Disciplinary Acculturation: A Comparative Study of Intradiscourse Cycles of English and Persian Introductory Textbooks of Sociology and Linguistics

The present study aimed at investigating the specific discourse cycles of someintroductory textbooks across disciplines and languages to see to what extent theyacculturate students into the new subjects. To this end, 2 well-established and mostlyused English and Persian introductory textbooks in sociology and 2 other wellestablishedEnglish and Persian introductory textbooks in linguistics were examined.The study was conducted with reference to Love’s (as cited in Hewings, 2006)suggested framework for the analysis of introductory textbooks. The texts wereanalyzed in terms of the intradiscourse cycles. Then, the introductory textbooksfrom the 2 disciplines were compared and contrasted in order to determine theirsimilarities and differences in acculturating students into the discipline. Resultsshowed that though in the English introductory textbooks, the cycles either startedwith theory, data, or culminated in cutting-edge, real time problematization, in thePersian texts, the cycles less frequently culminated in problematization of theinterpretive process. The study suggests that this kind of analysis enhances bothteachers’ and students’ knowledge concerning the process of acculturation into theirdisciplines.