On Evaluating The Treatment Of Western Culture-related Content In New Horizon College English From The Intercultural Perspective

With the increasing intercultural communication against the background of globalization, it’s inevitable to meet cultural exchanges,cultural collision and melange of different cultures. Intercultural Competence(IC) has become an essential quality of modern talents. The pendulum at home and abroad establishes new target and direction for English teaching research in theoretical development as well as teaching practice. College, as the education center of all talents, its English teaching should fit in with the development and needs of the society,setting the sights on students’ development of Intercultural Competence(IC). Besides, textbook plays an important role in English teaching; it can influence many aspects of teaching and learning. Widely used for college English course, New Horizon College English, a set of textbooks newly designed and published, is worth analyzing and examining for the sake of Intercultural Competence development.From the intercultural perspective, this study focuses on the influence college English textbooks exerted on the development of IC of Chinese higher education; it aims to present some findings in theory and practice of the design of western culture-related content in college English textbooks.Based on literature review and theory summary, the dissertation first defined IC, English textbooks evaluation and western culture, then analyzed and discussed, from two angles, the western culture-related content in New Horizon College English and the influence on the development of IC. To the above research tasks, questionnaires were conducted. Based on the empirical and theoretical research, an in-depth analysis was carried out. The findings are as follows:Considering the diversity of culture and the comprehensiveness of intercultural knowledge, the theme of each unit in New Horizon College English covers all kinds of western cultures and presents plenty of cultural content. Besides, the western-culture content in the textbook correlates tightly, presenting a more complete culture system to the students. And it stresses the selecting of authentic and newly-published materials to truly reflect the overall picture of western culture.However, the inadequacies still exist in the design of the textbook’s western culture-related content: Lack of the matter of politics and controversial topics in each unit sits ill with the development of Intercultural Communicative Competence(ICC), consisting partly of political sensitivity and critical thinking. And in terms of intercultural communication, overemphasizing the mainstream culture, American culture, is unfavorable for the learning of complete culture system.Besides, the textbook shows the lack of activities of intercultural communication, which focus on the grammar and vocabulary.As seen from above, the design of western culture-related content in New Horizon College English showed some consideration for the comprehensive development of ability and quality and aided in the cultivation of ICC. But some aspects of the design still got to be improved and perfected.