Applied Linguistics: 31/5: 714–733 ß Oxford University Press 2010

doi:10.1093/applin/amq034 Advance Access published on 6 October 2010

The Branding of English and The Culture

of the New Capitalism: Representations of
the World of Work in English Language
Textbooks

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JOHN GRAY
TESOL/Applied Linguistics, University of East London
E-mail: j.gray@uel.ac.uk

Coinciding with the global boom in commercial English language teaching is the
development of a sizeable publishing industry in which UK-produced textbooks
for the teaching of English as an international or foreign language are core
products. This article takes the view that these ‘curriculum artefacts’ can also
be understood as ‘cultural artefacts’ in which English is made to mean in highly
selective ways. The article focuses specifically on representations of the world of
work in textbooks from the late 1970s until the present and shows how they
have drawn consistently on evolving discourses of the new capitalism. It argues
that students are repeatedly interpellated in these materials to the subject pos-
ition of white-collar individualism in which the world of work is overwhelm-
ingly seen as a privileged means for the full and intense realization of the
self along lines determined largely by personal choice. The article concludes
by suggesting that such materials have increasingly constructed English as a
branded commodity along lines which are entirely congruent with the values
and practices of the new capitalism.

INTRODUCTION
The global explosion of commercial English language teaching (hereafter ELT)
is largely coterminous with the arrival of the so-called ‘new capitalism’ (Gee
et al. 1996; Fairclough 2002; Sennett 2006) ushered in during the Thatcher and
Reagan periods. Central to the exponential rise in commercial ELT is the de-
velopment of a sizeable and financially lucrative publishing industry in which
textbooks aimed at the global market are core products. As has been argued
elsewhere (van Dijk 2008), such artefacts can be seen not only as mediating
tools of subject knowledge, but also as organs for the ideological reproduction
and legitimation of ‘particular constructions of reality’ (Apple and Christian-
Smith 1991: 3). In 1990, as the countries of the ex-Soviet Union prepared
themselves for a ‘shock therapy’ approach to the introduction of market
economies (Klein 2007; Stuckler et al. 2009; Žižek 2009), The Economist maga-
zine’s Intelligence Unit published a detailed report on the state of ELT through-
out the region (McCallan 1990). The report noted with approval that the state
 J. GRAY 715

school sector in most countries was ill-prepared to meet the anticipated

demand for English and urged the rapid development of private sector provi-
sion. In this way, it was suggested the state sector would find it difficult to
catch up, while at the same time British ELT would find itself well-placed to
promote further opportunities for British trade. In paving the ground for the
development of markets favourable to the UK, the timely provision of ELT
textbooks was identified as a strategic initial move (Gray 2002). Such a per-
spective, underlining the way in which ELT is imbricated in the extension of a
globalized capitalist economy, resonates with analyses both within applied

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linguistics (Phillipson 1992; Pennycook 1994) and beyond. Thus Ives (2006:
136–7), writing from the perspective of political science, has suggested that the
teaching of English in the global private sector is a ‘crucial element of an
international business class structure’ which ‘facilitates the growth and
spread of multinational corporations and trade’. Although Ives does not men-
tion textbooks, the specific role that the content of such mediating tools might
play in this process is one that merits attention.

TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS
My approach to the study of textbooks has its roots in cultural studies and
in particular the work of Du Gay et al. (1997) and their seminal study of the
construction and circulation of meanings associated with the Sony Walkman.
Du Gay et al. (1997) argue that culture is an endlessly recursive process of
meaning making and meaning taking. Their theoretical model for conducting
a cultural study known as the ‘circuit of culture’ (ibid.: 3) analyses five key
moments in the life of a cultural artefact: representation; identity; production;
regulation; and consumption. From this perspective, textbooks can be seen not
simply as ‘curriculum artefacts’ (Apple and Christian-Smith 1991: 4), but also
as cultural artefacts or ‘communicative acts’ (Singapore Wala 2003a) which
serve to make English mean in particular ways—although the meanings which
are inscribed on the page cannot ultimately be guaranteed. As Hall (1980) has
argued, the dominant-hegemonic position in which the reader accepts the
preferred meaning is only one of several reading positions which are possible.
And indeed research confirms that oppositional readings do occur and that
teachers and students can seek to subvert specific ideological content
(Canagarajah 1999; Gray 2010). However, in this article my focus is on the
inscription of meanings rather than on the ways in which such meanings may
be challenged in the classroom. Here I am concerned primarily with identifying
what Du Gay et al. (1997) refer to as the ‘representational repertoires’ related
to the world of work—namely the stock of ideas, images, and linguistic choices
which are deployed in the creation of meanings, and the identifications that
these seek to create in readers. The rationale for this choice is that work is a
recurrent theme in ELT textbooks aimed at the global market (Gray 2010), and
also because the specific discourse of new capitalism (see below) represents the
716 BRANDING OF ENGLISH AND THE CULTURE OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

world of work along ideological lines which have been transformed since the
1980s (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007).

THE GLOBAL COURSEBOOK

The textbooks analysed here are all examples of ‘global coursebooks’—that is,
they each form part of an incremental general English course aimed at the
global market. These commodities, generally produced by prestigious UK aca-
demic publishers and frequently marketed aggressively to compete with locally

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produced materials (Thomas 1999), are increasingly accompanied by a range
of expensive technological supplements (Masuhara et al. 2008). Consumed
primarily by the global commercial sector, they are also used in colleges, uni-
versity language centres and in some state schools. In general, they differ from
materials produced to meet the curriculum requirements of state education or
many of those designed to enable students to develop a particular skill such as
reading or writing. Indeed textbooks such as these may deploy very different
representational repertoires—thus the former are frequently more educational
in orientation (e.g. the Ministry of Education requirement of a culture syllabus
in textbooks produced for the Italian state school market). The latter, on the
other hand, can be more serious in tone and aim to produce greater engage-
ment with specific topics as a way of developing a particular skill
[e.g. Wallace’s (2004) reading and writing textbook which contains readings
drawn from sources such as The British Journal of Psychology]. Given the need to
maximize sales in the greatest number of markets, the thematic content of
global courses is highly regulated by ELT publishers, whether through guide-
lines for authors which may list supposedly controversial topics to avoid
(e.g. politics, religion, sex) or through more informal editorial advice
(see Gray 2010 for detailed discussion). One of the effects of this regulation
is that generations of successful ELT global courses rely on a narrow range of
topics and tend to resemble each other—although, as we shall see, there are
exceptions [cf. Singapore Wala’s (2003b) case study of commercial consider-
ations in a local market]. Not surprisingly, many of these materials have been
criticized for their pedagogical shortcomings and the highly selective represen-
tational repertoires they deploy in the construction of mainly benign versions
of a globalizing world (Wajnryb 1996; Tomlinson et al. 2001; Tomlinson 2003;
Masuhara et al. 2008; Gray 2010).1
At the same time, Wajnryb (1996) and Leung (2005: 137) have also been
critical of their representation of language, with the latter arguing that their
‘reductionist and static idealizations . . . are at best partial representations of
social reality’—a feature which he suggests stems from the absence of any
serious ethnographic orientation to language-in-use in textbook production
and which Wajnryb (ibid.) suggests ‘effectively turns language into a manage-
able, indeed a marketable product . . . more like a discrete item on a shop-shelf’.
An appropriate (if pedagogically questionable) strategy, one might conclude,
for the commodification of English as a global lingua franca. Before addressing
 J. GRAY 717

the representational repertoires related specifically to the world of work,

I now consider briefly some key features of the new capitalism.

THE NEW CAPITALISM

Following Doogan (2009) I take the view that what is ‘new’ about contem-
porary capitalism is the extent to which it is characterized by the ideology
and the practices of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism refers to the political and
philosophical ideas originating in the work of Friedrich von Hayek who

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argued that an unfettered market economy was the only means of preserving
‘a free political order’ and that ‘the whole conception of social or distributive
justice’ (Hayek 1978: 110) being pursued by many post-war social democratic
European governments was the enemy of this version of freedom—what
future generations of media commentators in the UK would refer to as the
‘nanny state’. According to the neoliberal view, the role of government is
primarily to guarantee and extend the reach of the market. Hence the deregu-
lation of financial markets; the privatization of state assets; and the market-
ization of areas of life which were previously seen as the preserve of the state
(to list but a few of the interventions associated with neoliberal government).
The enthusiastic uptake of these ideas in Britain and the US entailed a re-
configuration of the public sphere with implications both for language and the
world of work (discussed by Fairclough (2006) under the heading of ‘global-
ism’). Thus we see the rise in ‘customer care’ culture, the accompanying com-
munication skills training and the imposition of regimes of scripted and stylized
talk in the work place (Cameron 2000; Bourdieu and Wacquant 2001). More
recently Holborow (2007) has referred to the re-semanticization of the lexical
field of business to include more and more areas of life, such that in modern
Ireland even asylum seekers are positioned as customers of the Irish state in
official documentation. As Cameron (2000) has pointed out, such changes
fulfill the important ideological function of establishing the market as the
model for all interaction in the public sphere. At the same time, with regard
to foreign language learning, Heller (2003) argues that the ‘new economy’
(Castells 2000) results in the commodification of language, as languages are
learnt increasingly in terms of their perceived usefulness for employment (see
also Block 2008; Tan and Rubdy 2008).
One of the many consequences of these changes is that the world of work
becomes both highly insecure and stressful (Bourdieu 1998; Sennett 2006;
Stuckler et al. 2009). Castells (2000: 12) also sees the emergence of two
kinds of labour in this economy—what he calls ‘self-programmable’ and ‘gen-
eric’ labour. The former is described as labour which is ‘equipped with the
ability to retrain itself, and adapt to new tasks, new processes and new sources
of information, as technology, demand and management speed up their rate of
change’ (ibid.: 12). Such labour is referred to by Bauman (2007: 9) as having
‘zero drag’, a term which originated in Silicon Valley in the late 1990s
and refers positively to the kind of employee who is able to switch jobs and
718 BRANDING OF ENGLISH AND THE CULTURE OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

countries with a minimum of effort. Generic labour, on the other hand ‘is
exchangeable and disposable, and co-exists in the same circuits with machines
and with unskilled labour from around the world’ (ibid.: 12). It is those in this
second group who are most disadvantaged in the neoliberal economy.
While this state of affairs has provoked varieties of critique (Hertz 2002;
Harvey 2005; Fairclough 2006; Doogan 2009), others have seen and celebrated
a brave new world of risk and opportunity. Nowhere is this more apparent
than in the self-help literature aimed at white-collar workers, which argues
that the reconfiguration of the world of work requires nothing short of a re-

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configuration of the self—and it is in this respect that I will argue that parallels
with ELT textbooks become most apparent.

RECONFIGURATION OF THE SELF

With regard to the reconfiguration of the self in the new capitalism, Klein
(2000), Cameron (2000) and Lury (2004) all refer to the work of the self-styled
marketing guru Tom Peters, who argues that the way for individuals to survive
in a neoliberal climate is effectively to brand themselves in order to stand out
from the growing army of generic labour. In the same way that commodities
are branded to give them a distinct market identity, it is suggested that
individuals too need to image and promote themselves along similar lines
(cf. Bauman 2007). For those with sufficient wherewithal, the challenge of
the new capitalism is enthusiastically presented as ‘a matchless opportunity
for liberation’ (Peters 2008: x). The blurb on Peters’ (2008) self-help manual
‘The Brand You 50: Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an ‘‘Employee’’ into
a Brand that Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!’ addresses the
reader in a hectoring style which sets the tone for the entire volume:
The fundamental unit in today’s economy is the individual, a.k.a.
YOU! Jobs are performed by temporary networks that disband
when the project is done. So to succeed you have to think of your-
self as a freelance contractor-Brand You! (bold in original).
Peters’ assessment is entirely congruent (although from an altogether different
perspective) with that of Castells (2000) and Bauman (2007)—namely, that
self-programmable labour with zero drag is what the new capitalism requires
and values. To become a brand, Peters recommends what can be identified as
six broad steps. First, there is the need to be distinct—individuals, he suggests,
need to break out of the pack and give full rein to their individuality and their
quirkiness if they are to be noticed. Second, there is the need to be committed.
Individuals have to be prepared to put in the work that is necessary to create a
brand identity. Third, there is the need for passion. Here Peters points out that
the successfully branded individuals to whom he frequently refers, such as
Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, and Steven Spielberg, are consistently pas-
sionate about the work they do. Fourth, he argues for the need to think and act
strategically and he suggests that people who seek success can get to the top
 J. GRAY 719

through being prepared to move sideways within an organization or even to

move downwards, as this can be an opportunity to learn new skills which may
be of use later on. And of course, being strategic can also mean being prepared
to relocate. Fifth, he suggests that individuals should exercise choice and
only do work that is ‘cool’ and ‘fun’; and finally, he urges his readers to
begin branding themselves immediately if they wish to succeed in a rapidly
changing world. With this in mind, I turn in the following sections to the
textbooks themselves.

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CRITERIA FOR SELECTION AND METHODOLOGY
For this article I have revisited a small set of textbooks analysed in another
study (Gray 2010): Streamline Connections (Hartley and Viney 1979);
Building Strategies (Abbs and Freebairn 1984); The New Cambridge English
Course 2 (Swan and Walter 1990); and The New Edition New Headway
Intermediate (Soars and Soars 2003a). The selection of these courses was
based on the fact that they are recognized within the industry as major
global bestsellers (OUP, personal communication, 2000; UK booksellers
Waterstones, personal communication, 2004). However, given the spectacular
success of the Headway course since its first publication in 1986, I have aug-
mented this sample by including an additional set of textbooks from the series.
This course has been described by Holliday (2005: 41) as one of the ‘cultural
icons’ of ‘Western TESOL’—that is as a revered and commercially successful
artefact which exerts a powerful influence on textbook design and pedagogic
practice globally. Sales figures for the Headway course are not available,
but one editor I spoke to admitted that sales from the course alone were suf-
ficient to fund an entire publishing house (OUP, personal communication,
2000). I have also included a further two textbooks from the Cutting Edge
course as examples of what another contemporary bestselling course contains.
Altogether the additional textbooks are: New Headway Intermediate (Soars
and Soars 1996); New Headway Upper-Intermediate (Soars and Soars 1998);
New Headway Elementary (Soars and Soars 2000a); New Headway
Pre-Intermediate (Soars and Soars 2000b); New Headway Advanced (Soars
and Soars 2003b); New Headway Upper-Intermediate (Soars and Soars
2005); New Cutting Edge Intermediate (Cunningham and Moor 2005a);
New Cutting Edge Upper-Intermediate (Cunningham and Moor 2005b).
In identifying the representational repertoires related to the world of work,
I initially adopted a content analysis approach and began by counting the num-
ber of units in each textbook which used the topic of work for a skills-based or
grammar-based activity. In this way (following scholars such as Littlejohn
1992; Sercu 2000), I was able to make quantitative statements about the
extent of work as a theme across each textbook (see Table 1 where these are
represented proportionally). I then followed this up with a more qualitative
analysis in which I sought to identify the correlations between representations
of the world of work and the specific values associated with the new
720 BRANDING OF ENGLISH AND THE CULTURE OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

capitalism. My approach here was to code any work-related text which

explicitly featured self-programmable labour, zero drag, or individuals who
displayed any of the Brand You characteristics as indexing new capitalist
values. Take, for example, the following profile of a young businessman:
Roberto came from Acapulco to New York ten years ago. At first
he missed everything—the sunshine, the food, his girlfriend.
But now he has a successful business with his three brothers and
his sister. They run a soccer store in New Brunswick. Roberto’s
girlfriend is now his wife, and they have two children who go to

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American schools.
When asked why he came to the US, Roberto says without
hesitation, ‘Because I wanted to work hard and be successful.’
He certainly works hard. He’s at the store all day, then works as a
driver in the evening. ‘That’s why I like America,’ he says. ‘You can
be what you want’ (Soars and Soars 2000b: 19).
New capitalist values are evident in Roberto’s relocation to New York in pur-
suit of professional success, his commitment to hard work (confirmed by
the authorial voice), and his endorsement of the US as a place where individ-
ual choice can be freely exercised. It is important to point out that this is a
positive correlation with new capitalism (reinforced by a smiling photograph of
the handsome young Roberto). Negative correlations, in which aspects of the
new capitalism are seen as problematic, are rare in the data base and the few
that do exist are referred to in the analysis below.
At the same time, the following profile of a shopkeeper, although coded
as being about work, could not be correlated with any of the values outlined
above:
My uncle is a shopkeeper. He has a shop in an old village by the
River Thames near Oxford. The shop sells a lot of things—bread,
milk, fruit, vegetables, newspapers—almost everything! It is also the
village post office. The children in the village always stop to spend a
few pence on sweets or ice-cream on their way home from school.
My uncle doesn’t often leave the village. He hasn’t got a car, so
once a month he goes by bus to Oxford and has lunch at the Grand
Hotel with some friends. He is one of the happiest people I know
(ibid.: 33).
I now turn in the following section to the nature of the representational
repertoires identified and discuss these in greater detail.

THE WORLD OF WORK IN ELT TEXTBOOKS

As can be seen in Table 1, the world of work features in all the textbooks
analysed but varies considerably in terms of the actual numbers of units
which explicitly address the topic. That said, although a textbook such as
Cambridge English 2 has only three units in which the world of work is salient
 J. GRAY 721

Table 1: Work-related and new capitalist-related units in the textbook sample

Coursebook Number Number Proportion Number of Proportion
of units of units of work- work-related of new
in which related units which capitalist-related
work is content correlate with content
a major new capitalist
theme values

Streamline 80 12 0.15 3 0.04

Connections 1979

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Building Strategies 16 9 0.56 9 0.56
1984
The New Cambridge 36 3 0.08 0 0
English Course 1990
The New Edition New 12 4 0.33 4 0.33
Headway 2003
New Headway 1996 12 4 0.33 3 0.33
New Headway 12 4 0.33 4 0.33
Upper-Intermediate
1998
New Headway 14 3 0.21 3 0.21
Elementary 2000
New Headway 14 6 0.43 3 0.02
Pre-Intermediate
2000
New Headway 12 3 0.25 3 0.25
Advanced 2003
New Headway 12 4 0.33 4 0.33
Upper-Intermediate
2005
New Cutting Edge 12 2 0.17 2 0.17
Intermediate 2005
New Cutting Edge 12 2 0.17 2 0.17
Upper-Intermediate
2005

as a topic, none of which can be correlated with new capitalism, its cast
of female characters which feature in other units are often marked as being
distinct by virtue of the less traditional jobs many of them do (e.g. assault
course leader, taxi driver, pilot and explorer)—although in many cases these
jobs are mentioned only in passing. As I will show below, the qualitative
analysis of the textbooks suggests an evolution over the period towards an
increased focus on individualism, concomitant with a ‘Brand You’ perspective
and, in general, a celebratory view of the world of work as a means to personal
fulfilment. Streamline Connections (Hartley and Viney 1979), which appeared
as the neoliberal era was beginning to take shape, is interesting in this respect.
Here the world of work is often represented negatively and textbook characters
722 BRANDING OF ENGLISH AND THE CULTURE OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

regularly complain about work or are represented as workshy. The following

extract typifies this approach:
Wendy: Hello Charles . . . you look tired today.
Charles: Yes, I’m working too hard.
Wendy: You should take a holiday.
Charles: Yes, I know I should . . . but we’re just too busy. I’m
working twelve hours a day.
Wendy: Twelve hours! You’re going to kill yourself!
Charles: What can I do?

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Wendy: Perhaps you should change your job.
Charles: I can’t . . . I need the money! (ibid.: Unit 38, no pagination).
This is similar to representations of work identified by Leahy (2004) in her
study of contemporary German grammar books—namely an association with
deontic modality (‘I need the money’); a negative impact on health (‘you look
tired’; ‘You’re going to kill yourself’); and feelings of powerlessness (‘we’re just
too busy; ‘What can I do?’; ‘I can’t’). Elsewhere in the textbook the recurring
figure of ‘the boss’ (the aptly named Mr Power) is represented variously as
paternalistic and authoritarian (also congruent with Leahy 2004), and work
itself is frequently seen as repetitive or as something which infringes on the
pursuit of happiness or personal autonomy.
However, from the 1980s onwards the world of work is represented in a
more consistently positive light and characters repeatedly display distinction,
commitment and passion in relation to their chosen careers—in which they
begin to achieve increasingly spectacular success. With the exception of two
titles (other than Streamline Connections), Table 1 shows a close correlation
overall between representations of work and new capitalist values. It should
also be said that there is considerable overlap between the Brand You charac-
teristics themselves—thus successful characters may achieve distinction
through their exercise of personal choice or as a result of their commitment
and passion. In many cases those who are distinct are also women—a feature
which reflects the profound and enduring impact of feminism on all
post-Streamline courses produced in the UK. Thus in all the textbooks sur-
veyed we find women who stand out on account of their success in the world
of business, science, politics, sport, the arts, and the media, alongside those
who are distinct through their choice of non-traditional or quirkier occupa-
tions (e.g. clown, racing driver, plumber). Such characters, when profiled in
detail, are invariably presented for student approval. This can happen in a
variety of ways: characters, their jobs or their lifestyles may be positively
evaluated by the authorial voice of the text; they may be positively evaluated
by others mentioned in the text; they may positively evaluate their own
jobs and the rewards they bring; and/or the accompanying artwork may be
designed so as to elicit a positive emotional response in the viewer—what
in multimodal terms is referred to as ‘sensory orientation’ (Kress and
 J. GRAY 723

van Leewuen 1996), whereby the image is softened, coloured or otherwise

manipulated to enhance its impact or its attractiveness to the viewer.
An early example combining several such representational modes is found
in the profile of ice skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean (Abbs and
Freebairn 1984). The text, which features a colour photograph of the skaters
bathed in a warm golden light, is printed in white against a black background
with the heading ‘The Perfect Pair’ in a font which is suggestive of neon
lighting. In addition to the evaluative adjective in the title, the authorial
voice also mentions their ‘incredible’ scores and quotes from journalists’

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evaluations—‘ ‘‘Unbelievably brilliant!’’ [. . .] ‘‘They are not just the best,
they’re the best ever!’’ ’ (ibid.: 25). Public evaluation is also included through
the listing of character adjectives, thus, ‘Everyone agrees that Jayne and
Christopher are two nice people. They are quiet, shy, polite and not at all
spoilt by their success’ (ibid.). In terms of their commitment and passion, the
text describes how those who wish to succeed as ice skaters ‘must give up
their whole lives to their training’ (ibid.), an assessment echoed by a direct
quotation from Jayne: ‘ ‘‘you have to practise all the time’’, says Jayne
simply’ (ibid.). In this case the association with deontic modality indexes
their commitment to distinction, rather than any infringement of personal
agency. As Jayne explains:
Our aim in life is not to own a house and a car and to bring
up children. It is to do something different, to achieve something
special (ibid.).

Zero drag and individual choice are also evident in the same textbook. Thus,
Rod Nelson, a young electrical engineer and one of the central characters,
relocates from Canada to Bristol in the first unit. Profiled in the local news-
paper as someone ‘making a new start’ (ibid.: 18), Rod answers the question
‘Why did you leave Canada?’ as follows:
I was bored. I worked in the same office and saw the same people
and did the same thing every day. I needed a change. I wanted
adventure (ibid.).

In fact all the key characters in Building Strategies relocate, plan to relocate or
have relocated as part of their working lives—invariably impelled by individual
choice, and in flight from boredom or in pursuit of ‘fun’, challenge, or im-
proved working conditions. In the case of production manager Jack Cooper,
Rod’s colleague at work, the decision to relocate to France is linked to his
frustration at industrial unrest in the Bristol factory. He eventually opts for
the personal and professional challenge of remaking his life abroad away from
the threat of strikes. Thus, while the post-Connections textbooks analysed
do not ignore that work can be ‘problematic’, the treatment and individual
responses to work-related problems tends to resonate with the ‘Brand You’
imperative to take control and to look out for oneself.
724 BRANDING OF ENGLISH AND THE CULTURE OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

Textbook characters do on occasion lose their jobs—so, for example, Roger

Dromard, a fictional office worker (Soars and Soars 1996) tells his story in a
unit entitled ‘Happiness!’ In what could be an anecdote from Peters’ (2008)
manual on how to deal with company downsizing, he begins:
D’you know the best thing that ever happened to me? D’you
know what it was? It was when I lost my job. Yes, really! I never
liked it—hated it in fact—stuck in an office all day with computers
and a telephone. Now my hobby is my full-time job! (Soars and
Soars 1996: 127).

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Losing his job is presented as an opportunity to take control and set himself
up in business as a gardener. This attitude, both to the old job and to the
opportunity presented by its loss, is similar to that expressed by Peters
(2008: 13), who concludes that in the new capitalism: ‘Our lives are more
precarious. But they’ve been given back to us. The challenge: What are we
going to make of them?’ Self-employment (or becoming CEO of your own life,
as Peters puts it), certainly for some textbook characters, is presented as an
unproblematic option.
In fact Roger Dromard is replaced in the 2003 edition of the same textbook
by college graduate Jeff Norman who has chosen to do what could be seen as a
low-status job working as a ‘paperboy’ so that, as he says, he can do what he
wants in his free time. In this way the strategic move downwards advocated by
Peters is given a somewhat different emphasis. However, as the text clarifies,
Jeff runs his own business and earns $60,000 a year, with an additional $50 a
week in tips. This profile is in strong contrast to that of the highly successful,
globe-trotting lawyer Sidney Fisk featured on the previous page of the same
textbook. His commitment to hard work [‘He’s paid very well, but he usually
has to work long hours’ (Soars and Soars 2003: 15)] and his zero drag [‘At the
moment he’s working in Mexico, and next week he’s travelling to France’
(ibid.)] clearly resonate with new capitalist values. However, the text suggests
that he may not be happy. As elsewhere in the data base (see below), such
negative correlations are counter balanced by more celebratory accounts—
such as that of Jeff Norman who may be said to have risen to the challenge
of the new capitalism more effectively.
Individuals such as Jeff may be said to openly reject Fordist working prac-
tices in favour of the more insecure but more (supposedly) satisfying rewards
of post-Fordist flexibility and autonomy (see Harvey 1989; Ritzer 1992). In the
Headway course, the ‘rat race’ is either something to be pursued enthusiastic-
ally or unproblematically abandoned. Those who voluntarily downsize invari-
ably demonstrate the wherewithal to reinvent themselves along lines more
in keeping with their own personal desires and inclinations. Thus, in a section
on ‘dream jobs’ (Soars and Soars 2003a: 58–9), the fictional Linda Spelman
explains how she gave up her job as a lawyer to pursue a more fulfilling life
as a trapeze artist. When asked for advice she says, ‘I’d say to anyone with a
dream ‘Go for it! You only live once, so why stay in a boring job’ (ibid.: 59).
 J. GRAY 725

Throughout these representations of the world of work there is a clear ideology

of individualism in operation. These characters are what Probyn (1990) in
another context has referred to as members of a ‘choiceoisie’—that is members
of a group whose lifestyle choices are largely unaffected by personal, financial
or social constraints of any kind. As Bauman (2005) explains, it is the freedom
to exercise choice within consumer society which indexes social status, and in
such a society, typified by the aestheticization of ever more aspects of human
activity and experience (Bourdieu 1984; Harvey 1989; Featherstone 1991),
work too is increasingly evaluated in terms of its glamour, sensation or fulfil-

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ment potential. And it is precisely this kind of work which is celebrated
repeatedly in these textbooks.
At the same time, there are two further points to make with regard to
the representation of the world of work—the first has to do with specific
reference to the instability and stressfulness of life in the neoliberal climate
and the second with the increasing importance of celebrity. In the follow-
ing example we find a group of young people talking specifically about
employment. Alex Williams, a fictional 24-year-old ‘marketing account
manager’ says:
There’s no such thing as a job for life these days. Employers can
make you redundant as soon as there’s a downturn, so people don’t
feel the same loyalty. A lot of my friends are changing their jobs to
boost their career prospects. I expect I’ll have several jobs before I’m
30, and I hope I’ll have several careers. I don’t want to do the same
thing for ever. I’m going for an interview next week. More money,
more responsibility (Soars and Soars 2005: 50).
This perspective on the world of work is essentially that of self-programmable
labour and resonates with Peters’ (2008: 197) advice to ‘Just say ‘‘No’’ to
Loyalty!’. So although the employment market is seen as precarious
(‘There’s no such thing as a job for life these days’), this state of affairs accords
with Alex’s own inclinations (‘I don’t want to do the same thing for ever’).
That said, two of the seven characters interviewed provide bleaker assessments
of the economic climate—and two rare negative correlations with new capit-
alist values. Peter Jamieson, a trainee manager and Ellie Green, a corporate
lawyer say they are worried about job security and not being able to afford to
buy their own house. But as Doogan (2007: 3) has pointed out, new capitalist
discourse is also one of ‘precariousness and insecurity’—in fact it is presented
as the price of freedom in Peters’ (2008) narrative. However, the majority of
the characters interviewed are enthusiastic about the challenge this presents.
Thus Bob West, a fictional plumber from London who is keen to relocate, says:

I’m saving money, and as soon as my application has been pro-

cessed, I’m going to leave the country and live in Canada. Now
there’s a country that encourages young people and enterprise!
(ibid.).
726 BRANDING OF ENGLISH AND THE CULTURE OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

As with ‘choice’, ‘enterprise’ can be seen as a key term in neoliberal dis-

course. Cameron (2000: 7), referring to ‘enterprise culture’ (rather than to
neoliberalism per se), suggests that ‘enterprise’ connotes values such as the
‘resourcefulness, self-discipline, openness to risk and change—that enable
people to succeed in bold and difficult undertakings’. Bob’s enthusiasm to
relocate to a country which encourages such values may be said to signal his
more general subscription to the rules of the neoliberal game.
In fact, enterprise is celebrated throughout the Headway course. In New
Headway Advanced (Soars and Soars 2003b: 14) Vijay and Bhikhu Patel, the

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pharmaceutical company owners and joint winners of the 2001 Ernst & Young
Entrepreneur of the Year award, are interviewed at length about how they built
their multimillion-pound business after arriving in the UK with just five pounds
between them. The reading activity which introduces a series of listening and
speaking exercises about the brothers carries an evaluative subheading ‘The
inspiring tale of two Asian brothers who fled to Britain from East Africa and
made a fortune’ (ibid.: 14), and in the speaking exercise which follows, students
are asked to say in what ways the Patels are good role models for young people.
The Patel brothers and the late Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop who
is profiled in another unit, are examples of what Žižek (2008: 14) refers to iron-
ically as ‘liberal communists’—that is philanthropic capitalists who provide a
much-needed human face for the new capitalism. Thus Vijay Patel states that
he would ‘like to be a role model, for anybody who wants to be somebody
tomorrow’, adding that, ‘if I can touch one life, then my job in this life’s done’
(Soars and Soars 2003b: 133). Anita Roddick, talking about the entrepreneurial
mindset, explains that ‘the money we make is of no interest to us’, and aligns
herself with those who are ‘outside the system’ and for whom wealth simply
‘allows you to be generous’ (ibid.: 135). Of course, as Žižek (2008: 14) argues, the
claim that ‘we can have the global capitalist cake, that is thrive as profitable
entrepreneurs, and eat it, too, that is endorse the anti-capitalist causes of
social responsibility and ecological concern’ is open to question. From the per-
spective of the new capitalism, such philanthropy (however well-intentioned)
serves to offset potential appeals to the need for structural change.
At the same time, there is recognition that such a benign view of the new
capitalism is not shared by everyone (Soars and Soars 2003b). The same text-
book reproduces an article from the left-leaning New Internationalist maga-
zine which is openly critical of economic globalization and consumer culture
in particular. However, in the speaking exercise which follows the reading,
the students are invited to question the authorial stance as follows: ‘The writer
holds strong views on these issues. Can you present some counter-
arguments?’, and then to get the critique started, the textbook provides the
following example: ‘Multinational corporations keep prices down’ (ibid.: 28).
This is one of the few instances of students being encouraged to read against
the text that I have encountered and it is significant that it is on this particular
topic. More common is the way in which students, elsewhere in the course,
are taught to talk the very specific talk of the new capitalism, as in the
 J. GRAY 727

following grammar exercise which asks them to select the appropriate expres-
sion in bold and then to practise the dialogue:
A I don’t know how you can afford to buy all those fabulous
clothes!
B Still/Hopefully, I’m going to get a bonus this month. I should
do. My boss promised it to me. After all/Presumably, I did earn
the company over £100,000 last year. Basically/Actually, it was
nearer £150,000. I do deserve it, don’t you think.
B Of course/In fact, you do (Soars and Soars 1996: 127).

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Here the subject matter is not available for discussion (unless the teacher draws
attention to it)—rather, it provides the unquestioned and un-remarked-upon
content in which language is contextualized.
However, more pervasive than such specific references to new capitalist
practices is the appearance and treatment of celebrity in all the textbooks
analysed. This merits attention given that the celebrity is the most recognizable
type of branded individual in consumer culture, but also because the neo-
liberal period is characterized by a proliferation of celebrities and because ce-
lebrity is increasingly associated with a wide range of jobs—for example,
celebrity chefs, celebrity historians, celebrity doctors, celebrity entrepreneurs,
etc. It is worth noting that a textbook such as Corder’s (1960) An Intermediate
English Practice Book contains no reference to any celebrity of the period
and that O’Neill’s (1970) English in Situations refers only indirectly to celeb-
rity. However, by the late 1970s explicit references to celebrity are much more
common. Table 2 lists the celebrities featured in Streamline Connections
(Hartley and Viney 1979) and New Cutting Edge Upper-Intermediate
(Cunningham and Moor 2005b).
This illustrates not only the new salience of celebrity in textbooks aimed at
the global market, but also the increase in the number of celebrities included
over the period. In this respect, The New Cutting Edge Upper-Intermediate
is typical of the textbooks in the sample dating from the mid 1990s. In fact,
New Headway Advanced (Soars and Soars 2003b) and New Cutting Edge Upper
Intermediate (Cunningham and Moor 2005b) both include a whole unit on the
topic. The main reading text in the latter is entitled ‘How to be a celebrity’ and
offers readers seven routes to achieving celebrity status. The seventh is ‘Create
your own formula for success’ and includes the following advice:
If you want to make it really big, don’t take any established, familiar
path to celebrity and don’t follow in anyone else’s footprints. Create
your own unique route [. . .] People like Oprah Winfrey, the Queen
of Talk Shows, or Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft have
reshaped and redefined an occupation and even an industry in
their own image. Their fame is assured (ibid.: 85).
Although the unit does include a reading exercise in which it is suggested
that excessive interest in celebrity can be dangerous, students are also asked
728 BRANDING OF ENGLISH AND THE CULTURE OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

Table 2: Celebrities in Streamline Connections (Hartley and Viney 1979) and

New Cutting Edge Upper Intermediate (Cunningham and Moor 2005b)
Streamline Connections New Cutting Edge Upper Intermediate

Miklos Nemeth; Alberto
Juantorena; Bob Beamon;
Annegret Richter;
Rosemarie Ackermann;
David Wilkie; Vasily
Alexeev; Paul McCartney;
Jackson 5; Osmonds; Bee Gees; Corrs; Oasis; Boom
Kat; Britney Spears; Eminem; Ozzy Osborne;
Kelly Osborne; Brian May; Freddie Mercury;
Rowan Atkinson; Halle Berry; Paul McCartney;
Ringo Star; Steve Redgrave; Ghandi; Martin Luther
King; Evana Trump; Bill Gates; John Kennedy Jnr;

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James Hunt; UK Queen;
J.F. Kennedy; Elvis Presley
Jade Jagger; Princess Diana; Liz Hurley; Oprah
Winfrey; Tom Cruise; Robbie Williams; Woody
Allen; Marilyn Munroe; Arnold Schwarzenegger;
Alan Alda; Fred Allen; Harrison Ford; Brad Pitt;
David Beckham; George Cluney; Jennifer Lopez;
Tony Blair; Madonna; Nicole Kidman; Steven
Spielberg; Ricky Martin; John Lennon; Jennifer
Aniston; Ralph Fiennes; Hillary Clinton; Elvis
Presley; Kiera Knightley; Parminda Nagra;
Gurinder Chadha; Roman Polanski; Nirvana

to invent a celebrity persona to role play and to find out if their partner ‘has got
what it takes to be a celebrity’ (ibid.: 88). New Headway Advanced (Soars and
Soars 2003b) adopts a similar approach and includes a reading in which our
(assumed) interest in celebrity is seen as inevitable, if not altogether healthy,
and at the same time asks students to work in small groups and decide on ways
of becoming an A-list celebrity. Other exercises such as role playing and spec-
ulating about the lives of celebrities occur throughout the textbook sample.
Furthermore, celebrities’ lives, whether fictional or non-fictional, are also re-
peatedly treated as examples of successful careers—as we saw earlier in the
case of Torvill and Dean. Overall, the way in which celebrity operates in con-
sumer societies is largely unaddressed in the textbooks analysed—rather ce-
lebrity tends to function as an index of professional success and, especially
when accompanied by high-quality photographic artwork, provides a veneer
of glamour.

DISCUSSION
What then are we to make of such representations? Analysis of publishers’
guidelines for authors and interviews with senior ELT publishers confirm that
there is nothing accidental about the nature of textbook content (Gray 2010).
Taken together, I would suggest they constitute what Althusser (1971) refers
to as an ‘interpellation’—that is, a hailing to the ideological and subject pos-
ition of white-collar individualism in which the world of work is overwhelm-
ingly seen as a privileged means for the full and intense realization of the self,
 J. GRAY 729

along lines determined largely by personal choice. As constructed in the ma-

jority of these materials, the world of work (and indeed the world in general) is
seen in highly idealized and aestheticized terms. But why should this be the
case? As suggested earlier, some languages are commodified in the globalized
economy in the sense that they are marketed primarily in terms of their per-
ceived economic usefulness. However, commodification in consumer culture
also entails branding—indeed the branding (and re-branding) of people,
places, institutions or languages is a pervasive feature of the new capitalism
(see Wernick 1991; Lury 2004; Ritzer 2007). In an economy which is increas-

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ingly ‘organized around attention’ (Schroeder 2002: 3), branding becomes
necessary if commodities are to be noticed and if they are to be considered
worth having. Essentially branding is about the construction of a set of asso-
ciations and a recognizable identity for products (whether material or sym-
bolic). Ultimately the aim is to create identifications through which consumers
can insert themselves into the ‘world’ of the brand. In this respect the repre-
sentational repertoires deployed in these materials can be seen as part of the
branding of English as if it were a commodity like any other in the market-
place—if branding is understood to operate through association and hoped for
identification on the part of students, in this case with certain characters (e.g.
celebrities) and certain characteristics (e.g. distinction, commitment, passion,
success, enterprise, and zero drag). Elsewhere (Gray 2010) I have argued that
the textual construction (and imaging) of English in ELT coursebooks parallels
the processes of commodity promotion more generally. In the same way that
the Sony Walkman was branded through repeated association with mobility,
leisure and youth (Du Gay et al. 1997) and Benetton clothes through associ-
ation with a particular discourse of multiculturalism (Tinic 1997), so too is
English, as represented in these materials, given a specific identity. But the
question remains as to why the branding takes the form it does—that is, why
English is repeatedly endowed with a range of associations, one set of which is
congruent with the values of the new capitalism rather than any other set of
values.
One answer I think is to be found in the fact that neoliberalism has become,
in Harvey’s (2005: 3) words, ‘hegemonic as mode of discourse’. He continues:
It has pervasive effects on ways of thought to the point where it
has become incorporated into the common-sense way many of us
interpret, live in, and understand the world.
Neoliberalism and the values associated with it have in fact become naturalized
in many spheres. This is particularly so in commercial ELT, a lucrative global
service industry which places a high value on self-programmable teaching
labour with zero drag. The British Council’s 2003 recruitment campaign for
teachers which ran under the heading ‘Teach English and Individualism’ is
entirely congruent with the culture of the new capitalism (EL Gazette 2003:
282–7)—as indeed is the concomitant casualization of minimally-trained
labour which typifies many pockets of the industry. A second answer is to
730 BRANDING OF ENGLISH AND THE CULTURE OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

be found in the publishers’ perception of the market. In the interviews with

ELT publishers mentioned above, textbook content in which choice, individu-
alism and spectacular professional success were central was repeatedly referred
to by interviewees as ‘aspirational’. That is, it was seen as representing the kind
of lifestyle students might aspire to and which (it was suggested) would
motivate them in their language learning.
Although Modiano (2001: 164) has speculated about the danger of ‘onto-
logical imperialism’ implicit in ELT whereby ‘the learner’s mind is colonized
through the acquisition of a foreign tongue’, and Phillipson (2008: 36) has

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argued that English as currently taught ‘contributes to the imperial produc-
tion of subjectivities’, very little is actually known about the impact of such
ideologically motivated content on students. Certainly it was the belief of
scholars such as I.A. Richards, a key figure in the development of
Anglo-American ELT, that the teaching of English had such potential (see
Phillipson 1992, 2008). At the same time, Canagarajah (1999) suggests that
students do on occasion recognize the ideologically motivated nature of cer-
tain content and seek to challenge it through, for example, defacement or
annotation of materials. Clearly there is a need for more detailed research into
how such content is perceived, the meanings students attribute to it and any
motivational appeal it may or may not have. Research into teachers’ thinking,
on the other hand, suggests that many teachers are indeed aware of the
ideological dimension of much global textbook content and that some find
the uncritical celebration of the lives of philanthropic capitalists and new
capitalist values problematic (Gray 2002, 2010). As one teacher put it,
‘there is no criticism [. . .] no questioning [. . .] no discussion or anything,
whether this is like morally right or not’ (Gray 2010: 157). Rather, another
said, global textbooks engage in ‘glorifying a kind of middleclass’ for its ec-
centric individualism and conspicuous wealth which he felt ‘might be con-
sidered shallow’ in certain educational settings (ibid.: 156). The same teacher
also made the case for critical pedagogy as a means of counteracting the
possibility of ‘transferring a dominant culture to my students and to, even
to myself’ (ibid.), a remark which suggests that Modiano’s speculations may
be justified in some cases. As with all cultural artefacts, textbooks are products
of the cultures which produce them—in this case the commercial culture of a
powerful global industry. As currently branded along lines which I have sug-
gested are congruent with the values and the culture of the new capitalism, it
remains to be seen if the ongoing crisis in neoliberal ideology occasioned by
the 2008 financial crisis will necessitate a re-branding of commercial ELT
along new ideological lines.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Angela Leahy, Marnie Holborow, John Trushell, and the peer reviewers
for their advice and comments on earlier versions of this article.

NOTE
1 See Dor (2006) for a nuanced discus-
sion of the role of other languages in
the global economy.
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