The Representation of Arabs and Turks in the Libyan English Language Teaching Textbooks

One of Critical Discourse Analysis’s characteristics (CDA) is describing discourse as a form of social practice where language use is construed as a socially influenced and influential factor that can utilise, produce, construct and shape social realities. CDA is committed to reveal connections between language use, power, and ideology with in any social practice. Therefore, this article seeks to explore how ‘the Orient’ is represented discursively in the English language textbooks used in Libyan schools. The article is confined to a passage is taken from the Social Sciences Year Two textbook. The study draws upon the discourse of Orientalism whilst the analysis is guided by an adapted framework of Fairclough's critical discourse analysis. The chosen passage reflects my particular position in relation to the discourse of Orientalism as described by Said in 1978. The article concludes, among other things, that the Arabs are collectively represented and discursively produced and constructed regardless the huge geographical space they live on. In addition, the Ottoman Empire is reduced discursively into the Turks. Language structures thus indicate a positive and limited picture of the Occident ‘Us’ and that ‘the Other’ ‘Them’ is presented in a negative and barbaric way. The study established that the role of the textbooks does not produce what they are supposed to. In this context, the authors need to dig deeply and reflect what they write upon the social reality of their target students and not from the lenses of the authors per se. In other words, ‘the Other’s social reality should not be manipulated or distorted