A Comparative Analysis Of The Localization Of Elementary Chinese Textbooks In Russia

Russia shares the longest land border with China.In recent years,with China’s rise and increased international status,Russia’s demand for Chinese language has further increased.In addition to trade and diplomatic relations,it also covers fields such as cultural exchange and academic research.Therefore,Chinese language learning has received increasing attention and importance in Russia.However,Russia’s language,culture,and social background differ significantly from China.To better help Russian learners understand Chinese language and culture,adjustments and handling of localization need to be made to Chinese language textbooks for Russian audiences.This article selects two Chinese language textbooks published for Russianspeaking countries,New Horizon Integral Chinese Language Course and Contemporary Chinese(Russian version),as research objects.Through comparative analysis of these two textbooks and investigation of the localization needs of local teachers and students,this article summarizes the characteristics and deficiencies of the two textbooks in terms of localization,and proposes relevant suggestions and countermeasures.The article is divided into five chapters: Chapter 1 introduces the research significance,research status,research objects,and research methods of this article.Chapter 2 is the focus of this article,mainly comparing and analyzing the two textbooks in seven aspects: phonetics,vocabulary,grammar,texts,Chinese characters,cultural sections,and layout design.The research results show that New Horizon Integral Chinese Language Course has better localization handling in phonetics and Chinese characters,which is worth learning from and referencing,while Contemporary Chinese(Russian version)has more reasonable grammar arrangement,concise grammar explanations,and more in-depth content selection for texts and cultural sections.At the same time,both textbooks also have problems such as low percentage of localized vocabulary and poor logical and cross-cultural communicative aspects of text content.Chapter 3 is a demand survey,which investigates Chinese language learners in Russia and local Chinese language teachers through questionnaires and interviews,to further understand their demand for localization of Chinese language textbooks for Russians.Chapter 4 summarizes the characteristics and deficiencies of the two textbooks in the above seven aspects based on the comparative analysis and investigation results,and proposes relevant improvement suggestions respectively.Chapter 5 is the conclusion of this article,reviewing the general content and shortcomings of the research.It is hoped that this article can provide some reference for the localization of Chinese language textbooks in Russia to a certain extent.