The Design of Chinese Cultural Content in English Textbooks:An Intercultural Perspective
Since cultural discounting is common in intercultural communication,it is of great significance for the design of English textbooks to analyze the similarities and differences of the Chinese cultural content in Chinese English textbooks and the English-speaking world.Through corpus research and text analysis,this study compares word frequency,representation and cultural connotations of 26 representative Chinese cultural keywords in Chinese high school English textbooks and the international English corpus.The study finds that the frequency of the keywords is roughly the same in English textbooks and the corpus,11％of the keywords with high frequency while 73％with low frequency in both;some keywords that Chinese are proud of don't appear in English textbooks but are of high frequency in corpus,while their connotation are not so closely related to Chinese culture.Both the textbooks and the corpus mainly represent Chinese culture alone,supplemented by co-occurrence with other cultures while the corpus prefers more co-occurrence methods than the textbooks.Furthermore,the textbooks and the corpus have relatively similar perspectives on the connotations of a few Chinese cultural keywords,but their understanding of others is quite different or has both similarities and differences.The research suggests that the selection of Chinese cultural content in English textbooks should pay attention to needs of both sides in communication,select components that can reflect the development and changes of China's excellent traditional culture and have universal significance in the world,and the presentation of cultural content should try to reflect multiple perspectives of people from home and abroad,and both.
high school English textbooksNOW corpuscultural keywordsintercultural communication
万方数据
维普
