Investigating the Cultural Content in a Chinese Textbook Series and Perspectives from Mandarin Learners in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Lee, Kuei-Fang, 李桂芳
• Other Authors: Hsu, Li-Yuan
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/r3q7ug

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 華語文教學碩博士學位學程 === 107 === In recent years, the number of Chinese language learners has been quickly increasing around the world. As a result, the content of teaching materials such as Chinese textbooks has progressively shifted towards a more multiculturalist approach. Although much culture-related research of textbooks has been conducted in the field of Chinese teaching, relatively few studies have analyzed the textbook content in terms of both the coverage of cultural regions and cultural dimensions. Even fewer studies have looked into learners’ perspectives on cultural representation of the modern Chinese textbooks. To fill such gap, this study aims to use the "A Course in Contemporary Chinese" series of textbooks as the object of analysis in which the cultural dimensions and cultural areas were calculated through the concepts of "Cultural Depth" and "Cultural Breadth". To investigate learners’ perspectives about the cultural content in the textbooks, fifteen learners of Chinese in Taiwan, in three proficiency groups, were recruited to participate in the focus group interviews. The result of this study shows that the overall cultural content of the textbooks is dominated by the target language culture (Chinese culture). “Products” are the most frequently used elements and “food” is the biggest theme throughout the entire six volumes. In the more advanced level of the textbooks, Volumes Five and Six, the European and American cultures are found to emerge, mainly through the "Persons" category. They gradually overtake Chinese culture in terms of proportion, while other cultures from Asia and the rest of the world remain under-represented. As for the perspectives from the learners, they pay more attention to culturally relevant topics and vocabulary and tend to favor a more practical approach. Finally, the acceptance of cultural diversity seems to be related to the level of Chinese learners. The higher the level of the learners, the more they can accept the content of other regional cultures in the textbooks.