Discourse, ideology and Spanish Teaching: building spaces in Gente Textbook

Abstract

The present study analyzes the way the spaces and territories are projected in the textbook Gente (2007) and intends to contribute to teachers of Spanish as a second language in their critical selection of material. Two questions organize this work: what is announced at the beginning of the book? How is this announcement fulfilled? From a materialistic discourse analysis device (PÊCHEUX, 1997 [1969], 2009 [1975]) perspective, that sees the discourse in its physical form (linguistic and historic) and the language practices as spaces where politics and ideology are brought forward, we observe that, whether at Introduction regions, societies and cultures where “the Spanish” is spoken are announced – operating the recognition of the heterogeneity of the Hispanic world -, the realization inside the book is far from approaching them, building in its place the centrality of Spain, actually, of an image of Spain affected by a process of generalization/indetermination.