A Comparative Study On Illustrations Of Biology Textbooks In Chinese And English

The textbook is the most direct, universal and easy-access resource, which leads to its core position in the biology teaching of high school. Illustrations, plays as an important part of textbooks, can visualize the text information as well as extend the text information reasonably. Meanwhile, it contributes to developing students’ability of reading pictures, recognizing and drawing pictures.In the context of the eighth curriculum reform in our country, more than one series of secondary textbooks under the same syllabus has become the main trend of textbook compilation and the quality of textbooks has been further improved due to market competition. However, China starts late on biology teaching, which brings great difficulty to the accumulation of illustrations with high quality and efficiency during the compilation of biology textbooks. As a result, it’s necessary to introduce foreign textbooks and compare the advantages and disadvantages to provide more support and reference for our country’s textbook development.This paper compares the AS and A2 illusions of English AQA textbooks and the illusions in the Chinese PEP edition, does intense research on the universalities and individualities and find out advantages and shortcomings of our textbooks. It’s aimed to provide some new ideas and solutions for our biology textbooks’writing and revising, thus to improve the scientificity, visibility and explanatory. And on this basis, to provide some suggestions for the development of the implementation of the new curriculum and the teaching material building.This research mainly adopts literature research method, comparative research and data analysis method to analyze textbook illustrations of the two editions. The paper discusses three dimensions of the illusions including phenomenal characteristics, types and ways of presentation, and furthermore, the three dimensions can be subdivided into six modules consisting of quantity, composition, types, color, position, the combination of pictures and texts. After studying the textbook illusions of two countries, several conclusions are drawn as follows:The quantity and proportion of two countries’textbook illusions are approximately the same, but the increase number of Chinese textbook illusion mainly comes from decorative illustrations while English textbook illustrations’major contribution is the common illusions of homework. Both of the textbooks have an integrated illusion organization system, that is, the combination of image, title and legend. Chinese textbooks choose classic nominal legend and is concise enough while English textbooks pay more attention on innovation and insert the relative core knowledge into the title or legend as texts. Chinese textbook has a large proportion of representative illusions and a small proportion of explanatory illusions and thus sometimes the explanation is insufficient to explain the principles of biology. British textbooks’ representative illusions are short of illusions connected with life science history and a small proportion of organized illusions, but with a significant explanatory power when comes to the explanatory illusions. British textbooks have better clarity and color contrast. Both of the textbooks have an unattractive picture impression. Whether the Chinese illusions be configured in the main bar or sidebar depends on the page type while British textbooks prefer to place representative illusions in the sidebar and the explanatory illusions in the main bar to make it easier to be distinguished by readers. The pictures and texts are not closely connected in Chinese textbooks and often picture information is significantly less than text information or picture information is redundant. On the opposite, British textbooks take full advantage of legend and integrate pictures into texts well.At the end of the paper, a discussion is processed to find out the comparative research’s revelation to the establishment and application of our high school biology textbook illustrations. The inspiration includes:(1) improve the illustration explanation; (2) pay more attention to the illustrations of after-school exercises; (3) to replace antiquated illustrations firmly; (4) make use of the illusions to organize teaching and dig deep into picture information; (5) increase the captions of the illusions and make a secondary development of textbook illustrations; (6) change the illustration teaching concept and promote the students to construct actively.