Cultural Representation in Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks

Abstract

Globalization enhances communication among people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. As cultural artifacts, English language teaching textbooks are crucial media for learners’ intercultural education, especially under the concept of English as a lingua franca. This study investigated the cultural elements in Chinese university English textbooks via the approach of content analysis. Specifically, a set of Chinese English language teaching textbooks was selected as the sample and the audio and video materials were transcribed into texts as the data. The results were displayed by the counts of cultural elements. The data revealed that international cultures and source cultures were highlighted, and the textbooks were not oriented toward native-speakers’ English. Moreover, the distribution of cultural categories across the textbooks remains imbalanced, with cultural products occupying the largest proportion, and cultural perspectives displayed the least. This is mainly attributed to the fact that cultural perspectives are implicit cultures under the surface of the iceberg, and notably, they are sporadically reflected by the cultural products, practices, and persons. The findings provide suggestions that writers include balanced cultural elements in compiling English language teaching textbooks, and teachers scrutinize cultural representation and design intercultural activities.

Keywords

• cultural representation
• English textbooks
• English as a lingua franca
• cultural category