A Study On Chinese Culturally Loaded Words In Senior High School English Textbooks(PEP): Problems And Measures

Culturally loaded words refer to words that surpass the meaning of the vocabulary itself,carry the unique cultural connotation of a certain nation,and reflect the national characteristics and people’s values.English textbooks are the main basis for language teaching and the main source of students’ language learning.The study of culturally loaded words in English textbooks is beneficial to students’ ability in expressing Chinese culture in English,thereby further promote the spread of Chinese culture in the world and strengthen cultural soft power of the nation.This research uses the 2019 edition of senior high school English textbooks pressed by People’s Education Press(later I will use textbooks to refer to it)as the research object,takes the General High School English Curriculum Standards(2017 Edition)(later I will use standards to refer to it)and Byram’s textbook cultural content evaluation model as the reference standard,and mainly adopts the text analysis method and comparative research method to discuss the following three questions:(1)What are the types of Chinese culturally loaded words in the textbooks?(2)What are the problems existing in the setting of Chinese culturally loaded words in the textbooks?(3)What are the measures of solving the problems existing in the setting of culturally loaded words in the textbooks?Through the analysis of Chinese culturally loaded words in the textbooks,this thesis finds:(1)there are some defects in the layout of Chinese culturally loaded words,and some deficiencies in the proportion of different types of culturally loaded words;(2)the selection of Chinese culturally loaded words are not representative and in-depth,there are too many names of people and places.In view of the problems existing in the setting of Chinese culturally loaded words in the textbooks,this thesis proposes the following measures:(1)in the compilation of curriculum standards,the categories and setting standards of Chinese culturally loaded words should be given;(2)in the compilation of teaching materials,it’s necessary to improve the layout of Chinese culturally loaded words,and reasonably set the proportion of different types of culturally loaded words;(3)the selection of Chinese culturally loaded words should be representative and in-depth with emphasis on representative words in Chinese traditional and modern culture;(4)in the use of textbooks,it is necessary to change ideas and enhance cultural literacy.The study of Chinese culturally loaded words in English textbooks in this thesis can help editor improve the textbooks,teachers make a better use of textbooks and carry out the teaching of culturally loaded words more effectively,so as to improve students’ cross-cultural communication competence and the ability to express Chinese culture in English.