Representing culture in Chinese as a second language textbooks: a critical social semiotic approach

This paper presents a comparative analysis investigating how cultural values are represented in two sets of widely used Chinese as a second language (CSL) textbooks published in mainland China (New Practical Chinese Reader, NPCR) and the US (Integrated Chinese, IC) respectively. Using an integrated critical social semiotic approach, we examined the image-text semiotic relations as well as their cultural meaning potentials in textbook content focused on cultural values around education. We found that (1) there are three types of image-text relations, namely, denotational/pedagogic/linguistic relations, denotational/pedagogic relations, and denotational relations; (2) IC is notable because the images are occasionally involved in pedagogic activities, which amounts to a kind of guided semiosis (Weninger, C., & Kiss, T. (2013). Culture in English as a Foreign language (EFL) textbooks: A semiotic approach. Tesol Quarterly, 47(4), 694–716.); (3) IC presents more opportunities to engage the readers in critical and comparative reflections on Chinese cultural values, while in NPCR the cultural meanings invoked by the pictures are mostly denotational in nature, missing opportunities to explore deeper cultural interpretations. Discussions and implications on the development of cultural content in language textbooks have been offered in reference to intercultural authenticity and reflection-in-action.