In effect, the selected 10 reading passages were investigated in terms of intertextuality in four groups of direct reporting, indirect reporting, free indirect reporting and narrative report of speech act. It was revealed that the textbook inclined utilizing heavily free indirect reporting which in some cases were mixed with the narrative reporting of speech act. In terms of the classification of the intertextuality suggested by Fairclough (1992), it was found that the reading passages tended to utilize other texts and voices vaguely through interdiscursivity which “is a matter of how a discourse type constituted through a combination of elements of orders of discourse” (Fairclough, 1992, pp. 117-18).
Conducting the present study revealed some ways through which intertextuality were utilized which according to Fairclough (1992, 1995) revealed the interrelation and social practice (particular socially regulated ways of producing and interpreting discourse) of the texts deployed. The results of the study indicated to the points emphasized by Fairclough (1992) in which intertextuality has been deployed in order to “point to how texts can transform prior texts and restructure existing conventions (genres, discourses) to generate new ones” (p. 270).
Furthermore, 40 homogeneous female and male students were selected as the subjects of the present study in order to investigate the presentation of intertextuality on their reading comprehension. To this end, the subjects were being divided into two experimental and control group—each group with 10 females and 10 males. Both groups went through ten sessions of instruction in which the experimental groups received some instruction on the type of intertextuality and the way of reporting utilized in the selected reading passages besides the usual instruction the control group went through. The results indicated a significant difference between the two groups of experimental and control in which experimental groups performed remarkably better than their peers in the control group. It was also found that both male and female participants responded similarly to intertextuality-aware instruction during the course of the study; there was a non-significant difference between the two genders under intertextuality-aware instruction.