The representations of teacher identity in Spanish language didactic manuals: an enunciative reading

Abstract

The present text presents the results of a study on the representation of teacher identity in Spanish-language didactic books. The theoretical frame employed is the Enunciative theory by Benveniste, particularly the notion of subjectivity in language. We analyzed the written enunciation in a teacher’s manual and the teacher’s oral enunciation through the observation, recording and transcription of 4 hours of class. Among other aspects the category of person was analyzed. Our departing point was the interactive relation between I-you in the classroom, which allows the constitution of interactive subjects in language. We checked two working hypotheses: if the teacher follows closely the discourse of the manual he/she presents him/herself as a repeater of someone else’s discourse. If he/she does not repeat the manual, he/she then appears as the subject of his/her enunciation. We concluded that the teacher presented him/herself as a mediator between the book and the students, adopting his/her own discourse, but that the teacher and the students were dependent on the discourse in the book.