Page 390 - Janja Žmavc in Igor Ž. Žagar, Kako so Evropejci odkrili neznane dežele in se spoznali z novimi ljudstvi, Evropa v slovenskih osnovnošolskih učbenikih, Dissertationes 14
P. 390
Kako so Evropejci odkrili neznane dežele ...
allel with or lean against the everyday, stereotypic, ideological notion that
origins in the various political conceptions from the second half of 20th
century and can be identified mostly in the context of the media coverage.
Our primary research tools represent methods of quantitative and qual-
itative analysis. With the first ones we are trying to grasp some of the fun-
damental characteristics of the whole text corpus and measure the fre-
quency of uses of “Europe”. Since Europe is more often used in the histo-
ry textbooks either as a reference point or as a topic, our analysis is based
on this material and then compared to the uses in the geography and citi-
zenship education textbooks. Quantification of the uses of Europe in the
selected material shows that there is no substantial difference between the
eight and the nine year primary school regarding the frequency of use. In
both types of history textbooks Europe appears frequently and is mostly
used as a geographical and/or geopolitical notion in the framework of top-
ics that refer to the modern history.
Our qualitative methods are based on the concepts of linguistic prag-
matics and they help us to investigate the dynamics of meaning genera-
tion of Europe in the selected textbook materials, where we try to point
out the “problematic” and “unproblematic” uses of Europe. Through the
selected examples we shed light on the contextual characteristics of the
uses of Europe (such as the wider context, the immediate context of situa-
tion and the linguistic context), then we present the uses of Europe in the
framework of the “textbook writing” as a specific activity type. As a case
of different strategies of meaning generation of Europe, which are partic-
ularly based on the interaction between the explicit and the implicit, we
demonstrate the so called “vague uses” as well as four different problem-
atic uses of Europe that can be found in the selected textbooks and con-
tain elements of ideological representations of Europe. They are: 1) Euro-
centrism and the exclusions of non-European perspectives from represen-
tations of events, processes, people and institutions; 2) representations of
Europe from the perspective of national and/or current political interests;
3) uncritical treatment of events, processes, people, institutions in the con-
text of positive representations of Europe; 4) stereotypical representations
of Europe through the un-/less-civilized “Other”.
In the last part of the book we present a text corpus of all the instances
regarding Europe that can be found in the selected textbook. The structure
of the corpus provides various options for further analysis, not only on the
textual level of the selected material, but also on the level of visual elements
that accompany the uses of Europe in the textbooks.
allel with or lean against the everyday, stereotypic, ideological notion that
origins in the various political conceptions from the second half of 20th
century and can be identified mostly in the context of the media coverage.
Our primary research tools represent methods of quantitative and qual-
itative analysis. With the first ones we are trying to grasp some of the fun-
damental characteristics of the whole text corpus and measure the fre-
quency of uses of “Europe”. Since Europe is more often used in the histo-
ry textbooks either as a reference point or as a topic, our analysis is based
on this material and then compared to the uses in the geography and citi-
zenship education textbooks. Quantification of the uses of Europe in the
selected material shows that there is no substantial difference between the
eight and the nine year primary school regarding the frequency of use. In
both types of history textbooks Europe appears frequently and is mostly
used as a geographical and/or geopolitical notion in the framework of top-
ics that refer to the modern history.
Our qualitative methods are based on the concepts of linguistic prag-
matics and they help us to investigate the dynamics of meaning genera-
tion of Europe in the selected textbook materials, where we try to point
out the “problematic” and “unproblematic” uses of Europe. Through the
selected examples we shed light on the contextual characteristics of the
uses of Europe (such as the wider context, the immediate context of situa-
tion and the linguistic context), then we present the uses of Europe in the
framework of the “textbook writing” as a specific activity type. As a case
of different strategies of meaning generation of Europe, which are partic-
ularly based on the interaction between the explicit and the implicit, we
demonstrate the so called “vague uses” as well as four different problem-
atic uses of Europe that can be found in the selected textbooks and con-
tain elements of ideological representations of Europe. They are: 1) Euro-
centrism and the exclusions of non-European perspectives from represen-
tations of events, processes, people and institutions; 2) representations of
Europe from the perspective of national and/or current political interests;
3) uncritical treatment of events, processes, people, institutions in the con-
text of positive representations of Europe; 4) stereotypical representations
of Europe through the un-/less-civilized “Other”.
In the last part of the book we present a text corpus of all the instances
regarding Europe that can be found in the selected textbook. The structure
of the corpus provides various options for further analysis, not only on the
textual level of the selected material, but also on the level of visual elements
that accompany the uses of Europe in the textbooks.
