Multiculturalism in Terms of Linguodidactics: Analysis of Foreign Language Textbooks

Abstract

Based on foreign language textbooks, including Russian, this article discusses the contrasting cognitive attitudes of the authors (the tendency to ethnocentricity and multiculturalism) which determine strategies used to select and structure the textbook content. The article determines, defines, explains and exemplifies the strategies of monoculturalism, biculturalism and multiculturalism typical of languages textbooks which they use to present linguistic, linguocultural and country study information to foreign learners. Monoculturalism strategy is understood as the attempt of text-book authors to depict only the worldview of the country whose language is being studied and to describe the facts and realia belonging to this linguoculture without their comparison with those from other language worldviews; biculturalism strategy is a certain selection and structuring of learning materials when two interrelated cultures, native and foreign, are compared; multiculturalism strategy is based on the comparison of different conceptual and language worldviews and on the attempt of authors to depict relations between different languages and cultures. The article underlines the efficiency of the cognitive strategy of multiculturalism in the development of intercultural communicative competence, which is the target in language learning.
 Keywords: foreign language textbook, textbook in Russian as a foreign language, Russian as a foreign language, monoculturalism, biculturalism, multiculturalism, ethnocentricity