A Study Of Presentation Of The Chinese Culture In New Senior English For China

English is an international lingua franca widely used in the world today.It is an important communication tool for international exchange and cooperation.On the course of English becoming an international lingua franca,the diversity of English users’ backgrounds has also made the world’s English context appear to be multicultural.Nowadays,with the rapid development of China’s economy,science and technology,and profound changes in social life,China’s international status has been increasingly improved,so China’s exchanges with foreigners have become increasingly frequent.For Chinese students,the most important purpose of learning English is intercultural communication.However,intercultural communication requires not only mastering the target language culture,but also the Chinese culture.According to previous research,in the past 40 years,China has made some achievements in cultural teaching.However,our country’s cultural teaching focuses on the target language culture and ignores the teaching of the Chinese culture.As a result,senior high school students cannot express the Chinese culture appropriately.In 2013,the Ministry of Education officially started to revise the curriculum standards for ordinary high schools.After three years’ research,the revised version was officially promulgated at the end of 2017.The goal of the revised senior high school English curriculum has changed from “comprehensive language skills” to “key competences of English subjects”.Comprehensive language skills include language skills,language knowledge,emotional attitudes,learning strategies,and cultural awareness.The key competences of English subjects mainly include linguistic competence,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability.It can be seen that both the new and the old versions of the senior high school English curriculum standards clearly state that one of the goals of senior high school English teaching is to cultivate students’ cultural awareness.However,by comparing the cultural awareness goals in the two editions of the English curriculum of high school,we can see that the cultural awareness goals in the 2017 edition put more emphasis on the ability of students to spread the Chinese culture.It proposes “cultivating socialist builders and successors with Chinese sentiment,international perspective,and intercultural communication skills”.English textbooks are not only an important tool for teachers to teach and an important material for students to learn,but also a major source of cultural input.Therefore,the content of a textbook directly affects teachers’ teaching,and the amount of the Chinese cultural content included in the textbook directly affects students’ ability to express and spread the Chinese culture.Therefore,analyzing the content and presentation of the Chinese culture in textbooks can better help students to form a two-way exchange of Chinese and foreign cultures on the basis of deepening their understanding of the Chinese culture,strengthen patriotism,establish cultural self-confidence,and actively carry forward and promote Chinese culture.This research takes as its object of study the most widely used version of the senior high school English textbooks in the country,that is,New Senior English for China(Student’s Books,Book1-Book5),thereafter called NSEFC,published by the People’s Education Press.The purpose of this research is to analyze the Chinese cultural content and ways of presentation in the hope of benefiting the compilation of high school English textbooks and improving teachers’ teaching and students’ learning.This research uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to make statistics and analysis of Chinese cultural content and ways of presentation in the textbooks.The main research questions are:(1)What is the proportion of the Chinese culture in NSEFC(Book1-Book5)?(2)What are the different ways of presentation of the Chinese culture and what are the characteristics of the overall Chinese culture presentation in NSEFC(Book1-Book5)?(3)What are the different categories of the Chinese culture in NSEFC(Book1-Book5)?The research results show that:1.The Chinese culture accounts for a small proportion in NSEFC(Book1-Book5),and the proportion of the Chinese culture and target culture is imbalanced.2.There are seven ways of presentation of the Chinese culture.After integrating them,the “text” section accounts for the largest proportion and the“picture” section accounts for the least proportion.3.In NSEFC(Book1-Book5),according to the cultural structures,the Chinese culture can be divided into three categories: material culture,institutional culture and mental culture;according to the chronological order,the Chinese culture can be divided into traditional Chinese culture,modern Chinese culture and contemporary Chinese culture;according to the ethnic characteristics,the Chinese culture can bedivided into the Han culture and the ethnic culture.