다문화 관점에 근거한 중학교 영어교과서의 문화적 내용 분석 연구

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the current state of Korean middle school English textbooks with regard to their use of cultural contents, especially from the multicultural perspectives. For this purpose, seven different English textbooks out of 13 types of textbooks that are currently being used across the country were chosen for analyses. Due to the time constraint, only the cultural contents of seven third-year textbooks were compared in terms of the distributions by country, nationality·race·culture, gender and social class. The results of the analysis are as follows: First, the cultural contents shown in the textbooks were analyzed by country. The results show that the contents of English textbooks including pictures and figures are mainly focusing on the English-speaking countries and Korea. The cultural contents of other countries are rare even though most textbooks try to include some examples from non-English speaking countries. Second, in terms of nationality·race·culture, most of the contents in the textbooks are about America and western cultures. For example, when mentioning heroic or intellectual acts, the books are focusing on western cultures. On the other hand, when mentioning Korean cultural contents, the textbook authors seem to accept our culture without any criticism and just seem to exaggerate a little in order to boost our pride. Cultural aspects of "the third countries" were dealt in the textbooks, but it is not sufficient to understand their culture easily. Third, with regard to the sex issue, it is shown that the contents were mostly male-centered and these backgrounds appear to dominate throughout the textbooks although there are some lessons which cover the achievements of women's ability and right. Finally, the issue of social classes as a manifestation of cultural contents, the majority of the textbooks are concerned about people who succeeded, which might suggest that success is the most important cultural ingredient in life and failure is something textbooks should not contain as topics, thus trying to imbue the dichotomy between success and failure among the middle school students. This success-centered value system seems to reflect the capitalistic ways of thinking. In conclusion, cultural contents displayed in the Korean English textbooks were not distributed equally in terms of multicultural ways of thinking. Careful and balanced viewpoints need to be presented in the textbooks in order for students to form objective viewpoints. For the development of new textbooks, careful considerations of these points should be taken into account.