A Comparative Study Of Chinese And Japanese Metaphorical Representation Containing The Chinese Character "cao"

Under the background of globalization,cultural exchanges between countries become increasingly frequent.As a soft power of a country,culture increasingly become the core of international competition,so it is essential to spread China culture in English learning.Ministry of Education pointed out that we should pay more attention to China culture’s integration in English teaching.Textbooks,as the carrier of courses and a part of English education,play an essential role in helping college students improve their intercultural communication ability and promoting the spread of Chinese culture.Therefore,studying the cultural content in college English textbooks has great significance.This study takes the reading part in three different editions of New Horizon College English(Reading and Writing Course)as the discourses.To explore how this textbook’s cultural content has gradually evolved since the first edition was published in 2001,this study makes a diachronic analysis of the cultural contents in the three editions.This study will discuss the diachronic changes in cultural contents relating to their types,categories,and themes.It also discusses in detail how the cultural content in the textbooks is represented,and whether it meets the teaching requirements and the development changes of the times.Through the analysis,it is found that: firstly,from the perspective of types,the proportion of the inner circle culture represented by the target language culture increases in the three editions of textbooks,but most of them belong to American culture,while the proportion of other inner circle cultures decreases.The ratio of China culture in the extended circle in the third edition of the textbook has a noticeable growth,but there is still an imbalance.Secondly,compared with the previous two textbook editions,the product’s cultural contents increased and ranked first in NHCE3.At the same time,the number of cultural contents of practice and person ranks second and third.This kind of discourse with a wide range of topics presents learners with a multicultural social interaction model and cultural products.The cultural content of perspective accounts for the least in three editions of textbooks.Third,from the perspective of themes,the three editions of textbooks all involve various themes with rich cultural content.All three editions of textbooks focus more on belief and behavior,socialization.In NHCE3,the first two books focus on campus and family life,and the last two books focus on the country and society.The selection of materials for cultural content is in line with the development characteristics of the times,and the connection between cultural content and language knowledge is also more harmonious,which is conducive to the cultivation of students’ comprehensive ability.This study attempts to enrich the content of foreign language textbook research,providing a new perspective for foreign language textbook research,paying attention to the social significance of foreign language textbooks in the cross-cultural process,improving the importance of China culture in college English textbooks,and focusing on to the allocation of China culture in textbooks.