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A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Representation of Western Religious Beliefs in Ten Series of Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks

The early Sino-Western contact was through the way in which religion and language interact to produce language contact. However, research on this contact is relatively limited to date, particularly in the realm of English language materials. In fact, there is a paucity of research on Western religio...

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Autores principales: Liu, Yanhong, Zhang, Lawrence Jun, Yang, Li
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8812336/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35126241
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.789660
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author Liu, Yanhong
Zhang, Lawrence Jun
Yang, Li
author_facet Liu, Yanhong
Zhang, Lawrence Jun
Yang, Li
author_sort Liu, Yanhong
collection PubMed
description The early Sino-Western contact was through the way in which religion and language interact to produce language contact. However, research on this contact is relatively limited to date, particularly in the realm of English language materials. In fact, there is a paucity of research on Western religions in English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks. By applying corpus linguistics as a tool and the Critical Discourse Analysis as the theoretical framework, this manuscript critically investigates the significant semantic domains in ten English language textbook series that are officially approved and are widely used in Chinese universities. The findings suggest that various Western religious beliefs, which are the highly unusual topics in previous Chinese ELT textbooks, are represented in the textbook corpus. The results also show that when presenting the views and attitudes toward Western religious beliefs, these textbooks have adopted an eclectic approach to the material selection. Surprisingly, positive semantic prosody surrounding the concept of religion is evident and no consistent negative authorial stance toward religion is captured. Atheism has been assumed to be in the center of Chinese intellectual traditions and the essence of the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party. Interestingly, the findings from this study provide a new understanding of Chinese foreign language textbooks in the new era, and its addition to the literature on the study of ELT textbooks, as well as its development worldwide.
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spelling pubmed-88123362022-02-04 A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Representation of Western Religious Beliefs in Ten Series of Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks Liu, Yanhong Zhang, Lawrence Jun Yang, Li Front Psychol Psychology The early Sino-Western contact was through the way in which religion and language interact to produce language contact. However, research on this contact is relatively limited to date, particularly in the realm of English language materials. In fact, there is a paucity of research on Western religions in English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks. By applying corpus linguistics as a tool and the Critical Discourse Analysis as the theoretical framework, this manuscript critically investigates the significant semantic domains in ten English language textbook series that are officially approved and are widely used in Chinese universities. The findings suggest that various Western religious beliefs, which are the highly unusual topics in previous Chinese ELT textbooks, are represented in the textbook corpus. The results also show that when presenting the views and attitudes toward Western religious beliefs, these textbooks have adopted an eclectic approach to the material selection. Surprisingly, positive semantic prosody surrounding the concept of religion is evident and no consistent negative authorial stance toward religion is captured. Atheism has been assumed to be in the center of Chinese intellectual traditions and the essence of the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party. Interestingly, the findings from this study provide a new understanding of Chinese foreign language textbooks in the new era, and its addition to the literature on the study of ELT textbooks, as well as its development worldwide. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8812336/ /pubmed/35126241 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.789660 Text en Copyright © 2022 Liu, Zhang and Yang. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Liu, Yanhong
Zhang, Lawrence Jun
Yang, Li
A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Representation of Western Religious Beliefs in Ten Series of Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks
title A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Representation of Western Religious Beliefs in Ten Series of Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks
title_full A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Representation of Western Religious Beliefs in Ten Series of Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks
title_fullStr A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Representation of Western Religious Beliefs in Ten Series of Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks
title_full_unstemmed A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Representation of Western Religious Beliefs in Ten Series of Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks
title_short A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Representation of Western Religious Beliefs in Ten Series of Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks
title_sort corpus linguistics approach to the representation of western religious beliefs in ten series of chinese university english language teaching textbooks
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8812336/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35126241
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.789660
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