教材语篇的文化内涵——一项基于语料库的《大学思辨英语教程》研究

Cultural Connotations in Textbook Discourse:A Corpus-Linguistics Study of College English Textbooks

教育部2018年颁布的《外国语言文学类教学质量国家标准》指出,外语类专业学生应具备跨文化交流能力和批判性文化意识等。语言教材在语言知识和文化内涵两个层面上服务于语言学习,因此,教材对外语专业人才培养目标的实现起到关键作用。本研究运用语料库研究方法,考察我国英语专业教材《大学思辨英语教程》的文化内容特征,以探讨其文化配置及语篇选择是否有利于培养学生的跨文化交流能力、思辨能力和语言运用能力等。研究发现,教材"观点"类语篇数量最多,"实践"和"产品"类语篇数量分别居第二和第三位。"观点"类语篇为学习者提供"关于思考的思考",而主题广泛的"实践"和"产品"类语篇向学习者呈现了多文化的社会互动模式和文化产物,有助于激发学习者对目标语文化和母语文化的社会现象和本质进行对比、联系和批判性思考,为提高学习者的跨文化交流能力、思辨能力、文学赏析能力等提供了比较充分的学习资源。

The latest National Standards for the Teaching Quality of Foreign Languages and Literatures promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 2018 states that foreign language majors should have cross-cultural communication skills and critical cultural awareness.Language teaching materials serve language learning on two levels,namely language knowledge and cultural connotation.Therefore,teaching materials play a key role in achieving the goal of training foreign language personnel for serving the national interests.This study uses corpus-linguistics research methods to examine cultural characteristics of the English major textbook Think to explore whether its cultural configuration and text selection are beneficial to the development of students’cross-cultural communication skills,critical thinking and language skills.It is found out that in the textbooks“viewpoint”texts account for the main body,and“practice”and“product”texts rank second and third respectively.“Viewpoint”discourses provide learners with“thinking about thinking”,with a wide range of“practice”and“product”discourses.The selected texts present learners with opportunities to“experience”multicultural social interaction and cultural products,and they are helpful to stimulate students to compare,connect and think critically social phenomena and the essence of the target language culture and the native language culture,so as to provide sufficient learning resources to improve learners’cross-cultural communication ability,critical thinking and literary appreciation competence.