A Comparative Study On The Presentation Of Cultural Iterms In Intermediate Chinese Reading Textbooks In China And The United States

With the promotion of International Chinese Language Education around the world,the compilation of "nationaliztion" international Chinese language textbooks has received academic attention.Currently,the discussion of "nationalization" textbooks is mainly focused on comprehensive textbooks,while special skills textbooks are an important supplement to comprehensive textbooks,but there is little research on "nationalization".Secondly,language and culture are inseparable.Language is a part of culture,and language can also carry cultural content.The issue of cultural compilation is an important indicator that affects the quality of the compilation of international Chinese textbooks.In addition,the textbook used by the author during the teaching practice is a local American international Chinese reading textbook.The cultural content of this textbook is vivid and interesting,which fits into the daily lives of American learners,and has produced good teaching results.Therefore,this article takes the American local reading textbook The Routledge Intermediate Chinese Reader and the representative reading textbook Developing Chinese Intermediate Reading Ⅱ compiled in China as the research objects,based on the World Readiness Standards for Learning Language(ACTFL,2015)of the United States and the Framework of Reference for Chinese Culture and Society in International Chinese Language Education(the Center for Lnguage and Cooperation,2022)of China,two authoritative documents that provide guidance for the preparation of cultural items in textbooks,and the objectives and requirements of cultural teaching in language teaching,studies the similarities and differences in the selection,presentation,and compilation of cultural items between the two textbooks.Based on their respective characteristics and strengths,this article explores the issue of compiling cultural projects for Chinese reading textbooks in the United States,in order to provide data support and relevant suggestions for the future compilation of Chinese reading textbooks in the United States.This article consists of five chapters,with the specific content of each chapter as follows:Chapter 1 is an introduction,which mainly describes the research background,research objects,research issues,research methods,and research significance of this study.It also summarizes relevant research on international Chinese reading textbooks,nationalization international Chinese textbooks,and cultural compilation of international Chinese textbooks.Chapter 2 introduces the compilation overview and purpose of the two reading textbooks in China and the United States,and conducts quantitative statistics on the cultural items of the two reading textbooks from both macro and micro dimensions,preparing for the comparative study in the next chapter.On the basis of existing statistical data,Chapter 3 compares and analyzes the national attributes,two-way presentation,and discourse perspective of cultural items in the two international Chinese reading textbooks from a cross-cultural perspective.From the comparison,we can see the difference between "universal" language textbooks and"nationalization" language textbooks in terms of "universality" and "pertinence".Chapter 4 provides the results of the comparative analysis above from three aspects:cultural themes,ways of presenting cultural items,and the correspondence between cultural writing and the requirements of guidance documents in the latest language teaching in China and the United States.It elaborates on the inspiration obtained from this study and some suggestions for future writing of Chinese reading textbooks for the United States.Chapter 5 summarizes the full text and describes the shortcomings of this study.