EXPLORING CULTURAL CONTENT OF THREE PROMINENT EFL TEXTBOOKS IN IRAN - A CASE STUDY OF AMERICAN ENGLISH FILES, TOP NOTCH AND FOUR CORNERS

Oct 15, 2026

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Cultural content has become central in language teaching with intercultural communicative approach (ICC). This qualitative-quantitative case study examines cultural representations in three mainstream intermediate-level EFL textbooks, focusing on big “C” versus little “c” themes and on target, source, international, and neutral culture categories. Using Chen (2004) and Lee (2009) theme guidance, plus Cortazzi and Jin (1999) categories with Aliakbari (2004) neutral culture, the study applies a chi-square test. Results show both big “C” and little “c” appear, with little “c” occurring more frequently across all three books, and highest in Top Notch and lowest in Four Corners.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

1. Introduction

Background and debate on culture focus

Textbook categorization and culture types

Cultural analysis in Iran

2. Role of Culture in Language Teaching

EXPLORING CULTURAL CONTENT OF THREE PROMINENT EFL TEXTBOOKS IN IRAN (A CASE STUDY OF AMERICAN ENGLISH FILES, TOP NOTCH AND FOUR CORNERS) Mehrnoosh Dehbozorgi, Ehya Amalsaleh, Reza Kafipour Abstract: Cultural content has become an important issue after the advent of intercultural communicative approach (ICC) in language teaching field. The current study analyzed cultural content of three mainstream intermediate level EFL textbooks. This study was carried out using Chen’s (2004) and Lee’s (2009) suggested themes for detecting big “C” and little “c” culture aspects. Big C represents series of statistics and facts such as art, geography, history, education, festivals, and customs of the target speech community; small c represents norms, beliefs, sociocultural variables such as age, sex, and social position (Lee, 2009) . This study also analyzed the cultural categories including target culture, source culture and international culture based on Cortazzi and Jin’s (1999) category and another category i.e. neutral culture based on Aliakbari’s (2004) category. This was a qualitative-quantitative study and chi-square test was applied in it. It was found that generally both little “c” and big “C” are present in the textbooks. However, in all the three textbooks little “c” has gained higher frequency than big “C”. It was also revealed that the percentage of little “c” in Top Notch is more than other books and little “c” percentage in Four Corners is the least. Key words: Intercultural competence, Source culture, Target culture, International culture, big“C”, little “c” 1. Introduction A famous feature of modern foreign language education approach is that affluent foreign language learning and foreign culture learning go together (Hamers & Blanc, 1989) . Peterson & Coltrane (2003) stated that a language learner cannot fully master a language without mastering the cultural contexts in which the language occurs. Thus, language and culture are entangled in a way that separating one from the other would adversely affect either the language or culture sense (Brown, 2001) . The existence of this relationship has led to some debate over which culture should be more focused; target culture, source culture, or both of them. Some believe that target culture needs to be highlighted, others insist on source culture and still there are others who think both cultures need to be emphasized while acquiring a new language. For instance, Stewart (1972) asserts that target culture is an indispensable part of foreign language instruction, while local culture reference in language teaching is absurd (Xiao, 2010) . Méndez García (2005) proposes that familiarizing language learners with target language culture has five main necessities: (1) it enhances learners knowledge of world and foreign society, (2) culture learning acquaints learners with prominent behavior related patterns of target community, (3) it fosters their respect and tolerance attitude,(4) it promotes ones’ concept of his/her culture,(5) it highlights ones’ cultural assumption role or increases ones; intercultural communication competence. However, there are some other scholars who emphasize both target and source cultures, hence focusing on the intercultural competence. Acquiring the intercultural competence (ICC) in language learning is an important competence in today’s world, resulting from the interaction between different cultures (Dervin, 2006) . Hamiloğlu and Mendi (2010, p. 16) state that ICC is “one’s awareness of others’ cultures as well as his /her own culture”. Cortazzi and Jin (1991) categorize EFL textbooks to three types depending on their treatment of culture. These categories include: source, target and international. Respectively, the first type is produced at national level that is learners learn to talk about their own culture (C1) to visitors and isnot made ready for encountering other cultures’ speakers so they do not develop intercultural awareness. The s

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the study on EFL textbooks?

To analyze how cultural content is represented in three mainstream intermediate-level EFL textbooks used in Iran, focusing on big “C” vs. little “c” and on several culture categories.

Which cultural categories does the study use for textbook analysis?

It uses target culture, source culture, international culture categories based on Cortazzi and Jin (1999), and also includes neutral culture based on Aliakbari (2004).

What do the chi-square test results show about big “C” and little “c” in the textbooks?

Both big “C” and little “c” are present, but little “c” appears with higher frequency than big “C” in all three textbooks; Top Notch has the highest little “c” percentage and Four Corners the least.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Putri