A Comparative Study Of English Textbooks On The Basis Of The Intercultural Awareness Cultivation

As the carrier and spreading medium of culture,language is the external manifestation of culture.Being independent,language and culture influence each other and develop together.A specific national culture must contain a multitude of abstract language systems.It can be said that learning of a language to a large extent,is also the understanding and mastering of a national culture.The English curriculum standard for senior high school(2017)points out that the core literacy of English subject includes language ability,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability.Cultural awareness refers to the understanding of Chinese and foreign cultures and the identification of excellent cultures.The cultivation of cultural awareness helps students enhance national identity and strengthen cultural confidence.As the main basis of teachers' teaching and the main source of students' acquiring knowledge,the teaching materials have direct effect on teachers' teaching and students' learning.It can be said that the selection and arrangement of teaching materials indicate the direction for teachers' teaching and students' learning.The teaching of culture should be based on the teaching of materials.Therefore,from the perspective of text analysis of teaching materials,it is of great significance to explore the cultivation of cultural awareness in the basic education stage.This study focuses on the English textbooks for senior high schools of the EDP and the FLTRP edition,and uses UAM Corpus Too software and Excel software to comparatively analyze the data from three dimensions of culture types,culture regions and culture themes in the compulsory(1-5)part of the two sets of textbooks.The study aims to reveal the characteristics,similarities and differences of the two versions of textbooks' cultural knowledge through the statistical data results.The results of the data statistics and comparative analysis show that:1.In terms of the cultural content types,the textbooks of EDP and FLTRP are rich in cultural content,covering various fields and aspects of life.2.In terms of the distribution of cultural regions,the proportion of Anglo-American culture in the EDP is higher than that in the FLTRP,which means that the EDP focuses on the cultivation of students' acceptance of other cultural differences;the proportion of Chinese culture in the FLTRP is higher than that in the EDP,which indicates that the FLTRP focuses on the education of local culture,and meets the goal of strengthening students' national identity and strengthening cultural self-confidence under the core literacy goals of the new curriculum standard.3.In terms of the cultural themes,the FLTRP focuses more on the ability of students to comprehensively use cultural knowledge,which is conducive to the cultivation of students' cross-cultural communication awareness;the FLTRP is more innovative in the choice of cultural teaching materials,which is more in line with students' physical and psychological characteristics.The research value of this study lies in the differences and characteristics of the two versions of textbooks from the three dimensions: cultural types,cultural regions and cultural themes,which more clearly reveals the respective characteristics of the two versions of textbooks in the cultural presentation.This research intends to provide some suggestions for textbook writers and English teachers.