Análisis del contenido cultural en libros de texto de español como lengua extranjera destinados a estudiantes portugueses

This doctoral thesis has the objective to analyze the cultural contents included in five text books of Spanish as a Foreign Language aimed at Portuguese students of various non- university educational levels. Before scrutinizing the selected works, the concept of culture applied to language teaching was defined and the complications arisen when this type of issues is to be included in the daily praxis of the one in charge of the teaching process is to be assessed. These issues have to do mainly with questions related to the set of contents which must be taught, its assessment, the focus which should be applied, and, furthermore, the limitations displayed by the text books concerning this subject. These difficulties cause doubts and insecurities which lead the teachers into dealing with such contents with a certain degree of superficiality or even to erase them, although they are, in our perspective, of primary necessity to the study of the language and have, at the same time, so often been ignored. Thus, we reckon it to be possible to assert that the cultural element still remains, to a large extent, absent from the language teaching.

On the other hand, the omission of cultural information, the trivial approach which is generally granted to date concerning target culture or the inclusion of stereotypes in the text books decisively influence the static, partial and artificial image of the ‘Other’ which is thus offered. This is so when we are confronted with the picture which, in numerous didactic works aiming at the study of the Spanish language, is offered of Spain thus contributing to the idea of the country that, at an international level, has been created.

After the theoretical approach of the concepts and aspects related to the teaching of the target culture, an individual and minute examination of the cultural contents was carried out by means of a table which permitted to have access to quantitative data which we did try and interpret in order to bring forth the following aspects: the type of prevalent culture, the language level in which cultural contents are to be introduced, the way the latter occur in the various didactic units in the text books, the treatment they are allowed as well as the image of the Spanish culture which is delivered. This analysis has permitted a thorough outlook concerning the presence as well as the importance which is given to the cultural contents in the works analyzed, since they are the carriers of a particular image of Spain which roughly corresponds to the pre-conceived ideas the Portuguese have of the country.