Cultural Representation in American-Published Chinese as a Foreign Language Textbooks: China's Culture or Chinese's Culture?

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Abstract

In the age of globalization, the culture teaching remains underrepresented in the field of Chinese as a foreign language in the US. Drawing from the postmodern approaches, two sets of Chinese language textbooks were examined by content analysis. Cultural tokens were categorized into four socio-cultural groups. The proportion and distribution of their appearances were tallied, and their representation in the textbooks were investigated.

Findings showed that the textbooks stand on a Pan-Chinese culture ideology, emphasized the Mainland Han Chinese, and marginalized other Chinese-speaking groups. It is hoped that teaching Chi-nese culture should not only be bound to the Chinese culture of Mainland China, but also legitimatize that of other Chinese communities.

Author

• Xiaochen Hua, The University of Kansas