The pluricentricity of English and German in four coursebook series
Authors:   University of Szeged, Huber Máté Imre 
Published: December 2022

The present study is part of a complex research project, which, situated at the interface of sociolinguistics and language pedagogy, investigates the role of the pluricentricity of English and German in the Hungarian educational system. The focus of this study is on textbook families that are widely used and market leaders in Hungary, both in public education and in higher as well as adult education. The international literature on the pluricentricity of these two languages is extensive, and within it, the role of these languages in language teaching is receiving increasing attention. The comparative analysis upon which this paper is based analyses four textbook families (two English and two German ones) which are market leaders in Hungary, and cover the full range of proficiency levels from A1 to C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Thus, a total of 20 complete volumes (textbook, workbook, as well as supplementary and audio materials) are included in the analysis. Based on the recommendations of the relevant literature, which advocates the representation of pluricentricity primarily in the case of receptive skills, this paper examines the pluricentricity in three areas in language textbooks: (1) vocabulary, (2) reading comprehension, and (3) listening comprehension. The primary aim of the paper is to identify general trends, but to illustrate these, a number of specific examples are also analysed. The most fundamental finding of the study is that, in line with previous research, pluricentricity plays a rather marginal role in the textbook families studied. However, there are systematic differences between the textbook families published by different publishers, which suggests that it is possible to incorporate more pluricentric content in these materials, given an appropriate theoretical background and a sufficient degree of openness to linguistic variability. Although the differences resulting from pluricentricity are manifest at all levels of language, the textbook families studied focus almost exclusively on vocabulary differences, in some cases complemented by pronunciation. This is true not only of content aimed directly at developing vocabulary, but also of texts aimed at developing reading or listening comprehension. The study also looks at the thematic distribution of the pluricentric content, discovering significant anomalies, such as a strong over-representation of topics dealing with culinary specialities, especially in the case of German. On the positive side, compared with the results of previous studies of older publications from the same publisher, there is a greater emphasis on pluricentricity in the materials used today, which is an encouraging insight. The relevance and practical utility of this research is that it provides textbook publishers and curriculum developers with concrete, scientifically based recommendations based on the criticisms formulated on the basis of the scholarly analysis of the textbook families under study, which, if implemented, can bring language teaching and real language use closer together, and thus make the process of language learning more successful.