An examination of the self-presentation of the top five franchised English buxibans in Taiwan

This study aims to uncover the connection of shadow education with other discourses in society through exploring the self-presentation of the top five leading franchised English buxibans in Taiwan by adopting a multimodal discourse analysis to examine their homepage and brand story webpage. The findings suggest that these top five leading franchised English buxibans present themselves as ‘a trustworthy, reliable, professional and caring edu-business’, ‘an expert in English language teaching’, ‘a bridge to the world’ and ‘an independent system growing out of mainstream education’. The multiple self-presentations reveal shadow education does not operate in isolation, but acts like an assemblage in which several discourses are entangled and interact with each other to make sense of it. The findings reflect the implicit socio-cultural values or beliefs, show its connection with other discourses in the society and further suggest research on shadow education should be rooted in the local discourse.