A Comparative Study On The Cultural Contents Of Reading Materials In Senior High School English Textbooks In China,Japan And South Korea

In the context of globalization,countries are more and more actively carrying out cultural exchanges and dissemination.Language is the carrier of culture.To learn a language well,we must understand the culture behind it.Therefore,cultural education plays an important role in English education.China,Japan and South Korea have similar cultural and historical backgrounds,and English is taught as a foreign language in these three countries.The English curriculum standards of these three countries all emphasize learners’ cultural awareness and cross-cultural communication ability.Therefore,a comparative study of the characteristics of the cultural content in the senior English course textbooks of these three countries has a certain reference significance for the improvement of the cultural content of our senior English course textbooks.This study selects senior high school English textbooks published by people’s education press,All Aboard,textbooks in Japan and High School English published by YBM in South Korea as the research subjects,and makes a comparative analysis of the cultural content and the presentation form of the cultural content of the reading materials in the textbooks.Based on the cultural analysis framework of Risager(1990),this study makes a comparative analysis of the culture content and its presentation in teaching materials from three aspects: macro,micro,international and cross-cultural issues,in order to answer the following two research questions: 1)What are the similarities and differences in cultural content of reading materials in senior high school English Textbooks between China,Japan and South Korea? 2)What are the similarities and differences in the presentation of cultural content of reading materials of senior high school English textbooks in China,Japan and South Korea?The research shows that there are similarities and differences in the cultural content and presentation of senior high school English textbooks in these three countries.From the perspective of cultural content,senior high school English textbooks of these three countries can cover macro culture and micro culture,and the proportion of common cultural content of these three countries is relatively high,but the content of comparative culture in senior high school English textbooks of these three countries is relatively small.In contrast,the proportion of local culture in senior high school English textbooks in China and Japan is relatively large.It can be seen that both China and Japan pay more attention to their own national culture and cultures in their country,and the proportion of target language culture in China is similar to that of local culture.It can be seen that while paying attention to local culture,China has not ignored the learning of target language culture.From the perspective of the presentation of cultural content,the English textbooks of senior high schools in these three countries mainly adopt the presentation form of text +pictures.The number of pictures in the English textbooks of senior high schools in Japan and South Korea is significantly more than that in China,paying more attention to the intuitive and interesting functions of pictures.In addition,the text forms in senior high school English textbooks in China and Japan reflect diversity,while the text forms in senior high school English textbooks in South Korea are relatively single.Through the comparative analysis of the cultural content of senior high school English textbooks in China,Japan and South Korea,this paper summarizes their similarities and differences so as to help teachers better cultivate students’ cultural knowledge and cultural awareness in the teaching process.At the same time,by comparing the similarities and differences of the cultural content of senior high school English textbooks in China,Japan and South Korea,it can provide a reference for the next stage of compiling senior high school English textbooks in China.