Representation of cultures in national English textbooks in China: a synchronic content analysis

ABSTRACT

This study examines the representation of cultures across three sets of national English textbooks currently used in China by conducting a synchronic content analysis to explore what and how cultures are represented in the textbooks. Data analysis was conducted based on a newly constructed framework focusing on the content (countries and categories) and forms of cultural representation. Our findings mainly indicated that American and British culture dominated in the culture of inner circle countries and international culture was represented the least in all three textbooks, while Chinese culture was represented more than the cultures of inner circle countries in two sets of textbooks. As for cultural categories, the representation of cultural products was the most, and cultural perspectives and cultural communities were represented the least in all three sets of textbooks. Regarding the form of cultural representation, the cultural representation in implicit forms was, to varying degrees, more than that in explicit forms. Based on the findings, suggestions for English as a foreign language (EFL) textbook writers, EFL teachers and textbook researchers are provided.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural representation
• synchronic content analysis
• English as a lingua franca
• English language textbooks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Considering brevity and clarity of the figures, explicit forms of representation listed in Table 3 were merged into five forms: Texts (including the only cultural item fully discussed in a text, main cultural item in a text, evenly-distributed cultural item in a text, minor cultural item in a text); Cultural Knowledge sections (including the only cultural item in a Cultural Knowledge section, main cultural item in a Cultural Knowledge section, evenly-distributed cultural items in a Cultural Knowledge section, minor cultural item in a Cultural Knowledge section); Pictures; Quotations; Background cultural information.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the National Social Science Fund of China 2021 “A comparative study on cultural representation in primary andsecondary foreign language textbooks of different countries” [Grant Number 21BYY122].