The Investigation Of Cultural Knowledge Contained In The Texts Of Chinese Textbooks

This paper analyzed the similarities and differences of cultural knowledge in the content of the text between two series of Chinese textbooks. The study took New Practical Chinese Reader and Chinese Odyssey as samples. The study analyzed the text relies on vocabulary, the cultural knowledge system and cultural differences comparison. The research methodology is a hybrid method, namely quantitative research and qualitative research combined.The results of quantitative research and qualitative research found that two sets of textbooks had different features in the following three aspects.Two sets of textbooks had different orientation on cultural knowledge. Chinese textbooks tend to introduce Chinese culture in order to highlight the achievements of the spread of Chinese culture. American textbooks tend to introduce Chinese daily life,customs and Chinese economic, political and other aspects of national conditions, to enrich the cultural knowledge of learners, a comprehensive understanding of China’s national conditions and culture. China and the US are two sets of textbooks lack of communication activities and ideas class selection of cultural knowledge.In the words of the text layout aspects of cultural knowledge, the two sets oftextbooks have selected a total proportion of selected words. China and the US editors chose different words in the same cultural knowledge. Textbooks edited by Chinese editors selected more words that reflected the unique culture of China. Textbooks edited by the U.S. editors selected more words that reflected contemporary cultural commonalities and American culture. The number of lexical items of the textbooks edited by the U.S. is larger than the textbooks edited by Chinese editors. Textbooks edited by the U.S. had a wider range of choice of words, word frequency higher core lexical items and basic lexical items.In contrast of culture, two sets of textbooks are lack in comparison of Chinese and foreign cultural and regional cultural differences. They are lack of revealing the causes of cultural differences. Relatively speaking, the cultural contrast American textbook contains a richer, more diverse cultural comparison of angles. American textbook compared Custom Culture, cultural and institutional achievements of cultural differences. Chinese textbooks compared notion of cultural differences.On the whole, the US version of the textbook is rich in cultural knowledge,cultural point clustering word groups. And cross-cultural communication viewpoint of the US version of the textbook is better than the performance of the Chinese version of textbooks.