Cover Image

Analysing cultural elements in L2 Mandarin textbooks for Malaysian learners

Culture is an important aspect of foreign or second language education as the teaching of foreign languages straddles two languages, the learner’s first language and the target/foreign language, and the different cultures associated with them. Textbooks for the teaching of foreign languages must ine...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lin, Wen Yue, Ang, Lay Hoon, Chan, Mei Yuit, Paramasivam, Shamala
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: National Research University Higher School of Economics 2020
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/87853/1/ABSTRACT.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/87853/
https://jle.hse.ru/article/view/10332
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
id my.upm.eprints.87853
record_format eprints
spelling my.upm.eprints.878532022-05-27T23:35:42Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/87853/ Analysing cultural elements in L2 Mandarin textbooks for Malaysian learners Lin, Wen Yue Ang, Lay Hoon Chan, Mei Yuit Paramasivam, Shamala Culture is an important aspect of foreign or second language education as the teaching of foreign languages straddles two languages, the learner’s first language and the target/foreign language, and the different cultures associated with them. Textbooks for the teaching of foreign languages must inevitably orient to cultural elements from at least two cultural practices and environments. In this study, cultural elements in four Mandarin as a second language textbooks written by Malaysian authors were examined using content analysis. The conception of cultural elements proposed by Zhang and Chen and the categorizations of types of culture proposed by Cortazzi and Jin and Chao were employed to investigate the extent to which cultural elements (knowledge-culture or communicative-culture) and types of culture (source, target, international cultures or intercultural interaction) are represented in these textbooks. The analysis found that both knowledge-culture and communicative-culture are embodied in the textbooks. Furthermore, most of the cultural elements identified in the textbooks represent source and target cultures which refer to learners’ own culture and culture of the target language. The presence of international cultures and intercultural interaction, on the other hand, is lower in these textbooks. This study contributes towards a better understanding of how Malaysian authors of Mandarin as a second language textbooks for Malaysian learners incorporate cultural elements in the books they write. It highlights the importance of integrating cultural elements and representing a diversity of cultures in textbooks for teaching Mandarin as a second language. National Research University Higher School of Economics 2020 Article PeerReviewed text en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/87853/1/ABSTRACT.pdf Lin, Wen Yue and Ang, Lay Hoon and Chan, Mei Yuit and Paramasivam, Shamala (2020) Analysing cultural elements in L2 Mandarin textbooks for Malaysian learners. Journal of Language and Education, 6 (4). pp. 121-137. ISSN 2411-7390 https://jle.hse.ru/article/view/10332 10.17323/ jle.2020.10332
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
language English
description Culture is an important aspect of foreign or second language education as the teaching of foreign languages straddles two languages, the learner’s first language and the target/foreign language, and the different cultures associated with them. Textbooks for the teaching of foreign languages must inevitably orient to cultural elements from at least two cultural practices and environments. In this study, cultural elements in four Mandarin as a second language textbooks written by Malaysian authors were examined using content analysis. The conception of cultural elements proposed by Zhang and Chen and the categorizations of types of culture proposed by Cortazzi and Jin and Chao were employed to investigate the extent to which cultural elements (knowledge-culture or communicative-culture) and types of culture (source, target, international cultures or intercultural interaction) are represented in these textbooks. The analysis found that both knowledge-culture and communicative-culture are embodied in the textbooks. Furthermore, most of the cultural elements identified in the textbooks represent source and target cultures which refer to learners’ own culture and culture of the target language. The presence of international cultures and intercultural interaction, on the other hand, is lower in these textbooks. This study contributes towards a better understanding of how Malaysian authors of Mandarin as a second language textbooks for Malaysian learners incorporate cultural elements in the books they write. It highlights the importance of integrating cultural elements and representing a diversity of cultures in textbooks for teaching Mandarin as a second language.
format Article
author Lin, Wen Yue
Ang, Lay Hoon
Chan, Mei Yuit
Paramasivam, Shamala
spellingShingle Lin, Wen Yue
Ang, Lay Hoon
Chan, Mei Yuit
Paramasivam, Shamala
Analysing cultural elements in L2 Mandarin textbooks for Malaysian learners
author_facet Lin, Wen Yue
Ang, Lay Hoon
Chan, Mei Yuit
Paramasivam, Shamala
author_sort Lin, Wen Yue
title Analysing cultural elements in L2 Mandarin textbooks for Malaysian learners
title_short Analysing cultural elements in L2 Mandarin textbooks for Malaysian learners
title_full Analysing cultural elements in L2 Mandarin textbooks for Malaysian learners
title_fullStr Analysing cultural elements in L2 Mandarin textbooks for Malaysian learners
title_full_unstemmed Analysing cultural elements in L2 Mandarin textbooks for Malaysian learners
title_sort analysing cultural elements in l2 mandarin textbooks for malaysian learners
publisher National Research University Higher School of Economics
publishDate 2020
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/87853/1/ABSTRACT.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/87853/
https://jle.hse.ru/article/view/10332
_version_ 1734301652240826368
score 13.223943

Similar Items