Academic Journal
An Analysis of Cultural Load in English Textbooks Taught in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
| Title: | An Analysis of Cultural Load in English Textbooks Taught in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. |
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| Authors: | Habib, Azhar |
| Source: | NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry. Dec2014, Vol. 12 Issue 2, p72-88. 17p. |
| Abstract: | The present study is related to the incorporation of native, target and international culture in the reading texts of the textbooks taught at Secondary School Certificate level in the government schools of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (henceforth KPK, one of the provinces in the country), Pakistan. In order to explore the contents of the textbooks and to determine their cultural load, help is taken from Byram's (1993) checklist. The present research is a qualitative study with theory based content analysis. The results of the study indicate that a balanced amount of reading texts about native, target and international culture are provided in the textbook of class 9 as far as the number of texts is concerned. There are 14 reading texts in the textbook of class 09 in which 04 texts are related to source culture, 03 texts are about target culture and 03 are related to international culture. Nonetheless, 04 reading texts are such which do not come in any category. However, the cultural load of the reading texts pertaining to native culture has been dealt with more depth than the other two cultures in terms of quantity within the texts. Likewise, in the textbook of class 10, there is a lack of balance regarding cultural load. There are 13 reading texts in the textbook of class 10 in which 07 texts are about native culture, 03 texts are about target culture and only 01 text is about international culture. Nevertheless, 02 texts are culture neutral. The results show that the reading texts pertaining to native culture dominate the other two cultures especially international culture which is almost neglected in the textbook under study. It is, therefore suggested to improve the textbooks of class 9 and 10 in order to achieve the goal of intercultural communicative competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Subject Terms: | *Language & culture, *Content analysis, English language textbooks for foreign speakers, Textbooks -- Social aspects |
| Geographic Terms: | Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan) |
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| ISSN: | 22225706 |
| Database: | Communication & Mass Media Complete |
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