LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND POWER: A CRITICAL READING OF THE INTERCHANGE ELT SERIES

Abstract

This study critically examines the Interchange English language teaching series as both a pedagogical resource and a cultural artifact, focusing on the relationships among language, culture, ideology, and power. Drawing on a qualitative, bibliographic, and documentary approach, the analysis discusses how global ELT materials construct and disseminate cultural representations through topics, dialogues, images, communicative situations, and references to popular culture. Particular attention is given to the concept of conversion culture, understood as the process through which learners may be exposed to culturally hegemonic ways of speaking, acting, consuming, and representing the world as desirable or normative models. The study also considers the predominance of Anglo-American cultural references, the representation of diversity, the role of editorial updates, and the tension between global marketability and local cultural realities. The discussion suggests that, although Interchange has progressively incorporated more diverse and contemporary representations, global teaching materials may still reproduce symbolic hierarchies associated with the international circulation of English. The study therefore emphasizes the importance of critical pedagogical mediation, the inclusion of learners’ local realities, and intercultural approaches that enable English to function not as a means of cultural assimilation, but as a resource for pluralistic and meaningful communication.