summary: As the skill requirements in the English language have intensified for non-native speakers, the offer of ‘global distribution ELT books’ on the global market has also grown, while critical perspectives of the expansion of English have questioned the sense of ‘ownership’ of language by native contexts. Based on this and reflective approaches to culture, our aim is to critically analyse the representations of two EFL textbooks of English speakers as a second language and as a foreign language. Specifically, we hope to discuss problems of scencisation and reproduction of stereotypes about non-native speakers of English and their socio-cultural characteristics through this constructed image. To this end, we use the socio-cognitive approach of the Critical Analysis of the Speech (Van Dijk, 2013), as well as the concept of socio-cultural knowledge proposed by the CEFR and the critical perspectives of Holliday, Kullman, and Hyde (2004). Our results indicate that, although books include ‘non-native’ speakers in an attempt to incorporate ideas of ‘multiculturalism’, their representation is generic and simplistic, showing a cosified image of their socio-cultural characteristics and presenting diversity mainly through nationality labels.