What does this research mean for the field?

Pakistani state-produced English textbooks discursively naturalize environmental harm by obscuring institutional actors and framing environmental responsibility as generalized and individualized. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To examine how environmental issues, agency, and responsibility are discursively governed within state-prescribed secondary school English textbooks in Pakistan.

September 5, 2026Cogent EducationOpen Access

Governing the environment through language: agency, responsibility and silence in Pakistani state educational discourse

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Authors

IAIrfan Abbas KAKhalid Ahmed MHMuhammad Asad Habib

Discussion

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Overview

Critical discourse analysis reveals individualized responsibility and omitted institutional actors in secondary textbooks, highlighting naturalized limits on environmental accountability.

Key Points

To examine how environmental issues, agency, and responsibility are discursively governed within state-prescribed secondary school English textbooks in Pakistan.
Analyzed two officially prescribed secondary-level English textbooks (Grades 9 and 10) from Punjab, Pakistan.
Applied Fairclough’s three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework to curriculum units focusing on pollution, conservation, and climate change.
Evaluated patterns of agency representation, grammatical selections, and recurring ideological discursive strategies.
Environmental degradation is systematically represented without clearly identifiable agents, effectively naturalizing ecological harm.
Environmental responsibility is framed as generalized and individualized, while institutional, corporate, and political actors are consistently omitted or backgrounded.

Cite This Study

Abbas et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9bd3c76b95aff0620eaebc https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2026.2684351

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September 5, 2026Cogent EducationOpen Access

Governing the environment through language: agency, responsibility and silence in Pakistani state educational discourse

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

Authors

IAIrfan Abbas KAKhalid Ahmed MHMuhammad Asad Habib

Discussion

Member takes

Overview

Critical discourse analysis reveals individualized responsibility and omitted institutional actors in secondary textbooks, highlighting naturalized limits on environmental accountability.

Key Points

To examine how environmental issues, agency, and responsibility are discursively governed within state-prescribed secondary school English textbooks in Pakistan.
Analyzed two officially prescribed secondary-level English textbooks (Grades 9 and 10) from Punjab, Pakistan.
Applied Fairclough’s three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework to curriculum units focusing on pollution, conservation, and climate change.
Evaluated patterns of agency representation, grammatical selections, and recurring ideological discursive strategies.
Environmental degradation is systematically represented without clearly identifiable agents, effectively naturalizing ecological harm.
Environmental responsibility is framed as generalized and individualized, while institutional, corporate, and political actors are consistently omitted or backgrounded.

Cite This Study

Abbas et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9bd3c76b95aff0620eaebc https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2026.2684351

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