COLONIAL DISCOURSE IN SPANISH SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS

A CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

Abstract

In the present study, we propose a critical analysis of the discourse of a sample of History textbooks for the High School from a publishing house widely used in Spanish secondary schools (Grupo Anaya S.A.). The objective of the research is the identification of enunciative regularities that allow us to describe and analyze the different discursive mechanisms and semiotic resources through which the colonial discourse is constructed. The data collection, in the form of discursive fragments obtained from textbooks, has been organized into the following categories of analysis: place of enunciation (legal-political context and authorship), discursive genre, which is determined by presenting the information, and linguistic mechanisms involved in the construction of the colonial discourse. Among the results, it is worth highlighting the evolution of the colonial discourse of the textbooks analyzed towards subtler forms based on empirical description, vagueness, euphemism or dissimulation.