Cultural Semiospheres in Contact in Foreign Language Teaching

ABSTRACT This paper probes into the many facets of Europe, through the course book ‘English for General High School 2’ and attempts to answer to questions such as, which is Europe’s identity today? How do the texts deal with the influx of illegal immigrants from the east, human rights, and the phenomenon of xenophobia? What cultural aspects of Europe are depicted in the books? How is the ‘post-crisis Europe’ depicted in the coursebook? We focus on the coursebook which is used in the third class of Greek senior high school, as this grade level is considered to be a very important language level, especially in English as a foreign language. At this language level and grade students are on the verge of graduating from senior high school and are moving on to either further their studies in tertiary education or are preparing to find a job. The study of the aforementioned coursebook yields two basic semiotic conclusions. The first is that a selection of signs have been made which obey the principles of binary opposition. The second is that students in Greece will learn aspects of the American culture, a lot better, if exposed to them through a coursebook - even if that is an English as a foreign language coursebook.