Schools worldwide rely heavily on textbooks to disseminate knowledge and guide pedagogical choices. In critical discourse studies, textbooks have been shown to function as national policy instruments, carry a hidden curriculum, and enact a global agenda. The existing literature, however, pays a little attention to the fact that textbooks also represent competing discourses rather than merely being ideological apparatuses. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap by examining national subjecthood, alterity, and the way textbooks engender competing discourses and make them accessible to learners. Based on critical and post-structuralist discourse traditions, 12 English language textbooks were analyzed in one province of Pakistan. National subjecthood appears to have been constituted through various discursive indexes, including religion, gendered subjectivity, languages, literature, and patriotic sentiments among others. The Other is constituted in textbooks both as internals (religious minorities) and externals (e.g., India). Additionally, textbooks offer learners competing discourses with a possibility to negotiate their subject positions.

世界各地的学校都严重依赖教科书来传播知识和指导教学选择。在批判性话语研究中，教科书已被证明可以充当国家政策工具，承载隐藏课程并制定全球议程。然而，现有文献很少注意到这样一个事实：教科书也代表着竞争性话语，而不仅仅是意识形态工具。本研究的目的是通过考察国家的主体性、相异性以及教科书产生竞争性话语并使学习者能够理解的方式来填补这一空白。基于批判性和后结构主义话语传统，对巴基斯坦一个省的 12 本英语教科书进行了分析。国家主体性似乎是通过各种话语指标构成的，包括宗教、性别主体性、语言、文学和爱国情感等。在教科书中，他者既被视为内部因素（宗教少数群体），也被视为外部因素（例如印度）。此外，教科书为学习者提供了竞争性话语的机会来协商他们的学科立场。