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In today’s various language learning contexts in which the reflection of Englishlanguage uses for intercultural communication becomes prominent, the core resourcesof the language classrooms, be they virtual or face-to-face, are still textbooks. Therefore,the stance taken while constructing the multimodal components in the textbooks wouldinfluence whether language learners will develop an understanding of the target languagecommunity in line with an international perspective or not. In this vein, our study is acritical examination of (non)-essentialist cultural discourses in cultural representationsin the visuals and the texts of English File Fourth Edition Elementary, Pre-Intermediateand Intermediate Student’s Books. Taking account of multimodality in both semiotic andsocial-historical rhetorical senses and acknowledging the pedagogic-didactic nature ofthe textbooks, we focused on different meaning-making tools like images and texts andthe interaction between them within the scope of this article. Findings showed that thetextbooks mostly perpetuate an essentialist perspective of culture, favouring “Western”,especially British, and American cultural representations, besides some texts addressingneo-essentialist perspectives. The elementary book has the highest number of essentialisttexts in which “the West” is described and emphasised constantly, while the pre-intermediate book, albeit with a few texts from a critical perspective, is mostly composedof neo-essentialist elements. Lastly, the intermediate book can be viewed as the most non-essentialist one among others, since it consists of the highest proportion of interpersonaland intercultural exchanges without a specific reference to a cultural arena that is bothpredefined and defining in the series, though half of the texts still make a reference to the“Western” countries in the intermediate book as well.