Investigation And Analysis Of Chinese Culture In PEP Senior High School English Textbooks (2019 Edition)

Nowadays,cultural soft power has become an important part of a country’s comprehensive national strength.Chinese culture in foreign language learning plays an important role in telling Chinese stories well and building up cultural confidence.The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools(2017 Edition)lists cultural awareness as one of the six elements of the curriculum content,emphasizing the strengthening of cultural confidence through the study of cultural knowledge.High school English textbooks are the main materials for cultivating the cultural awareness of senior high school students,especially PEP Senior High School English Textbook(2019 Edition)is revised according to the English Curriculum Standards.It is of great significance to study Chinese cultural content in the textbooks for cultivating cultural awareness.Based on the intercultural communication theory and Cheng Xiaotang’s(2011)internal and external evaluation of the textbook,this study takes the five sections(listening,speaking,reading,writing and extended reading)of PEP Senior High School English Textbooks(2019 Edition)as the research objects,and mainly discusses three questions:(1)What Chinese cultural content is presented in the textbooks?(2)What are the ways of presenting Chinese culture in the textbooks?(3)How do textbook users apply Chinese cultural content and its presentation in teaching?Through text analysis and questionnaire survey,this study draws the following conclusions :(1)Chinese cultural content presented in the textbook is rich in variety,but its distribution is uneven;(2)The presentation of Chinese cultural content in the textbook is mainly based on text and illustrations,which is flexible.On the one hand,most of the textbooks tell Chinese stories through unlimited-point of view and analepsis.On the other hand,from the perspective of the types of illustrations,the textbooks mainly present Chinese culture in the form of physical pictures.In terms of the organization form of illustrations,the textbooks mainly present Chinese culture in the form of independent and divergent diagrams;(3)Teachers and students have a full understanding of the content and presentation of Chinese culture,but they are lack of application.According to the above studies,the author puts forward some suggestions for textbook writers and textbook users.