An Analysis Of Cultural Input In Materials Of New Vision College English

In2004, State Ministry of Education published College English Curriculum Requirements which proposed the provision that the content of intercultural communication should be taken into account in College English teaching to cultivate students’comprehensive ability of using English, cultural accomplishment, and intercultural communicative competence for the sake of adapting to the needs of social development. As the mutual platform on which both teachers and students perform pedagogical tasks, teaching material plays an import role of cultural transmission.Based on the actual requirements of intercultural foreign language teaching by means of text analysis and interview of users, the thesis analyzes the cultural input of the materials in New Vision College English (Reading and Writing course) which is published by China Renmin University Press with the hope that the study will benefit the textbook users.This paper consists of five parts. Chapter One gives a brief introduction to the origin and significance of the study, and organization of the thesis. Chapter Two is literature review, which expounds language input theory, language and culture, including their relationship, culture teaching at home and abroad, teaching objective, content and evaluation criterion of intercultural foreign language teaching. In Chapter Three, the author exhibits a detailed analysis of cultural input in New Vision College English from the perspective of cultural theme, origin of culture, and cultural focus, which aims to answer the following questions:(1) Does the overall design of the textbooks lay stress on the target language culture?(2) Is there culture imbalance among the target language countries?(3) Is there enough native culture reflected in the textbooks? And (4) do the textbooks pay enough attention to other cultures?Research results of this study indicate that this series of textbooks excessively emphasize the target language culture, and American culture takes the dominate position among the English speaking countries. However, limited space is designed for the culture of China, other English-speaking countries and other non-English speaking countries. The contrasts and comparisons between different cultures can hardly be found. The culture with micro-level takes up the majority while the culture with macro-culture is not sufficient. Chapter Four offers implications of the present study and gives some suggestions for the users, including teachers and students, textbook compliers and curriculum designers. Chapter Five displays a brief summary of the limitation and values, and suggestions for the further research are offered.