The Obvious but Often Overlooked: Tracing Western Cultural Logics in English Academic Texts

This study examines how English-medium instruction (EMI) course documents construct knowledge, identity, and legitimacy in a foundation programme in Kazakhstan. Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics, we analyse evaluative language across institutional texts to explore how moral stance, affect, and cultural value are embedded within academic materials. While EMI is often presented as a neutral tool for accessing global knowledge, our findings reveal that course documents subtly encode Western epistemologies, positioning students through assumptions that conflict with their lived realities and local knowledge systems. Interviews and reflections from students illustrate how these texts produce confusion, cognitive fatigue, and affective dislocation, even when content appears culturally proximate. These dynamics reflect forms of symbolic violence that naturalise dominant knowledge regimes and marginalise students’ epistemic resources. Our study aligns with textbook analysis research and recent EMI critiques but extends them by revealing how ideological hierarchies are enacted through evaluative discourse, not just content. We argue for curriculum reform grounded in epistemic justice, calling for inclusive text selection, critical pedagogy, and institutional accountability to support more equitable knowledge engagement in EMI settings.