted to work hard and be successful. He certainly works hard.
Hes at the store all day, then works as a driver in the evening. Thats why I
like America, he says. You can be what you want (Soars and Soars 2000:
19).
New capitalist values are evident in Robertos relocation to New York in pursuit of
professional success, his commitment to hard work (confirmed by the authorial
voice), and his endorsement of the US as a place where individual choice can be
freely exercised. It is important to point out that this is a positive correlation with new
capitalism (reinforced by a smiling photograph of the handsome young Roberto).
Negative correlations, in which aspects of the new capitalism are seen as problematic,
are rare in the data base and the few that do exist are referred to in the analysis below.
At the same time, the following profile of a shopkeeper, although coded as
being about work, was not correlated with any of the values outlined above:

My uncle is a shopkeeper. He has a shop in an old village by the River

Thames near Oxford. The shop sells a lot of things bread, milk, fruit,
vegetables, newspapers almost everything! It is also the village post office.
The children in the village always stop to spend a few pence on sweets or icecream on their way home from school.
My uncle doesnt often leave the village. He hasnt got a car, so once a
month he goes by bus to Oxford and has lunch at the Grand Hotel with some
friends. He is one of the happiest people I know (ibid: 33).
I now turn in the following section to the nature of the representational repertoires
identified and discuss these in greater detail.

The world of work in ELT textbooks

[TABLE 1 NEAR HERE]

As can be seen in Table 1, the world of work features in all the textbooks analysed but
varies considerably in terms of the actual numbers of units which explicitly address
the topic. That said, although a textbook such as Cambridge English 2 has only three
units in which the world of work is salient as a topic, none of which can be correlated
with new capitalism, its cast of female characters which feature in other units are

often marked as being distinct by virtue of the less traditional jobs many of them do
(e.g. assault course leader, taxi driver, pilot and explorer) although in many cases
these jobs are mentioned only in passing. As I will show below, the qualitative
analysis of the textbooks suggests an evolution over the period towards an increased
focus on individualism, concomitant with a Brand You perspective and, in general, a
celebratory view of the world of work as a means to personal fulfilment. Streamline
Connections (Hartley and Viney 1979), which appeared as the neoliberal era was
beginning to take shape, is interesting in this respect. Here the world of work is often
represented negatively and textbook characters regularly complain about work or are
represented as workshy. The following extract typifies this approach:
Wendy: Hello Charles you look tired today.
Charles: Yes, Im working too hard.
Wendy: You should take a holiday.
Charles: Yes, I know I should but were just too busy. Im working twelve
hours a day.
Wendy: Twelve hours! Youre going to kill yourself!
Charles: What can I do?
Wendy: Perhaps you should change your job.
Charles: I cant I need the money! (ibid: Unit 38, no pagination).
This is similar to representations of work identified by Leahy (2004) in her study of
contemporary German grammar books namely an association with deontic modality
(I need the money); a negative impact on health (you look tired; Youre going to
kill yourself); and feelings of powerlessness (were just too busy; What can I do?;
I cant). Elsewhere in the textbook the recurring figure of the boss (the aptly
named Mr Power) is represented variously as paternalistic and authoritarian (also
congruent with Leahy 2004), and work itself is frequently seen as repetitive or as
something which infringes on the pursuit of happiness or personal autonomy.
However, from the 1980s onwards the world of work is represented in a more
consistently positive light and characters repeatedly display distinction, commitment
and passion in relation to their chosen careers in which they begin to achieve
increasingly spectacular success. With the exception of two titles (other than
Streamline Connections), Table 1 shows a close correlation overall between
representations of work and new capitalist values. It should also be said that there is
considerable overlap between the Brand You characteristics themselves thus
successful characters may achieve distinction through their exercise of personal
9

choice or as a result of their commitment and passion. In many cases those who are
distinct are also women a feature which reflects the profound and enduring impact
of feminism on all post-Streamline courses produced in the UK. Thus in all the
textbooks surveyed we find women who stand out on account of their success in the
world of business, science, politics, sport, the arts and the media, alongside those who
are distinct through their choice of non-traditional or quirkier occupations (e.g. clown,
racing driver, plumber). Such characters, when profiled in detail, are invariably
presented for student approval. This can happen in a variety of ways: characters, their
jobs or their lifestyles may be positively evaluated by the authorial voice of the text;
they may be positively evaluated by others mentioned in the text; they may positively
evaluate their own jobs and the rewards they bring; and/or the accompanying artwork
may be designed so as to elicit a positive emotional response in the viewer - what in
multimodal terms is referred to as sensory orientation (Kress and van Leewuen
1996), whereby the image is softened, coloured or otherwise manipulated to enhance
its impact or its attractiveness to the viewer.
An early example combining several such representational modes is found in
the profile of ice skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean (Abbs and Freebairn
1984). The text, which features a colour photograph of the skaters bathed in a warm
golden light, is printed in white against a black background with the heading The
Perfect Pair in a font which is suggestive of neon lighting. In addition to the
evaluative adjective in the title, the authorial voice also mentions their incredible
scores and quotes from journalists evaluations Unbelievably brilliant! [] They
are not just the best, theyre the best ever! (ibid: 25). Public evaluation is also
included through the listing of character adjectives thus, Everyone agrees that
Jayne and Christopher are two nice people. They are quiet, shy, polite and not at all
spoilt by their success (ibid). In terms of their commitment and passion, the text
describes how those who wish to succeed as ice skaters must give up their whole
lives to their training (ibid), an assessment echoed by a direct quotation from Jayne:
You have to practise all the time, says Jayne simply (ibid). In this case the
association with deontic modality indexes their commitment to distinction, rather than
any infringement of personal agency. As Jayne explains:

Our aim in life is not to own a house and a car and to bring up children. It is to
do something different, to achieve something special (ibid).

10

Zero drag and individual choice are also evident in the same textbook. Thus,
Rod Nelson, a young electrical engineer and one of the central characters, relocates
from Canada to Bristol in the first unit. Profiled in the local newspaper as someone
making a new start (ibid: 18), Rod answers the question Why did you leave
Canada? as follows:
I was bored. I worked in the same office and saw the same people and did the
same thing every day. I needed a change. I wanted adventure (ibid).
In fact all the key characters in Building Strategies relocate, plan to relocate or have
relocated as part of their working lives invariably impelled by individual choice, and
in flight from boredom or in pursuit of fun, challenge, or improved working
conditions. In the case of production manager Jack Cooper, Rods colleague at work,
the decision to relocate to France is linked to his frustration at industrial unrest in the
Bristol factory. He eventually opts for the personal and professional challenge of
remaking his life abroad away from the threat of strikes. Thus, while the postConnections textbooks analysed do not ignore that work can be problematic, the
treatment and individual responses to work-related problems tends to resonate with
the Brand You imperative to take control and to look out for oneself.
Textbook characters do on occasion lose their jobs so, for example, Roger
Dromard, a fictional office worker (Soars and Soars 1996) tells his story in a unit
entitled Happiness! In what could be an anecdote from Peters (2008) manual on
how to deal with company downsizing, he begins:
Dyou know the best thing that ever happened to me? Dyou know what it
was? It was when I lost my job. Yes, really! I never liked it hated it in fact
stuck in an office all day with computers and a telephone. Now my hobby is
my full-time job! (Soars and Soars 1996: 127).
Losing his job is presented as an opportunity to take control and set himself up in
business as a gardener. This attitude, both to the old job and to the opportunity
presented by its loss, is similar to that expressed by Peters (2008: 13), who concludes
that in the new capitalism, Our lives are more precarious. But theyve been given
back to us. The challenge: What are we going to make of them? Self-employment (or

11

becoming CEO of your own life, as Peters puts it), certainly for some textbook
characters, is presented as an unproblematic option.
In fact Roger Dromard is replaced in the 2003 edition of the same textbook by
college graduate Jeff Norman who has chosen to do what could be seen as a low
status job working as a paperboy so that, as he says, he can do what he wants in his
free time. In this way the strategic move downwards advocated by Peters is given a
somewhat different emphasis. However, as the text clarifies, Jeff runs his own
business and earns $60,000 a year, with an additional $50 a week in tips. This profile
is in strong contrast to that of the highly successful, globe-trotting lawyer Sidney Fisk
featured on the previous page of the same textbook. His commitment to hard work
(Hes paid very well, but he usually has to work long hours (Soars and Soars 2003:
15)) and his zero drag (At the moment hes working in Mexico, and next week hes
travelling to France (ibid)) clearly resonate with new capitalist values. However, the
text suggests that he may not be happy. As elsewhere in the data base (see below),
such negative correlations are counter balanced by more celebratory accounts such
as that of Jeff Norman who may be said to have risen to the challenge of the new
capitalism more effectively.
Individuals such as Jeff may be said to openly reject Fordist working practices
in favour of the more insecure but more (supposedly) satisfying rewards of postFordist flexibility and autonomy (see Harvey 1989; Ritzer 1992). In the Headway
course the rat race is either something to be pursued enthusiastically or
unproblematically abandoned. Those who voluntarily downsize invariably
demonstrate the wherewithal to reinvent themselves along lines more in keeping with
their own personal desires and inclinations. Thus, in a section on dream jobs (Soars
and Soars 2003a: 58-59), the fictional Linda Spelman explains how she gave up her
job as a lawyer to pursue a more fulfilling life as a trapeze artist. When asked for
advice she says, Id say to anyone with a dream Go for it! You only live once, so
why stay in a boring job (ibid: 59). Throughout these representations of the world of
work there is a clear ideology of individualism in operation. These characters are what
Probyn (1990) in another context has referred to as members of a choiceoise that
is members of a group whose lifestyle choices are largely unaffected by personal,
financial or social constraints of any kind. As Bauman (2005) explains, it is the
freedom to exercise choice within consumer society which indexes social status, and
in such a society, typified by the aestheticization of ever more aspects of human
12

activity and experience (Bourdieu 1984; Harvey 1989; Featherstone 1991), work too
is increasingly evaluated in terms of its glamour, sensation or fulfilment potential.
And it is precisely this kind of work which is celebrated repeatedly in these textbooks.
At the same time, there are two further points to make with regard to the
representation of the world of work the first has to do with specific reference to the
instability and stressfulness of life in the neoliberal climate and the second with the
increasing importance of celebrity. In the following example we find a group of
young people talking specifically about employment. Alex Williams, a fictional 24
year old marketing account manager says:
Theres no such thing as a job for life these days. Employers can make you
redundant as soon as theres a downturn, so people dont feel the same loyalty.
A lot of my friends are changing their jobs to boost their career prospects. I
expect Ill have several jobs before Im 30, and I hope Ill have several
careers. I dont want to do the same thing for ever. Im going for an interview
next week. More money, more responsibility (Soars and Soars 2005: 50).

This perspective on the world of work is essentially that of self-programmable labour

and resonates with Peters (2008: 197) advice to Just say No to Loyalty!. So
although the employment market is seen as precarious (Theres no such thing as a job
for life these days), this state of affairs accords with Alexs own inclinations (I dont
want to do the same thing for ever). That said, two of the seven characters
interviewed provide bleaker assessments of the economic climate and two rare
negative correlations with new capitalist values. Peter Jamieson, a trainee manager
and Ellie Green, a corporate lawyer say they are worried about job security and not
being able to afford to buy their own house. But as Doogan (2007: 3) has pointed out,
new capitalist discourse is also one of precariousness and insecurity - in fact it is
presented as the price of freedom in Peters (2008) narrative. However, the majority
of the characters interviewed are enthusiastic about the challenge this presents. Thus
Bob West, a fictional plumber from London who is keen to relocate, says:
Im saving money, and as soon as my application has been processed, Im
going to leave the country and live in Canada. Now theres a country that
encourages young people and enterprise!

13

As with choice, enterprise can be seen as a key term in neoliberal discourse.

Cameron (2000: 7), referring to enterprise culture (rather than to neoliberalism per
se), suggests that enterprise connotes values such as the resourcefulness, selfdiscipline, openness to risk and change that enable people to succeed in bold and
difficult undertakings. Bobs enthusiasm to relocate to a country which encourages
such values may be said to signal his more general subscription to the rules of the
neoliberal game.
In fact, enterprise is celebrated throughout the Headway course. In New
Headway Advanced (Soars and Soars 2003b: 14) Vijay and Bhikhu Patel, the
pharmaceutical company owners and joint winners of the 2001 Ernst & Young
Entrepreneur of the Year award, are interviewed at length about how they built their
multimillion-pound business after arriving in the UK with just five pounds between
them. The reading activity which introduces a series of listening and speaking
exercises about the brothers carries an evaluative subheading The inspiring tale of
two Asian brothers who fled to Britain from East Africa and made a fortune (ibid:
14), and in the speaking exercise which follows, students are asked to say in what
ways the Patels are good role models for young people. The Patel brothers and the late
Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop who is profiled in another unit, are
examples of what iek (2008: 14) refers to ironically as liberal communists that
is philanthropic capitalists who provide a much-needed human face for the new
capitalism. Thus Vijay Patel states that he would like to be a role model, for anybody
who wants to be somebody tomorrow, adding that, if I can touch one life, then my
job in this lifes done (Soars and Soars 2003b: 133). Anita Roddick, talking about the
entrepreneurial mindset, explains that the money we make is of no interest to us, and
aligns herself with those who are outside the system and for whom wealth simply
allows you to be generous (ibid: 135). Of course, as iek (2008: 14) argues, the
claim that we can have the global capitalist cake, i.e. thrive as profitable
entrepreneurs, and eat it, too, i.e. endorse the anti-capitalist causes of social
responsibility and ecological concern is open to question. From the perspective of the
new capitalism, such philanthropy (however well-intentioned) serves to offset
potential appeals to the need for structural change.
At the same time, there is recognition that such a benign view of the new
capitalism is not shared by everyone (Soars and Soars 2003b). The same textbook
reproduces an article from the left-leaning New Internationalist magazine which is
14

openly critical of economic globalisation and consumer culture in particular.

However, in the speaking exercise which follows the reading, the students are invited
to question the authorial stance as follows: The writer holds strong views on these
issues. Can you present some counter-arguments?, and then to get the critique
started, the textbook provides the following example: Multinational corporations
keep prices down (ibid: 28). This is one of the few instances of students being
encouraged to read against the text that I have encountered and it is significant that it
is on this particular topic. More common is the way in which students, elsewhere in
the course, are taught to talk the very specific talk of the new capitalism, as in the
following grammar exercise which asks them to select the appropriate expression in
bold and then to practise the dialogue:
A I dont know how you can afford to buy all those fabulous clothes!
B Still/Hopefully, Im going to get a bonus this month. I should do. My boss
promised it to me. After all/Presumably, I did earn the company over
100,000 last year. Basically/Actually, it was nearer 150,000. I do deserve
it, dont you think.
B Of course/In fact, you do (Soars and Soars 1996: 127).
Here the subject matter is not available for discussion (unless the teacher draws
attention to it) rather, it provides the unquestioned and un-remarked-upon content in
which language is contextualised.
However, more pervasive than such specific references to new capitalist
practises is the appearance and treatment of celebrity in all the textbooks analysed.
This merits attention given that the celebrity is the most recognisable type of branded
individual in consumer culture, but also because the neoliberal period is characterised
by a proliferation of celebrities and because celebrity is increasingly associated with a
wide range of jobs e.g. celebrity chefs, celebrity historians, celebrity doctors,
celebrity entrepreneurs, etc. It is worth noting that a textbook such as Corders (1960)
An Intermediate English Practice Book contains no reference to any celebrity of the
period and that ONeills (1970) English in Situations refers only indirectly to
celebrity. However, by the late 1970s explicit references to celebrity are much more
common. Table 2 lists the celebrities featured in Streamline Connections (Hartley
and Viney 1979) and New Cutting Edge Upper-Intermediate (Cunningham and Moor
2005b).
[TABLE 2 NEAR HERE]
15

This illustrates not only the new salience of celebrity in textbooks aimed at the
global market, but also the increase in the number of celebrities included over the
period. In this respect, The New Cutting Edge Upper-Intermediate is typical of the
textbooks in the sample dating from the mid 1990s. In fact, New Headway Advanced
(Soars and Soars 2003b) and New Cutting Edge Upper Intermediate (Cunningham
and Moor 2005b) both include a whole unit on the topic. The main reading text in the
latter is entitled How to be a celebrity and offers readers seven routes to achieving
celebrity status. The seventh is Create your own formula for success and includes
the following advice:
If you want to make it really big, dont take any established, familiar path to
celebrity and dont follow in anyone elses footprints. Create your own unique
route [] People like Oprah Winfrey, the Queen of Talk Shows, or Bill Gates,
the Chairman of Microsoft have reshaped and redefined an occupation and
even an industry in their own image. Their fame is assured (ibid: 85).
Although the unit does include a reading exercise in which it is suggested that
excessive interest in celebrity can be dangerous, students are also asked to invent a
celebrity persona to role play and to find out if their partner has got what it takes to
be a celebrity (ibid: 88). New Headway Advanced (Soars and Soars 2003b) adopts a
similar approach and includes a reading in which our (assumed) interest in celebrity is
seen as inevitable, if not altogether healthy, and at the same time asks students to
work in small groups and decide on ways of becoming an A-list celebrity. Other
exercises such as role playing and speculating about the lives of celebrities occur
throughout the textbook sample. Furthermore, celebrities lives, whether fictional or
non-fictional, are also repeatedly treated as examples of successful careers as we
saw earlier in the case of Torvill and Dean. Overall, the way in which celebrity
operates in consumer societies is largely unaddressed in the textbooks analysed
rather celebrity tends to function as an index of professional success and, especially
when accompanied by high quality photographic artwork, provides a veneer of
glamour.

Discussion
What then are we to make of such representations? Analysis of publishers guidelines
for authors and interviews with senior ELT publishers confirm that there is nothing
16

accidental about the nature of textbook content (Gray 2010). Taken together, I would
suggest they constitute what Althusser (1971) refers to as an interpellation that is,
a hailing to the ideological and subject position of white collar individualism in which
the world of work is overwhelmingly seen as a privileged means for the full and
intense realization of the self, along lines determined largely by personal choice. As
constructed in the majority of these materials, the world of work (and indeed the
world in general) is seen in highly idealised and aestheticised terms. But why should
this be the case? As suggested earlier, some languages are commodified in the
globalised economy in the sense that they are marketed primarily in terms of their
perceived economic usefulness. However, commodification in consumer culture also
entails branding - indeed the branding (and re-branding) of people, places, institutions
or languages is a pervasive feature of the new capitalism (see Wernick 1991; Lury
2004; Ritzer 2007). In an economy which is increasingly organised around attention
(Schroeder 2002: 3), branding becomes necessary if commodities are to be noticed
and if they are to be considered worth having. Essentially branding is about the
construction of a set of associations and a recognisable identity for products (whether
material or symbolic). Ultimately the aim is to create identifications through which
consumers can insert themselves into the world of the brand. In this respect the
representational repertoires deployed in these materials can be seen as part of the
branding of English as if it were a commodity like any other in the marketplace if
branding is understood to operate through association and hoped for identification on
the part of students, in this case with certain characters (e.g. celebrities) and certain
characteristics (e.g. distinction, commitment, passion, success, enterprise, and zero
drag). Elsewhere (Gray 2010) I have argued that the textual construction (and
imaging) of English in ELT coursebooks parallels the processes of commodity
promotion more generally. In the same way that the Sony Walkman was branded
through repeated association with mobility, leisure and youth (Du Gay et al. 1997)
and Benetton clothes through association with a particular discourse of
multiculturalism (Tinic 1997), so too is English, as represented in these materials,
given a specific identity. But the question remains as to why the branding takes the
form it does that is, why English is repeatedly endowed with a range of associations,
one set of which are congruent with the values of the new capitalism rather than any
other set of values.

17

One answer I think is to be found in the fact that neoliberalism has become, in
Harveys (2005: 3) words, hegemonic as mode of discourse. He continues:

It has pervasive effects on ways of thought to the point where it has become
incorporated into the common-sense way many of us interpret, live in, and
understand the world.
Neoliberalism and the values associated with it have in fact become naturalised in
many spheres. This is particularly so in commercial ELT, a lucrative global service
industry which places a high value on self-programmable teaching labour with zero
drag. The British Councils 2003 recruitment campaign for teachers which ran under
the heading Teach English and Individualism is entirely congruent with the culture
of the new capitalism (in EL Gazette 2003: 282:7) as indeed is the concomitant
casualization of minimally-trained labour which typifies many pockets of the
industry. A second answer is to be found in the publishers perception of the market.
In the interviews with ELT publishers mentioned above, textbook content in which
choice, individualism and spectacular professional success were central was
repeatedly referred to by interviewees as aspirational. That is, it was seen as
representing the kind of lifestyle students might aspire to and which (it was
suggested) would motivate them in their language learning.
Although Modiano (2001: 164) has speculated about the danger of
ontological imperialism implicit in English language teaching whereby the
learners mind is colonized through the acquisition of a foreign tongue, and
Phillipson (2008: 36) has argued that English as currently taught contributes to the
imperial production of subjectivities, very little is actually known about the impact of
such ideologically motivated content on students. Certainly it was the belief of
scholars such as I. A. Richards, a key figure in the development of Anglo-American
ELT, that the teaching of English had such potential (see Phillipson 1992, 2008). At
the same time, Canagarajah (1999) suggests that students do on occasion recognise
the ideologically motivated nature of certain content and seek to challenge it through,
for example, defacement or annotation of materials. Clearly there is a need for more
detailed research into how such content is perceived, the meanings students attribute
to it and any motivational appeal it may or may not have. Research into teachers
thinking, on the other hand, suggests that many teachers are indeed aware of the
ideological dimension of much global textbook content and that some find the
18

uncritical celebration of the lives of philanthropic capitalists and new capitalist values
problematic (Gray 2002, 2010). As one teacher put it, there is no criticism [] no
questioning [] no discussion or anything, whether this is like morally right or not
(Gray 2010: 157). Rather, another said, global textbooks engage in glorifying a kind
of middleclass for its eccentric individualism and conspicuous wealth which he felt
might be considered shallow in certain educational settings (ibid: 156). The same
teacher also made the case for critical pedagogy as a means of counteracting the
possibility of transferring a dominant culture to my students and to, even to myself
(ibid.), a remark which suggests that Modianos speculations may be justified in some
cases. As with all cultural artefacts, textbooks are products of the cultures which
produce them in this case the commercial culture of a powerful global industry. As
currently branded along lines which I have suggested are congruent with the values
and the culture of the new capitalism, it remains to be seen if the ongoing crisis in
neoliberal ideology occasioned by the 2008 financial crisis will necessitate a rebranding of commercial ELT along new ideological lines.

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Coursebook

Number of

Number of

22

Proportion

Number of

Proportion

Streamline
Connections
1979
Building
Strategies
1984
The New
Cambridge
English
Course 1990
The New
Edition New
Headway
2003
New
Headway
1996
New
Headway
UpperIntermediate
1998
New
Headway
Elementary
2000
New
Headway PreIntermediate
2000
New
Headway
Advanced
2003
New
Headway
UpperIntermediate
2005
New Cutting
Edge
Intermediate

units

units in
which work
is a major
theme

of workrelated
content

of new
capitalist
related
content

.15

workrelated
units
which
correlate
with new
capitalist
values
3

80

12

16

.56

.56

36

.08

12

.33

.33

12

.33

.33

12

.33

.33

14

.21

.21

14

.43

.02

12

.25

.25

12

.33

.33

12

.17

.17

23

.04

2005
New Cutting
12
2
.17
2
.17
Edge UpperIntermediate
2005
Table 1 Work-related and new capitalist-related units in the textbook sample
Streamline Connections
Miklos Nemeth; Alberto Juantorena; Bob
Beamon; Annegret Richter; Rosemarie
Ackermann; David Wilkie; Vasily
Alexeev; Paul McCartney; James Hunt;
UK Queen; J. F. Kennedy; Elvis Presley

New Cutting Edge Upper Intermediate

Jackson 5; Osmonds; Bee Gees; Corrs;
Oasis; Boom Kat; Britney Spears;
Eminem; Ozzy Osborne; Kelly Osborne;
Brian May; Freddie Mercury; Rowan
Atkinson; Halle Berry; Paul McCartney;
Ringo Star; Steve Redgrave; Ghandi;
Martin Luther King; Evana Trump; Bill
Gates; John Kennedy Jnr; Jade Jagger;
Princess Diana; Liz Hurley; Oprah
Winfrey; Tom Cruise; Robbie Williams;
Woody Allen; Marilyn Munroe; Arnold
Schwarzenegger; Alan Alda; Fred Allen;
Harrison Ford; Brad Pitt; David
Beckham; George Cluney; Jennifer
Lopez; Tony Blair; Madonna; Nicole
Kidman; Steven Spielberg; Ricky Martin;
John Lennon; Jennifer Aniston; Ralph
Fiennes; Hillary Clinton; Elvis Presley;
Kiera Knightley; Parminda Nagra;
Gurinder Chadha; Roman Polanski;
Nirvana

Table 2 Celebrities in Streamline Connections (Hartley and Viney 1979) and New
Cutting Edge Upper Intermediate (Cunningham and Moor 2005b).
I would like to thank Angela Leahy, Marnie Holborow, John Trushell and the peer
reviewers for their advice and comments on earlier versions of this paper.
i

See Dor (2006) for a nuanced discussion of the role of other languages in the global economy.

24