A Study On Culture Input In Materials Of College English Textbooks

In2004, the State Ministry of Education issued College English Curriculum Requirement, which stimulates that the objective of College English is not only to develop the learners’ language skills, but also the ability to use English in an all-round way and improve their cultural awareness to achieve intercultural communication. In order o cultivate learners’communicative competence, both teachers and students need a mutual platform to better communicate and learn, in which textbook undoubtedly plays an important role.As the four sets of textbooks which are widely adopted by most universities, and recommended by the State Ministry of Education, New Horizon College English, Experiencing English, New Century College English and College English (new edition) offer necessary culture environment for college students to cultivate intercultural communicative competence. Based on the needs of intercultural foreign language teaching and by means of text analysis, this thesis evaluates the culture-related materials in the Reading and Writing Course/Integrated Course of the four above-mentioned textbooks.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter1is a brief introduction of this thesis, which introduces the origin and significance of the study and points out the requirement of college English language teaching is the origin of this thesis. Chapter2is literature review, which gives a detailed account of language and culture, including their relationship, culture teaching at home and abroad, teaching goal and content of intercultural foreign language teaching, and textbook evaluation principles of intercultural foreign language teaching etc. The following chapter exhibits the research design and research procedures, whose focus is on the analysis of cultural input of the four textbooks and whose aim is to answer the following questions:①Is there enough target language culture selected in the four sets of textbooks?②Does the culture imbalance/bias exist among the target language countries?③Is there enough native culture selected in the four sets of textbooks?④Does the other developing countries’culture be given enough attention in the four sets of textbooks?Research results in Chapter3indicate that target language culture is greatly emphasized in the four sets of textbooks, and American culture takes up the majority among the English- speaking countries. When it comes to language input concerning the native culture and the other developing countries’cultures, limited space is designed for them, and little attention is paid to them. The implications are offered in Chapter4in terms of the revision of teaching syllabus, and compilation of new textbooks as well as the practical use of textbooks by both the teachers and students in language teaching and learning. In the Chapter5, the research limitations are addressed, and suggestions for further research are offered.