ABSTRACT

As part of the global education industry, the International Baccalaureate (IB) plays an important role in education systems around the world. Although laudatory descriptions of the IB abound, knowledge about it remains vague and superficial, relying predominantly on information produced by the IB organization or its affiliates. To gain fresh insight into the IB phenomenon, this study combines corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis to examine representation of the IB around the world in non-IB generated data. Based on the principle that choice in language is not random, meaning is intimately connected with the way words are used, a 23 million word corpus of global press articles and Sketch Engine, patterns of typicality are analyzed to uncover values associated with the IB that are taken for granted. Findings show hegemonic ways of talking about the IB in highly positive terms tied to corresponding discourses of deficiency surrounding other education systems.

摘要

作为全球教育行业的一部分，国际文凭组织（IB）在世界各地的教育体系中发挥着重要作用。尽管对 IB 的赞美性描述比比皆是，但对 IB 的了解仍然模糊且肤浅，主要依赖于 IB 组织或其附属机构提供的信息。为了获得对 IB 现象的新见解，本研究结合语料库语言学和批判性话语分析来研究非 IB 生成的数据中世界各地 IB 的表征。基于语言选择不是随机的、意义与词语使用方式密切相关的原则，我们对全球新闻文章和 Sketch Engine 的 2300 万单词语料库进行了分析，以揭示与 IB 相关的价值观。理所当然。