A Contrastive Analysis Of Textbooks Between Spoken Chinese And English For Foreign Trade

With the fast development of Chinese economy, China plays a more and more important role in international trade, as a result of which Chinese is more and more popular, especially Business Chinese with strong practicability has been winning so many pursuers. Therefore it is urgent now to compile textbooks for Business Chinese. However, present ones, especially those for spoken Chinese for foreign trade, are far from meeting the requirement of learning and teaching when compared with English teaching which has developed so well in China.Part 1 describes the significance, research object and research method of this paper; gives an overview on the achievement of researches on textbooks for spoken Chinese and English for foreign trade both at home and abroad; clarifies definition of spoken language for foreign trade; illustrates the difference between spoken language for foreign trade and common spoken language; summarizes features of spoken language for foreign trade.Part 2 compares compiling style of the above two textbooks. On the whole, they are both simple and lack of change.Part 3 compares topic selection, communicative function and cultural content of the two textbooks. Two kinds of topics can be seen in both, which are those about daily life and business. However, proportion of topics about daily life is less in 30 Lessons for Spoken Chinese for Foreign Trade (the edition reprinted in 2014). It pays more attention to its function in business communication while A New Spoken English Course for International Business (3rd Edition) attaches equal importance to both daily communication and business communication.Part 4 compares practice part of the two textbooks on practice type, quantity and difficulty. A New Spoken English Course for International Business (3rd Edition) has richer practice types, is moderately difficult and has much more questions.Part 5 discloses the comparison result and gives a few pieces of suggestion for compiling textbooks for spoken Chinese for foreign trade. Firstly, practicability should be emphasized and type of textbooks should be detailed. Secondly, cultural factors and knowledge system should be blended organically. Thirdly, fun should be strengthened in arrangement.