Ideologies in Textbooks for O Level by Foreign and Local Authors: A Study through Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Ideology is associated with a person’s belief system. The original impetus for the research study came from the need to explore the ideological manipulation and representation in Islamic Studies textbooks for the O level. To this end, this study focused on how ideologies are manipulated in the text and how the texts have been manipulated through ideologies. The study is exploratory and conducted through a qualitative research paradigm. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model is used to analyse the texts. Data were collected in the form of two textbooks of Islamic Studies titled ‘Islam: Beliefs and Practices’ by Yasmin Malik and ‘Islamiyat’ by David Thomas and Mustafa Draper. The findings revealed that the foreign authors used more linguistic devices of experimental values of vocabulary. On the other hand, the local author used more ideologically contested words and the experimental value of grammar analysis. It is recommended that the students should be provided with research-based content free from any kind of bias.