A Comparative Study Of Chinese And Foreign Cultural Content In "English" (new Standard) High School Textbooks

With the development of globalization,cross-cultural communication becomes unavoidable.It is the fact that cultural learning of a foreign language is of great necessity,because learning the pronunciation and meaning of those is simply not enough.The English Curriculum Standards for General High Schools(2017 edition)(hereinafter referred to as The Curriculum Standards)emphasizes the importance of cultivating students' cultural awareness.The cultivation of cultural awareness helps students to establish a world outlook,enhance cultural awareness and social responsibility,and establish a correct attitude towards excellent Chinese culture.In the process of cultural teaching,teaching material is an important tool and the main medium to convey Chinese and foreign cultures.By making a comparative study of the Chinese and foreign cultural contents in the textbook,this study aims to answer the following questions:(1)What are the differences in the design features of the composition,distribution and presentation of Chinese and foreign cultural contents in the textbook English(new standard)?(2)How does the design of Chinese and foreign cultural contents in the textbook reflect the requirements of The Curriculum Standard?(3)What is the attitude of English teachers towards the design of Chinese and foreign cultural contents in the textbook?The research object of this study is The English(new standard)compulsory course textbook revised and published by FLTRP in 2019.Through analyzing the Chinese and foreign cultural contents of the three compulsory course textbooks,this study finds that the Chinese and foreign cultural contents have certain characteristics in the composition,distribution and presentation of the textbooks.The study also carries out an interview to investigate the attitudes of English teachers towards the cultural contents of this textbook.The findings of this study are as follows:(1)Following the trend of world development and characteristics of the times,the design of Chinese and foreign cultural contents in the textbook enables students to experience the immersive learning mode through the distribution of Chinese and foreign cultures in each activity,and presents the multimodal discourse in order to enable students to better perceive the Chinese and foreign cultures in the textbook.Specifically,from the perspective of the cultural region of Chinese and foreign cultures,the textbook pays more attention to the presentation of foreign cultures.From the perspective of the cultural coverage of Chinese and foreign cultural contents,Chinese and foreign cultural contents are mainly embodied in the culture of subjective consciousness.Chinese culture mostly selects other cultures to highlight cultural contents,while foreign culture and comparative culture mostly select the culture of expression.There are few objective material cultures in the three cultures.From the perspective of the distribution of Chinese and foreign cultural contents,in addition to the section of “Reflection”,the setting of activities in each section of the textbook reflects the characteristics of Chinese and foreign cultures.From the perspective of the presentation ways of Chinese and foreign cultural contents,the presentation forms of Chinese and foreign cultures and comparative cultures are diverse,showing the characteristics of multimodal discourse.(2)Cultural contents in the revised textbook meet the requirements of The Curriculum Standard for cultural knowledge contents.(3)English teachers realized the importance of cultural teaching and think highly of the revised English textbook for senior high school.They also pointed out the deficiencies of the textbook,such as the large number of Chinese and foreign cultural contents.This study has both theoretical and practical significance.Theoretically,this study can supplement the comparative study of Chinese and foreign cultures in the textbook.Pedagogically,this study helps cultural teaching.Teachers can make good use of the cultural contents in teaching materials,promote students to study culture effectively,and actively take measures to improve cultural teaching.