Welcome

Dear colleagues,
On behalf of the organizing committee, we have the pleasure to warmly welcome you to the national symposium on “Present and Future of English in Saudi Arabia: Research Concerns” which is organized by the College of Languages and Translation, King Khalid University. This symposium will be held at Abha during 25-26/12/1435 corresponding to 19-20/10/2014. The symposium shall include presentations to be given by distinguished speakers from Saudi universities ant it will focus on the following themes:

  • Language, literature and methodology
  • Language and culture
  • Language planning and the ELT curriculum
  • Language learning and technology

 

We look forward to welcoming you at the lovely city of Abha.

Cultural Changes in Saudi Textbooks: Patterns and Perspectives

Dr. Syed M. Faruk
Abstract—This paper investigates the cultural patterns in which English was contextualized in Saudi English textbooks published during the last 33 years and explains the continuity or discontinuity of the patterns by examining Saudi Arabia‘s progress through Wallerstein‘s (2006) modern world system. In order to put the changes in perspective, Saudi socio-economic and political developments during the state‘s movement from periphery towards the core through semi-periphery zones of the world system are discussed. The paper concludes that in the books published between 1982 and 1997 a pattern based on national culture was maintained, and almost the same pattern was followed in the books of the period between 1998 and 2012. The trend of pattern maintenance is still there in the books published recently in 2013 but there is a paradigm shift in terms of cultural elements—the national culture is almost replaced with the Western culture.
Keywords—Saudi Arabia, English textbooks, culture, world system, state, switchboard

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