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Section 5. Applied Linguistics
https://doi.org/10.29013/EJLL-23-2-40-50
Wenjuan Lang, Meiyan Liu,
A STUDY ON THE IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL CONNOTATION OF TEXTS IN COLLEGE ENGLISH TEXTBOOK BASED ON CORPUS - WITH THE THIRD EDITION OF NEW HORIZON ENGLISH COURSE (READING & WRITING) AS AN EXAMPLE
Abstract. With the development of ideological and political education, integrating the curriculum ideological and political teaching system into the construction of college textbooks has been in full swing in colleges and universities nationwide. Since language materials are the carriers of culture, studying the ideological and political connotation by taking the cultural content of textbook as an example is conducive to students' establishment of correct values, and at the same time provides insights for the integration of ideological and political education into the writing and use of English textbooks. Based on the Wmatrix4 corpus, the present study analyzes the ideological and political connotation of the texts in the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing) and finds that the elements of cultural products, cultural practices, cultural perspectives and cultural persons are all reflected in the texts of the textbook, but the proportion of their distribution is uneven; the ideological and political connotation of socialist core values and professional ethics education in the textbooks is rich, while the connotations of Xi Jinping' s thoughts on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, Chinese traditional culture and rule of law education are deficient.
Keywords: Ideological and Political Connotation; Culture; English Textbooks; Corpus.
Introduction Ministry of Education issued the "Guidelines for the
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Central Construction of ideological and Political Education
Committee of the Communist Party of China, with Xi in Colleges and Universities" [2], which requires that
Jinping as the core, has attached great importance to the fundamental task of establishing moral education
the ideological and political work in colleges. In 2016, should be fully implemented in in-class instruction,
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized in the Na- and the role of each course in educating people should
tional Conference on Ideological and Political Work be brought into play. The construction of curriculum
in Colleges and Universities that making moral edu- ideological and political education pattern "education
cation the central link and integrate ideological and for all staff, education for the whole process and edu-
political work into the whole process of education and cation for all aspects" is carrying out enthusiastically
teaching should be implemented[l]. In 2020, China's in colleges and universities nationwide.
College English is an important part of general education in higher education institutions and plays an irreplaceable and important role in talent cultivation. Guidelines for Integrating Moral Education into College Foreign Language Teaching (2020) clearly points out that "College English should be integrated into the teaching system of school curriculum ideology and politics, so that it can play an important role in implementing the fundamental task of establishing moral education in higher education institutions" [3]. Language is a carrier of culture, and English teaching is also cultural teaching. Curriculum ideological and political education can guide students to look at the similarities and differences between Chinese and foreign cultures in the process of learning foreign languages, to deal with cross-cultural comparisons and collisions correctly, so as to deepen their understanding of Chinese characteristics and culture, and to build up their cultural confidence, and finally solve the questions of "who to train", "how to train" and "for whom to train" raised by curriculum ideology and politics.
As an important carrier of the teaching content of the curriculum, the textbook plays a key role in supporting the improvement of education and teaching level and talent training quality. Integrating the curriculum ideological elements into the construction of college textbooks is one of the fundamental tasks to implement the Guidelines and an important guarantee for the high-quality development of curriculum ideology construction[4]. Language and ideology are closely related, and ideology is hidden in linguistic expressions. Almost all language materials contain cultural information[5], and English textbook texts reflect the mainstream cultural ideas and values of English-speaking countries between the lines. Therefore, if the distribution of cultural elements in English textbooks is unbalanced, it is not conducive to students to tell and transmit Chinese culture in English, making it impossible to start the curriculum ideological and political education. Therefore, it is feasible and valuable to analyze the ideological and political con-
notation in the English textbooks from the perspective of cultural elements setting.
The usage rate of the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing) is 49.3%, which ranks the top among textbooks used by non-English major undergraduates in China[6]. Using the cross-cultural content of this textbook as an example to study the ideological and political connotation can provide insights for the integration of ideological and political education into the writing and use of English textbooks.
Previous Study and Application
A. Research on the Cultural Content of English Textbooks
Both of scholars in China and other countries have studied the cultural content of various university English textbooks from different perspectives. Most college English textbooks in China have cultural content that emphasizes British and American culture and light on local Chinese cultural content. Lu Aihua (2014) investigated and studied the use of English textbooks in universities of East China and concluded that the existing studies on textbooks are mostly introductory articles, with a limited number of empirical studies and a lack of survey studies on textbooks[7]. Liu Yanhong et al. (2015) used a corpus approach to explore the cultural content of 10 sets of college English textbooks and found that the cultural selection and configuration of the textbooks had the problem of strong American and British culture, and then discussed the impact of the cultural imbalance phenomenon of the textbooks on students [8]. Other scholars have conducted in-depth studies on the cultural issues of college English textbooks using questionnaires and interviews, but commenting on the textbooks from users' subjective perspectives, some of the studies lack systematization and objectivity. For this reason, Guo Baoxian (2020) discussed the cultural mission carried by English textbooks in the new era in detail, suggesting that the writing of textbooks in the new era should enhance cultural self-awareness, select diversified Chinese cultural
contents, and play the professional leading role of teaching materials[9]. Based on the analysis of seven sets of English textbooks, Zhang Hong and Li Xia-onan (2022) developed the Framework for Analysis of Cultural Presentation of English Textbooks, which provided a reference for the study of textbook analysis and evaluation around two dimensions of cultural presentation content and presentation mode [10].
Scholars from other countries have also critically reflected on the cultural content of textbooks through different research methods, pointing out that there is an imbalance and distortion in the selection and presentation of socio-cultural knowledge in textbooks [11]. Angouri (2010) analyzed the texts in six British business English textbooks from the perspective of cultural concept manipulation and found that these textbooks mainly divided culture by country/region and lacked micro perspective exploration [12]. Lee (2014) and other scholars discussed the conflict between globalization consciousness and national identity in the compilation of Korean English textbooks, and clearly pointed out that American culture is the dominant culture in Korean English textbooks [13]. Keles & Yazan (2020) examined the cultural presentation of multiple versions of the English textbook New Headway, conducted a study over time and found that the textbook concentrated on presenting the culture of the target language countries, followed by the culture of European countries, and they argued that this imbalance in the proportion of different geographical cultural presentations affects students' understanding of multiculturalism [14].
In summary, there are few studies on the cultural content of English textbooks at home and abroad, which have laid the foundation for this study, but most of them focus on the analysis of cultural content, and lack research on cultural dimensions and presentation.
B. Research on the Ideological and Political Connotation of English Textbooks
English textbooks are the basis of English teaching, and they are the instructional materials used
by teachers and students. It is a general trend to integrate ideological and political connotation into college English textbooks, which is conducive to promoting the construction and development of university English courses, facilitating the comprehensive implementation of ideological and political education, improving the socialist education system with Chinese characteristics, and cultivating the core values of socialism with Chinese characteristics. When we enter "curriculum ideology and politics" in the subject field of CNKI, the distribution of related disciplines shows that foreign language and literature ranks the third, which reflects to a certain extent the close connection between foreign language disciplines and curriculum ideological and political connotation. When we enter both "curriculum ideology and politics" and "English textbooks" in the subject field, and as of February 2023, there were 2014 related studies. According to the trend ofyearly changes in the number of publications, the number of studies related to curriculum ideology and politics and college English textbooks has increased dramatically since 2018, with as many as 200 studies in 2021.
The current research on the integration of curriculum ideology and politics with English textbooks mainly includes: the exploration of the design, development, and use of English textbooks in conjunction with curriculum ideology and politics at the macro level. For instance, Sun Youzhong (2020) defined the teaching objectives of foreign language skills courses in colleges and universities from the perspective of curriculum ideology and politics, and on this basis explained the basic principles and methods of writing foreign language textbooks focusing on ideology and politics [15]; Xu Xiaoyan (2021) explored the guiding role of the Introduction to College English ideology and Politics in the development of foreign language textbooks incorporating the concept and content of curriculum ideology and politics [16]; Xu Jinfen (2021) argued that teachers need to effectively tap into the ideological and political teaching elements of the materials, integrate the
ideological and political content into the teaching materials, and enrich and improve the contemporary and ideological nature of English teaching [17]. Some other scholars have taken specific English textbooks as an example from the micro level, and have explored the distribution of curriculum ideological and political elements from the perspectives of teaching material writing, teaching material evaluation, and teaching material analysis. For example, Xiao Qiong and Huang Guowen (2021) took New Era Mingde University English as an example and focus on the multiple syllabus of foreign language curriculum ideology and politics elements used in the textbook [18]; WangJuan and Gu Feng (2021) took New Horizons College English (reading & writing) as an example and explored the integration of curriculum ideology and politics in English textbooks[19]; Zhang Ting (2022) takes New Interaction English Reading Tutorial, Book 2, Unit 4 as an example. Based on POA theory and with a case presentation, Zhang (2022) discusses the construction and application of the teaching model of English curriculum ideology and politics [20].
3. Theoretical framework and research methods A. Cultural Aspect Framework of Yuen In 1996, the National Standards for Foreign Language Education Research Project (NSFLEP) developed the "Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century", which listed five main target areas and eleven criteria, classifying different aspects of culture into "Products", "Practices" and "Perspectives". It systematically explains the nature, theory and practice of the relationship between foreign language learning and culture. Moran (2001, 2009) adds two cultural elements to these three categories and divides culture into five aspects: cultural products, cultural practices, cultural perspectives, cultural communities and cultural persons [21]. According to Yuen (2011), language is an artifact or a system of codes (products) that are used by different persons to represent ideas and communicate with each other (practices). Therefore, based on previ-
ous research, Yuen argues that the cultural aspects framework should include four elements: cultural products, cultural perspectives, cultural practices, and cultural persons [22].
Cultural products are the material forms of culture, including language, place, and specific names of cultural objects, such as food, clothes, movies, and literature. Cultural practices refer to product-related activities, including individual's daily activities, customs, and codes of conduct. Cultural perspectives include historically significant religious revelations, myths, and values. Cultural persons are contextual-ized real or fictional people, both famous and ordinary, created by the authors of textbook.
B. Research Questions
1) What is the distribution of cultural elements in the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing)?
2) How does the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing)? reflect the ideological and political connotation?
C. Research Methods
1) Research tools
This study mainly adopts a corpus analysis method, and the research tool is the corpus semantic annotation and analysis tool Wmatrix 4, a web-based corpus analysis tool developed by Paul Ray-son (2003), whose main function is to annotate and generate word lists. Two corpus annotation tools are embedded: CLAWS for syntactic annotation and USAS for semantic annotation. 97-98% accuracy of CLAWS for syntactic annotation and 91-92% accuracy of USAS for semantic annotation are achieved without human intervention [23]. The most significant lexical, word, chunk, and semantic categories occurring in the text can be studied using Wmatrix.
2) Self-constructed corpus of the New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing)
The corpus constructed in this study includes 64 texts of Text A and Text B in the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing) [24]. The texts reflect the core content of the text-
book, so only the textbook texts are examined in this study, excluding other parts such as preview, practices, projects, etc.
3) Classification of texts
In order to explore the cultural content of the textbook in depth, this study adopts Yuen's (2011) cultural aspects framework, combined with Zhang Hong et al.'s (2022) framework for analyzing the cultural presentation of English textbooks, and classifies the text discourse into four aspects: cultural practices, cultural products, cultural perspectives, and cultural persons.
4) Data Analysis
The textbook texts are written discourses, so the BNC Sampler Written sub-corpus was chosen as the reference corpus for this study. The topic semantic domain is ranked according to its criticality, namely, the log-likelihood (LL), which indicates the signifi-
cance of the unusual use of the semantic domain. This study follows the setting of Rayson (2003) with LL6.63 as the critical cut-offvalue. The thematic semantic domain analysis function ofWmatrix are objective and reproductive[25]. The method of corpus research combines the whole and partial analysis of the text, which promotes the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the analysis.
4. Research results
The texts of third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing) were uploaded to Wmatrix 4, followed by online grammar tagging, semantic coding and comparison with the reference corpus BNC Sampler Writer. LL6.63 was set as the critical boundary value, and the function words were removed, after which 58 significant subject semantic domains were obtained. Some significant semantic domains are shown in (Table 1).
Table 1.- Semantic domains of key topics in New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing) (Part)
It« 01 41 02 LL LtinXul ill
1 Li stl t^DIKOnlEinnO Pi *fi7 2. 13 sein ass* <16: +o 2. 4S tdyc^tiun in jfHltirtl
2 Lmi (,~U41L grJuncä U' & 0-29 93 0-51 * 1C3. 19 150 fdiit;
3 Llstl I Cuncordblhji.' 31 1 04 0.(17 1122 o. is ■ 151.6] 2. 63 P&rsuruil relatloibsli ip: Snwcid
1 l.intl (jnnconljinnr s2. 3- 37 O 29 307 o ■» SS. 61 3. 22 LcamiOA
; l.iaLl GotlC U E~ Jlllltl L' re fie 0. S3 use OL 12 * 9H, H 2. IB liliOJTMllion irehimlogy an J crnipuUng
6 Listl ;U3 7 O. 06 & 0. OC ■ 61.03 10. OE DfBiee
■ Liatl Cdncordnnci; MS 76 0 61 2171 0 22 * 5i. 1.43 Vchitlo: and transport cn land
9 Lintl (."one r: r djtiir: [■ 0,os 0 aoo * si 9S& Llettt
s List I Concor dop» £2 8S O. 68 2S96 0.30 ■ 43. 30 1. 13 People
10 Liatl I tgm«r(IOPKC Si. 2 11 0 73 0 01 * 32. 36 3.5d Pir:«iulity traits
n LUtl Cui][:[)rdiuLrH Ü2, 2- oe a 53 0.24 + 31-94 1, 15 ii[IUF I m!atdab 1 n
12 List} Concordance K5. 1 6i 0.« 2063 0.21 * 31. 99 1.20 Spoils
13 List 1 1 Concordance rl 36 0,29 912 0. 09 * 31.22 1.61 The univorst
14 L1?U J3, 1 04 Ü. 67 3301 0-35 + 2B- 52 0-94 Twrk iuiJ «^jl cyniT-ri i - (iintirnl! f
15 1,1 sr. 1 Concordance Es- 44 o. 1372 0. 14 * 26.32 1.31 Lifti
IS Liatl Concordance ses $ 0 oe it o Od • 2&.63 3. 76 Mental hictions anti proccsics
1" Liitl ÜHit:f»nlimr:ii A5. 2* 30 0. 24 j175 ÜL US + 2h. OF: 1. 57 rv»;mil imii Ti'ui»
lit l.i nr.] r roncordance M2- № 0. 15 zm 0 04 * 23.46 1. 99 Fa i 1 niii
19 Liatl Cnnrordaneo Tl. 1. a 10Ö 0 4816 0 bU ' 23. 20 0. 74 Time' Future
20 Ll*tl CofMKn Jjuif < ii a no IM 0. 01 * 2,.47 ?.. fjfi
2! List J CniconlBin N1 272 1. 17 15606 1 61 * 21. 42 0. 43 Muuben
22 Liatl Concordance Mi 1 0. 06 tHj 0 01 » 20, 3. 2b Suantitioc; littlo
13 l.ifitl OHkOffdnnrA Tl-l 7 0. № 47 0 (Ml * 20. 5E 3. 53 Timn:
List J Concordance SL 1. 4* 7 0. 06 54 0. 01 * IB. 94 3. 32 Deserving
25 Lilt! | Concordance T1 43 0. 3S 1SÜ 0 20 ' 19. № o, y« Tim?
Lint.l CM r.afdjiiir (i ?. 0. tt?. (1 0 no * 17. 44 SL 27
27 Listl 1 Concordance Sl. 1. 3-« 2 0. 02 0 0. oo * 17. 44 5. 27 E'ai't lcipoting
Liatl All, 1 ■ > ■ ■¿4 0- 19 № 0.07 ■ 1&, &0 1. 36 Eraluatipoi Coed
Lixtt rnrcfjnLnrc Ci?. 2- 19 0. IS Slfi 0 Ofi * 14. 77 I- 51 t'fic t h i ita L
30 Listl Concordance X5. Z' 39 0. 31 1511 0 16 ' 11.67 0. 99 InrcroEtod.oiiit&d.onorirotic
11 Listl C«IK«r<|l|l№ll AJÜ. 1- 92 a 73 4B& 0. <¡8 - 14. 40 0. 62 Coiiimti I ii(; Diffvi'viit
Listl I (Tone nrd Anrri t№ H9 o. "t 4457 0 ifi * H. 38 0. fi2 OuahT 1 r i^i ■ iiAhv.^nifh
In order to more comprehensively analyze the present study adopts the analytical framework cultural aspects of the text in the textbook, the of cultural presentation in the textbook of Zhang
Hong et al, and another graduate student of linguistics was invited to jointly assign a weighted value to the cultural presentation of the 64 texts of the textbook, that is, according to the different cultural presentation methods, give a weight ranging from 1 to 10 points, and give a higher weight to the presentation methods that pay more atten-
30
tion to or highlight the cultural content [26]. After weighting, analyzing and classifying, it is found that there are 26 texts (40.6%) of "cultural practices", 23 texts (35.9%) of "cultural perspectives", 12 texts (18.8%) of "cultural persons" and 3 texts (4.7%) of "cultural products" among 64 texts, as shown in (Figure 1).
Cultural products cultural practice* cultural perspectives Cultural persons
Figure 1. Cultural aspects of textbook texts
A. Distribution of Cultural Aspects in the Textbook According to statistical analysis, texts belong to "cultural practices" account for 40.6%, ranking first among the texts in the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing). As shown in the key topic semantic domain table, the semantic domain "P1: Education in general" ranks first. For example, the text "Toward a bright future for all" in the first volume expresses the earnest teaching and encouragement of a university president to college freshmen, and the text "What college brings us?" in the second volume describes the impact of college life on students. The semantic domain "personal relationships" (S3.1: Personal relationships: General) ranks third. The text "A child's club awaits an adult's return" in the first volume describes the conflict and warmth between a mother and daughter, and the text "Similarities and differences: Friendship across cultures" compares the similarities and differences of cross-cultural friendship; The text "College Sweethearts" in the second volume tells a romantic and traditional campus love story of a couple in college, which belongs to the category of interpersonal relationship. The semantic domain "M3: Vehicles and transport on land" ranks seventh, and the semantic domain "I3.1: Work and
employment: Generally" ranks fourteenth. In addition, other semantic domains such as "participation" (S1.1.3++: Participating) are also very significant. It can be seen that "cultural practices" discourse occupies the main position of this series of textbooks.
The "cultural perspectives" texts account for 35.9%, ranking second. The semantic domain "E2+: Like", "X2: mental actions and processes" and "courage" rank 15 th, 16th and 20th respectively. In the text "Swimming through fear" in the third volume, the author describes his experience of overcoming his fear of water and successfully saving drowning children, and the text "Never, ever give up!" describes the theme of "where there is a will, there is a way". In the semantic domain, "morality" (G2.2-: Unethical) and "politeness" (S1.2.4-: Implite) rank 29th and 33rd respectively. For example, the text "The Humanities: Out ofdate?" in the second volume discusses the importance of humanities, and the text "Animals or children? - A scientist' s choice" discusses the choice between human rights and animal rights. In addition, semantic domains such as "A5.2+: Evaluation: True" and "A5.1++: Evaluation: Good" are also significant.
The "cultural persons" texts account for 18.8%, ranking third. The semantic domain "S: People"
and "S1.2: Personality traits" rank ninth and tenth respectively. For example, the first volume of the text "Cliff Young, an unlikely hero" introduces the inspirational story of Cliff Young, an old farmer who loves the marathon race. The text "Smith and Luis" in the third volume tells the profound friendship between an American captain named Smith and a French boy Louis in the World War II. The text "Building the dream of Starbucks" in the fourth volume tells the entrepreneurial story of Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks.
The proportion of "cultural products" texts is the smallest, about 4.7%. The semantic domain "Y2: Information technology and computing" ranks fifth. The text "College life in the Internet age" in Volume 1 describes the impact of the information revolution on college campus life and education. In addition, the text "Speaking Chinese in America" in Volume 4 describes the characteristics of Chinese language and the differences between different languages.
B. Curriculum Ideological and Political Connotation in the Textbook
The "Guidelines for the Construction of ideological and Political Education in Colleges and Universities" points out that "to comprehensively promote the ideological and political construction of curriculum is to guide the values in knowledge teaching and ability training, and help students shape correct world outlook, outlook on life and values, which is the due meaning of talent training, but also the necessary content." Specifically, the Outline stipulates five aspects of curriculum ideological and political content: first, integrate Xi Jinping's thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era into class, textbooks, and brains; second, cultivate and practice the core socialist values; third, strengthen the education of excellent traditional Chinese culture; fourth, carry out in-depth education on the rule of law in the Constitution; fifth, deepen the education of professional ideals and professional ethics [27]. This chapter examines the ideological and political content ofthe third edition of New Ho-
rizon English Course (Reading & Writing), based on the provisions of the Outline on the ideological and political connotation of the course.
First of all, contents of Xi Jinping's thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, excellent traditional Chinese culture, as well as education on the rule of law in the Constitution are rarely covered in this series of textbooks. The text "Reflections of a Chinese mother in the West" in Unit 8 ofVolume 3 simply mentions the differences in the traditional ways and concepts of Chinese family education for children, which reflects little of the excellent traditional Chinese culture. In addition, most of the texts only stay at the moral and ethical level, such as integrity, gender equality, human rights and animal rights, and have not yet risen to the legal level, which makes it difficult to educate students about the rule of law.
Secondly, there are many texts that can reflect the "core socialist values". The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to advocate prosperity, democracy, civility and harmony, freedom, equality, justice and the rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendliness, and actively cultivate and practice the core socialist values [28], which are the values at the national, social and individual levels. The texts "Under the bombs: 1945" and "Smith and Luis" in Unit 6 ofVolume 3 are both national political texts, which tell about the physical and psychological damage caused by war, and permeate students with the values of reflecting on war and cherishing peace. However, the textbook does not mention the current world political situation and the achievements of China's national leaders in governing the country in the new era, and it neglects to guide college students in the correct political ideology. The texts "Women at the management level", "A proud homemaker" and "The weight men carry", "What does feminism really mean?" in Unit 7 ofVolume 2, and the texts "The weight men carry", "What does feminism really mean?" in Unit 6 ofVolume 4, all reflect the concept of gender equality. The text
"Animals or children? - A scientist's choice" in Unit 8 ofVolume 2 as well as "The right to live-A dog's account" convey the view of equality between human rights and animal rights, and embodies the values at the social level. There are the most relevant texts on personal values, such as "Gender variables in friendship: Contradiction or not?" and "Similarities and differences: Friendship across cultures" in Unit 8 of Volume 1, which discuss the importance of friendship between different sexes and cultures and convey friendly values. The two texts in Unit 7, "When honesty disappears" and "Rays of hope in rising rudeness" describe the dishonest and rude behaviors in today's society and on campus, and let students feel the value of honesty. As shown in Table 1, the semantic domains "interpersonal relationships" (S3.1: Personal relationships: General), "morality" (G2.2-: Unethical), "politeness" (S1.2.4-: Implite), etc., all reflect the core of socialist core values.
Finally, the textbook also intends to cultivate students' economic and professional awareness, reflecting the fifth point of "professional ideal and professional ethics education". Two texts in Unit 5 of Volume 3 of the textbook "Will you be a worker or a laborer?" and "The joy of a prideful tradition" show the thinking about the career. The two texts in Unit 7, "Surviving an economic crisis" and "Economic bubbles: Causes and conditions", tell about the serious impact and painful experience of the economic crisis on personal work and life, and let students feel and think about economic activities and career problems from the emotional and rational levels. For example, the semantic domain "I3.1: Work and employment: General" in (Table 1) ranks 14th, with certain significance.
5. Result discussion
The present study is an attempt to analyze the curriculum ideological and political connotation of English textbooks based on corpus. Combining the macro data and the micro context of the textbook after batch retrieval of the corpus can largely avoid the purely subjective evaluation. After data analysis,
this study mainly draws two conclusions. 1) Cultural products, cultural practices, cultural perspectives and cultural persons are all reflected in the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing), but the proportion is uneven. The proportion of cultural practices and cultural perspectives is significantly higher than that of cultural products and cultural persons. This is consistent with the research results o f ZhangJun et al. (2022) on German textbooks, which may indicate that the distribution of cultural categories of textbooks in different languages is similar. There are two possible reasons for the distribution of cultural weight in this study: one is that some cultural aspects overlap with each other, such as cultural perspectives are explained through cultural persons; second, because cultural products, cultural practices belong to dominant cultural content, while cultural perspectives and cultural practices belong to recessive cultural content, the textbook has achieved a relative balance in the distribution of dominant and recessive cultural content. 2) Ideological and political elements are unevenly distributed, and Chinese elements are relatively scarce in the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing). There are many texts that can reflect the "core socialist values" in the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing), while contents of Xi Jinping's thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, excellent traditional Chinese culture, as well as education on the rule oflaw in the Constitution are rarely covered in this series of textbooks. This is consistent with the research results of Liu Yanhong et al. (2015). This may be due to there was a serious imbalance between the proportion of Western culture and Chinese culture in the compilation of this set of textbooks, and the author did not weigh the proportion of Chinese and Western culture well; in addition, the textbook has the characteristics of the times, and the materials reflecting the current politics have become old, and the new content and new ideas of the curriculum ideological and political connotation are
not fully reflected. Therefore, under the curriculum ideological and political background of the new era, the ideological and political connotation of this set of textbooks is obviously insufficient, the cultural content needs to be updated, and the new current affairs materials need to be supplemented.
For various reasons, this study has some limitations. First of all, the content of each Unit in the third edition of New Horizon English Course (Reading & Writing) includes preview, text, practices and even the images. This paper only analyzes the texts of the textbook, and the grasp of the whole set of textbooks is incomplete. Future research can be extended to the whole set of textbooks to dig more detailed cultural content and ideological and political ideas; Secondly, the enlightenment and conclusions drawn from the study of the cultural content and ideological and political connotation of a single set of textbooks are not convincing. Subsequent studies can analyze multiple sets of textbooks, such as the summary of the cultural content and ideological and political connotation of multiple sets of textbooks in the same period, or the comparison of the cultural content and ideological and political connotation of different versions of the same series of textbooks in
different periods, which should make the study more substantial and valuable.
6. Conclusion
The textbook is an important carrier of talent training. To answer the fundamental questions of "who to train", "how to train" and "for whom to train", we must reasonably arrange and use textbooks to reflect the new era and new requirements. Therefore, the compilers of college English textbooks should consider the reasonable arrangement of the proportion and distribution of the content of Chinese culture in the whole set of textbooks. Not only should they pay attention to the teaching oflanguage knowledge, but also fully explore the cultural elements and ideological and political connotations, and properly integrate them into the English classroom, so as to guide students to gradually strengthen their cultural self-confidence and establish correct world outlook, outlook on life and values in college English course learning, and then grow up to be the builders and successors ofsocialism in the new era with the feelings offamily and country, so that the curriculum ideology and politics can educate people imperceptibly.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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