A Comparative Study Of The Representation Of Chinese Culture In English Textbooks Of Junior High School

The Ministry of Education(2011)states that the English curriculum standards for compulsory education should emphasize the need to develop students’ ability of cross-cultural communication and also focus on cultivating students’ patriotism in English Curriculum Standard for Compulsory Education(2011 Edition).Meanwhile,the English Curriculum Standard for General High School(2017 Edition)proposes that English teaching should develop students’ core literacy,among which cultural awareness literacy requires students to have firm cultural confidence and certain ability to communicate and transmit Chinese culture.As the main tool for students’ learning and teachers’ teaching,the Chinese cultural contents contained in English textbooks have a value that cannot be ignored for cultivating students’ cultural awareness.However,in today’s junior high school English teaching,teachers tend to pay more attention to language knowledge and ignore cultural knowledge in the textbooks,especially the teaching of Chinese cultural content,which leads to students’ “Chinese cultural aphasia”.Therefore,this study focuses on the Chinese cultural content in the two editions of English textbooks to promote awareness of teachers’ teaching and students’ learning of Chinese culture in textbooks.This thesis tries to answer the following questions:(1)What Chinese cultural contents are presented in the PEP and Oxford English textbooks respectively? And how are they presented?(2)What are the commonalities and differences between the Chinese cultural contents presented and characterized by the two editions of the textbooks? According to the current analytical cultural frameworks,Risager’s cultural framework is widely used to analyze cultural content.But for the research need,it is adjusted to and combined with Yi Ting’s analytical framework.Besides,Zhang Hong’s framework of analyzing presentation will also be used to analyze the presentation ways.Specifically,this study compares micro and macro levels of Chinese cultural contents in the two editions.Based on the framework of this thesis,at the micro level,the Chinese culture of the two editions is compared in terms of age,occupation,and gender of Chinese characters,and at the macro level,the Chinese culture of the two editions is compared in terms of several aspects such as the proportion,type,and contemporaneity of Chinese culture.In addition,this study also compares the explicit presentation and implicit presentation aspects of Chinese culture in the two editions of textbooks.Based on the comparative analysis,this study found that(1)both editions present a certain and reasonable proportion of Chinese cultural contents,including traditional and contemporary Chinese culture;(2)from a micro perspective,in terms of Chinese characters’ gender,there is an imbalance in the gender distribution of characters in both editions;in terms of Chinese characters’ age,there are differences in the age of Chinese characters in PEP edition and Oxford English edition with more Chinese characters with student(0-18 years old)status in the PEP edition,while many Chinese characters appearing in Oxford English edition are historical or mythological figures;in terms of Chinese characters’ vocation,the characters’ occupations are more widely distributed in Oxford English edition;(3)from a macro perspective,in terms of the proportion of Chinese culture,the PEP edition accounts for a larger proportion than the Oxford English edition;in terms of types of Chinese culture,both two editions mainly focus on types of cultural products and lack types of cultural perspectives;in terms of the periodicity of Chinese culture,the proportion of traditional culture and current contemporary culture in PEP edition is more comparable than that in Oxford English edition;(4)In terms of presentation ways,both two editions are mainly presented in explicit way,but the explicit presentation of Chinese culture is stronger in PEP edition than in the Oxford English edition.Overall,both two editions of junior high school English textbooks present a reasonable proportion of Chinese cultural contents but their presentation vary in some aspects.Based on the findings,this study makes suggestions for the teaching of Chinese culture,the selection of teaching materials,and the organization of Chinese cultural contents in textbooks in junior high school English in China.