An Investigation of Culture Presentation in ELT Textbooks in the Context of English as an International Language

Abstract

—English is assuming the role of an international language in the world. Based on the contemporary context of English as an international language, this study establishes an analytical framework based on Yuen’s classification criteria for cultural content and draws on Kachru’s concentric circle model to analyze the features of culture presentation in the new edition of China’s senior high school English textbooks. It was found that the cultural content in the new edition of China’s senior high school English textbooks is no longer dominated by Inner-Circle culture, and the proportion of Chinese culture is almost balanced with that of Inner-Circle category, but there is still an imbalance in the proportion of cultural content across different cultural content categories. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations are given regarding teachers’ employment of textbooks and textbook development.