The culture of listening scripts in Korean middle school English

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the distribution of culture and cultural contents contained in listening scripts (LS) of middle school English textbooks (MSET). Of the 13 kinds of MSET written under the 7th National English curriculum (7NEC) requirements, the top five sold are analyzed for this research. The 7NEC puts special emphasis on culture. However, culture in Korean listening materials has not been researched to date. For the present study, culture is studied on the basis of Kachru and Nelson (1996a), who divide it into four categories: Inner Circle, Outer Circle, Expanding Circle and Neutral Circle. Specifically, those countries that do not belong to the three central circles are included in the Neutral Circle. This study leads to the following results: Twenty-nine countries and three regions are mentioned in the scripts. However, the geographical distribution of their cultures within the circles is uneven, with those in the Inner Circle predominating, and the Outer Circle has only one country, India and a big region, Africa being mentioned least.