Language World Picture and National-Cultural Specificities in Oral and Written Text

Even basic aspects of time perception can be affected by language. For example, English speakers prefer to talk about duration in terms of length (e.g., "That was a short talk," "The meeting didn't take long"), while Spanish and Greek speakers prefer to talk about time in terms of amount, relying more on words like "much" "big", and "little" rather than "short" and "long" Our research into such basic cognitive abilities as estimating duration shows that speakers of different languages differ in ways predicted by the patterns of metaphors in their language. (For example, when asked to estimate duration, English speakers are more likely to be confused by distance information, estimating that a line of greater length remains on the test screen for a longer period of time, whereas Greek speakers are more likely to be confused by amount, estimating that a container that is fuller remains longer on the screen.)5

An important question at this point is: Are these differences caused by language per se or by some other aspect of culture? Of course, the lives of English, Mandarin, Greek, Spanish, and Kuuk Thaayorre speakers differ in a myriad of ways. How do we know that it is language itself that creates these differences in thought and not some other aspect of their respective cultures?

One way to answer this question is to teach people new ways of talking and see if that changes the way they think. English speakers were taught to use size metaphors (as in Greek) to describe duration (e.g., a movie is larger than a sneeze), or vertical metaphors (as in Mandarin) to describe event order. Once the English speakers had learned to talk about time in these new ways, their cognitive performance began to resemble that of Greek or Mandarin speakers. This suggests that patterns in a language can indeed play a causal role in constructing how we think. In practical terms, it means that when you're learning a new language, you're not simply learning a new way of talking, you are also inadvertently learning a new way of thinking. Beyond abstract or complex domains of thought like space and time, languages also meddle in basic aspects of visual perception — our ability to distinguish colors, for example. Different languages divide up the color continuum differently: some make many more distinctions between colors than others, and the boundaries often don't line up across languages.

To test whether differences in color language lead to differences in color perception, we compared Russian and English speakers' ability to discriminate shades of blue. In Russian there is no single word that covers all the colors that English speakers call "blue." Russian makes an obligatory distinction between light blue (голубой) and dark blue (синий). Does this distinction mean that “синий” blues look more different from “голубой” blues to Russian speakers? Indeed, the data say yes. Russian speakers are quicker to distinguish two shades of blue that are called by the different names in Russian (i.e., one being синий and the other being голубой) than if the two fall into the same category.

For English speakers, all these shades are still designated by the same word, "blue," and there are no comparable differences in reaction time.

Further, the Russian advantage disappears when subjects are asked to perform a verbal interference task (reciting a string of digits) while making color judgments but not when they're asked to perform an equally difficult spatial interference task (keeping a novel visual pattern in memory). The disappearance of the advantage when performing a verbal task shows that language is normally involved in even surprisingly basic perceptual judgments — and that it is language that creates this difference in perception between Russian and English speakers.

When Russian speakers are blocked from their normal access to language by a verbal interference task, the differences between Russian and English speakers disappear.

Even what might be deemed frivolous aspects of language can have far-reaching subconscious effects on how we see the world. Take grammatical gender. In Spanish and other Romance languages, nouns are either masculine or feminine. In many other languages, nouns are divided into many more genders ("gender" in this context meaning class or kind). For example, some Australian Aboriginal languages have up to sixteen genders, including classes of hunting weapons, canines, things that are shiny, or, in the phrase made famous by cognitive linguist George Lakoff, "women, fire, and dangerous things."

What it means for a language to have grammatical gender is that words belonging to different genders get treated differently grammatically and words belonging to the same grammatical gender get treated the same grammatically. Languages can require speakers to change pronouns, adjective and verb endings, possessives, numerals, and so on, depending on the noun's gender. For example, to say something like "my chair was old" in Russian (мой стул был стрый), you'd need to make every word in the sentence agree in gender with "chair" (стул), which is masculine in Russian. So you'd use the masculine form of "my," "was," and "old." These are the same forms you'd use in speaking of a biological male, as in "my grandfather was old." If, instead of speaking of a chair, you were speaking of a bed (кровать), which is feminine in Russian, or about your grandmother, you would use the feminine form of "my," "was," and "old."

«Юрий Гагарин» [Yuri Gagarin] is very much «свой человек в России» [‘one of ours’ in Russia] still today. In honor of his «полёт в космос 12 (двенадцатого) апреля в 1961 (тысяча девятьсот шестьдесят первом) году» [flight into space on the 12th of April 1961] such posters like this one – and two more posted below in this post – went up all over Yekaterinburg. Am I the only girl who gets a little weak in the knees from his handsome Soviet farm boy looks?

«Свой» [one’s; his; her; their] is a «притяжательное местоимение» [possessive pronoun] just like «мой» [my], «твой» [your (singular)], «наш» [our], «ваш» [your (plural)], «его» [his], «её» [her] and «их» [their]. Not all languages have this possessive pronoun – shout out to all you proud native speakers of English! – and that’s why it is not always clear when to use «свой» and when to use one of the others. Sometimes you might even wonder why Russian language would even need this possessive pronoun, when it has all the ones that English has and English seems to do just fine without «свой». Well, that’s a whole other conversation and for now I advice us all just to make peace with the fact that it exists and try to learn how to use it correctly. The key is to remember the following rule: «свой» is used when the possessor is the SUBJECT of the sentence. «Свой» changes according to the six cases of Russian languages very much like any other usual adjective ending on «-ой». Let’s have a look at a couple of examples of how to properly use «свой»:

«Я беру свою сумку» [I take my bag].

«Ты берёшь свою сумку» [You take your bag].

«Она берёт свою сумку» [She takes her bag].

«Он берёт свою сумку» [He takes his bag].

«Мы знаем своё дело» [We know our thing].

«Вы знаете своё дело» [You know your thing].

«Они знают своё дело» [They know their thing].

«Возьми свой чек!» [Take (singular) your receipt!]

«Возьмите свой чек!» [Take (plural) your receipt!]

What happens to the sentence «она берёт свою сумку» if we replace «свою» with «её» [her]? To the untrained eye these two possessive pronouns both mean one and the same thing (especially when seen in translation): HER. Russian language is not that easy for the sentence «она берёт её сумку» [she takes her bag] will come to mean that she takes someone else’s bag, a bag belonging to another woman. «Свой» can thus save this poor unnamed woman from being suspected of the theft connected with using «её» in the last sentence (maybe she’s actually just trying to be helpful). Compare also the two following sentences:

«Он позвонил своему брату» [He called his (own) brother].

«Он позвонил его брату» [He called his (somebody else’s) brother]. 

«Снова Гагарин…» [Gagarin once again…]

But when to use «мой» instead of «свой» when speaking about oneself? That’s even trickier because the rule about always using «свой» when the possessor is also the SUBJECT of the sentence is not always followed by Russians themselves in colloquial speech. Russians often use «мой» when the possessor and subject of the sentence is «я» and «твой» when the possessor and subject is «ты». See for yourselves:

This is correct: «Я позвонил своей сестре» [I called my sister].

This is common: «Я позвонил моей сестре» [I called my sister].

This is correct: «Ты закончил свою работу?» [Have you finished your work?]

This is common: «Ты закончил твою работу?» [Have you finished your work?]

And then there’s the trickiest part of all: in Russian possessive pronouns are not used when speaking about family members and relatives. That’s why the first two sentences are not correct at all – well, they’re alright grammatically and can be easily understood, but after all they have the word ‘sister’ in them, so you should just go ahead and skip any pronoun whatsoever: «Я позвонил сестре» [I called my sister]. The same goes for family words like «брат» [brother], «отец» [father], «мать» [mother], «дочь» [daughter], «сын» [son], «муж» [husband] and «жена» [wife]. Sometimes the leaving out of possessive pronouns will make a simple foreigner confused. Read this sentence for example:

«Вчера отец сходил в кино с сестрой» [Yesterday my father went to the movies with (his or my?) sister].

In such cases as that one all you can truly hope for is that the context around the sentence will bring some clarity into whether the speaker’s father went to the movies with the speaker’s sister or with his own sister. Or ask them to use a possessive pronoun in which case you’ll hear one of the following two:

«Вчера отец сходил в кино со своей сестрой» [Yesterday my father went to the movies with his sister].

«Вчера отец сходил в кино с моей сестрой» [Yesterday my father went to the movies with my sister].

Because father is both the subject and the possessor in the first sentence, you have to use «свой». But in the second sentence father is only the subject, whereas the person speaking is the ‘possessor’ of the sister. Got it? 

«Человек в космосе» [Man in space]. «Капитан первого звездолёта – наш, советский!» [The captain of the first space travel – our, Soviet!]. The title might as well have been «свой человек в космосе» [our man in space]…

«Свой» is also used in Russian with the meaning of ‘one’s own’, when paired together with the subject of the sentence. This is not that hard. Think of how Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” is translated into Russian as «Своя комната» [lit.: “A Room of One’s Own”]. Sometimes it is also translated as «Собственная комната» – but the difference between these two titles is so small that it is really only a matter of taste which one you personally prefer. Have a look at a couple of examples:

«У меня своя машина» [I have a car of my own].

«У нас свой дом» [We have a house of our own].

«У всякого свой вкус» [Everybody has their own taste].

And now for a question to the attentive reader – or just a reader not so attentive but keen on expressing «своё мнение» [one's; his; her; their opinion] – what is more positive: when Russians call you: a) «свой человек»; or b) «наш человек»? Or are both of them equally positive? 

P.S. I don’t know the right answer – that’s why I’m asking! I’ve been called mostly «наша» in Russia as a compliment, rarely «своя»… But somehow they both sound equally good to my ears.

Does treating chairs as masculine and beds as feminine in the grammar make Russian speakers think of chairs as being more like men and beds as more like women in some way? It turns out that it does. In one study, we asked Russian and Kazakh speakers to describe objects having opposite gender assignment in those two languages. The descriptions they gave differed in a way predicted by grammatical gender. For example, when asked to describe a "key" — a word that is masculine in Kazakh and feminine in Russian — the Kazakh speakers were more likely to use words like "hard," "heavy," "jagged," "metal," "serrated," and "useful," whereas Russian speakers were more likely to say "golden," "intricate," "little," "lovely," "shiny," and "tiny." To describe a "bridge," which is feminine in Russian and masculine in English, the Russian speakers said "beautiful," "elegant," "fragile," "peaceful," "pretty," and "slender," and the English speakers said "big," "dangerous," "long," "strong," "sturdy," and "towering." This was true even though all testing was done in English, a language without grammatical gender. The same pattern of results also emerged in entirely nonlinguistic tasks (e.g., rating similarity between pictures). And we can also show that it is aspects of language per se that shape how people think: teaching English speakers new grammatical gender systems influences mental representations of objects in the same way it does with Russian and Kazakh speakers. Apparently even small flukes of grammar, like the seemingly arbitrary assignment of gender to a noun, can have an effect on people's ideas of concrete objects in the world.

In fact, you don't even need to go into the lab to see these effects of language; you can see them with your own eyes in an art gallery. Look at some famous examples of personification in art — the ways in which abstract entities such as death, sin, victory, or time are given human form. How does an artist decide whether death, say, or time should be painted as a man or a woman? It turns out that in 85 percent of such personifications, whether a male or female figure is chosen is predicted by the grammatical gender of the word in the artist's native language. So, for example, German painters are more likely to paint death as a man, whereas Russian painters are more likely to paint death as a woman.

The fact that even quirks of grammar, such as grammatical gender, can affect our thinking is profound. Such quirks are pervasive in language; gender, for example, applies to all nouns, which means that it is affecting how people think about anything that can be designated by a noun. That's a lot of stuff!

We have described how languages shape the way we think about space, time, colors, and objects. Other studies have found effects of language on how people construe events, reason about causality, keep track of number, understand material substance, perceive and experience emotion, reason about other people's minds, choose to take risks, and even in the way they choose professions and spouses. Taken together, these results show that linguistic processes are pervasive in most fundamental domains of thought, unconsciously shaping us from the nuts and bolts of cognition and perception to our loftiest abstract notions and major life decisions. Language is central to our experience of being human, and the languages we speak profoundly shape the way we think, the way we see the world, the way we live our lives.

     There are some texts in Chinese language readers that are identified as constructing a discourse of cultural values. The discourse of cultural values and beliefs are constructed from five different perspectives, namely, concentration and diligence, respect for authority (government leaders and elders), modesty and tolerance, collective spirit, and honesty which are the most important values of Chinese nation.

Concentration and Diligence

These texts are designed to cultivate in children either the value of hard work, or the importance of concentration on study. While constructing this value, the texts deliberately rule out other possibilities (for example interest, curiosity, and motivation) as the following analysis shows.

A Little Monkey

One day, a little monkey went down the hill. When he came to a cornfield he saw many big corns in the field. He was pleased. He broke off a corn. With the corn on his shoulder he went ahead. When he came to a peach tree, he saw there were many big and red peaches on the tree. He was very glad. He threw away his corn and climbed up the tree to pick peaches. He got several peaches. When he came to a watermelon field, he saw the field was littered with many big and round watermelons. He was very excited. He threw away the peaches and began to pick watermelon. He carried a very big watermelon. On his way back, he saw a little rabbit hobbling around. He felt the rabbit would be lovely. He threw away his melon and began to chase the rabbit. The rabbit ran into a bush and disappeared. The little monkey had to go home with nothing in his hand.

In this story a little monkey is the initiator of a series of actions. The actions are highly regulated in the story grammar structure: initial event, internal response, attempt, and consequence in each of the four paragraphs. The repetition of this story grammar structure (four times, enabling the teaching of high frequency verbs such as ‘‘come’’, ‘‘see’’, ‘‘throw away’’ and synonymous adjectives such as ‘‘pleased’’, ‘‘glad’’, ‘‘excited’’) depicts the little monkey repeating the four actions in the same pattern, which involve choices of four different objects. The choices are made based on mere emotion (pleased, glad, excited) rather than purpose or reasoning. The resolution or the didactic effect is that the little monkey has achieved nothing (went home empty handed). The didactic or moral is implicit, but not difficult for the child reader to infer: ‘‘If you want to achieve anything, you have to be purposeful or concentrate on one thing rather than do something out of emotion or out of mere interest’’. By nature, children are always curious about their surroundings and would try to experience different things that arouse their interest. By recognizing this characteristic, the story intends to tame the ‘‘savage mind’’ that is easily distracted by seemingly unnecessary objects. In order to emphasize the value of concentration on study, the story implicitly condemns children’s self-interest and natural curiosity about what happens around them, thus suppressing the creativity that is regarded as one of the most important educational goals in the recent education debate in China.

Respect for Authority

      The authority is constructed as government leaders and elders. However, these kinds of power relations are also manifested in many other texts, though not the primary concerns of these texts, but embedded within the linguistic choices. The themes and orientations of the stories identified in this category overtly address the power of government leaders and elders. For example:

Never Forget the Well-Digger

There was a small village called Shazhouba outside Ruijin City. Chairman Mao once lived there when he led the revolution in Jiangxi Province. There was no well in the village. The villagers had to go a long distance out of the village to fetch water every day. Chairman Mao showed his concern for the hardship of the villagers. So he decided to dig a well in the village together with his soldiers and the villagers. After the well was dug, the villagers did not have to fetch water from a far-away place outside the village. After liberation, the villagers put up a stone tablet at the side of the well. Inscribed on the tablet is: ‘‘Never Forget the Well-Digger and Always Think of Chairman Mao When Drinking Water’’. (Yuwen Bianjishi, 1999, Vol. 2, pp. 111_/112)

In this story the story grammar highlights the formal didactic relationships between Chairman Mao and the villagers. Chairman Mao is regulated as the initiator of an ‘‘attempt’’ while the villagers are the beneficiary of the ‘‘attempt’’. The villagers initiate the event but are unable to act. They have to wait for someone, in this case Chairman Mao, who has the reasoning power and sympathy to address the seemingly simple problem which had perplexed the villagers for years. The villagers are, in turn, positioned to be indebted to Mao by the ‘‘reaction’’ and ‘‘resolution’’ of the story. The ideology of the story is explicit, the government leader cares for ordinary people’s life and the ordinary people must, in return, feel grateful to the leader. The implicit ideology is, however, that the leader is more intelligent than the ordinary people are and, therefore, she/he is legitimized to have the power to rule. This kind of reasoning and discourse option is exercised throughout this and many other stories of government leaders in the textbooks.

There are quite a few other stories in the text corpus that resemble the story just analyzed in terms of their story grammar structure and orientation. In these stories the main characters are the old government leaders and cultural elites (such as prominent writers, and scientists). Respect for them is constructed based on the same logic that ‘‘they served people, worked hard for the country, had a simple living style, and cared for ordinary people’’, therefore, they should be respected. It is obvious that the ideological intent is, on the one hand, to position the child reader to accept the established social power relations and, on the other hand, to legitimate the present government rule.

Modesty and Tolerance

The themes and orientations of these texts denounce arrogance and praise self-restraint.

However, hidden in the semantic structures of the texts is the message that the status quo should be accepted and competition or will to change is discouraged. Modesty here means not to show oneself off or to be aggressive. Tolerance here does not mean the tolerance of different cultural values and beliefs that are promoted in the western education context; instead, it is tolerance of unfair treatment or even injustice in order to achieve harmony. While this may sound strange to non-Chinese, it is a core Confucian cultural value and belief. The government and cultural elites regard it as important and legitimate it in textbooks to socialize children to serve their purpose of control. The terms tolerance and modesty are different in terms of their connotations or/and themes in this context, but they are interrelated in terms of the purposes for or orientations with which they are constructed in the textbooks. The two cultural values and beliefs constructed in the textbooks are combined to socialize child readers to conform to be self-restrained and obedient citizens. For example,

A Ceramic Jar and an Iron Jar

There were two jars in an emperor’s kitchen. One was made of ceramic and the other was made of iron. The conceited iron jar looked down upon the ceramic jar. He often scoffed at the ceramic jar. ‘‘Dare you touch me? The earthen thing!’’ The iron jar asked arrogantly. ‘‘No. I dare not, Brother Iron Jar.’’ The ceramic jar replied modestly. ‘‘I know you are not that brave. A coward!’’ The iron jar said with an air of scorn contempt. ‘‘I dare not touch you. That’s for sure but I’m not a coward.’’ The ceramic jar replied and then reasoned: ‘‘We are both made to contain things for people, not to touch or knock against each other. As for the capacity for containing things, I am not inferior to you. Besides, . . .’’. ‘‘Shut up!’’ The iron jar became furious, ‘‘How dare you compare yourself with me! Wait and see, you’ll be broken into pieces in a few days. But I will be here forever.’’ ‘‘Why did you use such language? The ceramic jar said emotionally, ‘‘We’d better live in harmony. We have no reason to quarrel!’’ ‘‘I feel humiliated to live together with you. You are crap!’’ The iron jar said, ‘‘I will break you into pieces one day!’’ The ceramic jar didn’t reply. As time flew . . . a lot had happened in the world . . . . The two jars were abandoned in a desolate land and covered with thick remains and dust. One day, some people came and dug the remains and dust. They found the ceramic jar. ‘‘Oh, here is a jar!’’ one man said with a surprise. ‘‘Yes, it is a ceramic jar!’’ others cried out excitedly. They picked it up, poured out the dust and earth and washed it. It was as bright, beautiful and natural as it used to be in the royal kitchen many years ago.

‘‘How beautiful the jar is!’’ one man said, ‘‘Be careful! Don’t break it! This is an ancient relic. It is invaluable.’’ ‘‘Thank you so much!’’ The ceramic jar said with excitement, ‘‘my brother, the iron jar is lying beside me. Please dig him out. He must be very bored for such a long time.’’ People began to dig but they couldn’t find it after they had searched all the area. The iron jar had rusted away long ago.

     In this particular story two traditional Chinese kitchen containers, the iron jar and the ceramic jar, are personified to instantiate a structured pattern of conflict. The physically strong (symbolized by the iron jar) are represented as arrogant, enacting unfair treatment, while the physically weak (symbolized by the ceramic jar) are portrayed as tolerant, tolerating the unfair treatment. The pattern is basically realized by the verbal interactions between the two jars. The iron jar is constructed purposefully as the initiator of the incident: he launches a series of unfair verbal attacks on the ceramic jar (such as The earthen thing, A coward, Shut up, I feel humiliated . . .). The ceramic jar is constructed as the addressee and the victim of the verbal attack. Faced with the unfair treatment, the ceramic jar does not challenge the attacker with anger or offence, instead he firstly reasons with his attacker politely, and then keeps silent (such as I dare not, Brother, we are both made to . . ., we are brothers). The schematic structure of the verbal interactions, designed to enable the child reader to recognize what are acceptable or unacceptable sociolinguistic utterances, has a dramaturgical effect; the reiterated attempt_/consequence_/attempt_/consequence pattern is self-referential and self-reinforcing with an orientation highlighting the approved social behaviour of modesty and tolerance and denouncing the antisocial behaviour of arrogance and unfair treatment to others. The orientation is also supported by the linguistic choice of commentary words on the interactions. If the commentary words of the above interactions are categorized as ‘‘pejorative’’, ‘‘neutral’’, and ‘‘positive’’, it is readily seen that of the semantic items or expressions, there are no neutral words used, instead all those commenting on the iron jar’s utterances are pejorative, whereas those commenting on the ceramic jar’s utterances are positive (see Table 1). These words or expressions are used formally as cohesive links between the verbal utterances of the above interactions. However, they also communicate their functions. All the utterances of the iron jar are pejorative expressions, whereas all the utterances of the ceramic jar are positive expressions. Through these lexical choices, the iron jar’s verbal and social behaviors are confirmed as antisocial, while the ceramic jar’s are socially beneficial.

                                                  Collective Spirit

These texts are intertextually related, in terms of theme and orientation, to teach children that happiness or satisfaction comes from helping or serving others in particular or society in general. In this sense, the value and belief are universal, not specific to Chinese society. For example, ‘‘group work’’, ‘‘team work’’, and ‘‘cooperative personality’’ are popular concepts based on the value and belief of collective spirit. However, the meaning of collective spirit constructed in the textbooks concerned goes far beyond the common sense usage. It is constructed against ‘‘the self ’’ or ‘‘individuality’’ that is the very base, I believe, on which collective spirit is supposed to prevail. Put simply, collective spirit is rendered in the discourse being examined as equivalence to self-denial. 

                                              She Is My Friend

     One day in wartime, there were several artillery shells that exploded in an

orphanage. Two children were killed and several were injured. Among the injured

there was a girl.When hearing the news, doctors and nurses rushed in with first aid from a nearby hospital. Through examination, they confirmed that the girl’s wound was the most serious. She would die from loss of blood if she could not receive an immediate blood transfusion. However, the blood of all the doctors and nurses did not match her blood type. The only way was to find out which of the uninjured children might match her blood type and donate blood for her. A woman doctor then told the children that the girl would die if she could not receive a blood transfusion. Then she asked whether any one of them would be willing to donate blood. After a silence, one hand was put up, then withdrawn, and put up again. ‘‘Thank you.’’ The doctor said, ‘‘What’s your name?’’ ‘‘Yuan Heng.’’ The boy called Yuan Heng quickly lay down on the table. During the process of blood transfusion, Yuan Heng did not move and did not say anything.

After a while, he suddenly began to cry and covered his face with his hands. ‘‘Does it hurt?’’, the doctor asked. Yuan Heng shook his head but still sobbed. He closed his eyes and bit his lip, trying hard to refrain from sobbing . . .

After the transfusion, the doctor told people around: ‘‘The boy thought he would

die. He thought he would die after he gave all his blood to the girl.’’ ‘‘Then why is he willing to donate his blood when he thinks that the donation can cause his death?’’ The doctor turned to ask the boy the question. The boy answered: ‘‘She is my friend.’’

     The setting of this story is a war time one and the initial event is ‘‘an injured girl needed blood transfusion in order to survive’’. The sequence of attempt and

consequence of the story involves the protagonist (Yuan Heng) who volunteered to

donate blood in the mistaken idea that he would die because of the donation, and the injured girl was saved. Through this sequence, the cultural value of sacrificing oneself for others is conveyed to the child reader.

Embedded in this sequence are the sub-attempts (hesitation: ‘‘One hand had been

put up, then withdrawn, and put up again’’; fear: ‘‘began to cry’’) and consequences (determination: ‘‘quickly lay down on the table’’, ‘‘did not move or speak’’; understanding: stopped sobbing). These sub-attempts and consequences portray the protagonist as a real hero and, hence, enable the child reader to believe that the story is true. Additionally, they build up a suspense that orients the child reader to the end of the story, where the moral is spelt out by the interactions between the doctor and the protagonist. In particular, the ways in which the story grammar is presented contribute to the construction of the cultural value and belief and so encode one of the dominant cultural values and beliefs, collective spirit, as important to the government and cultural elite.

In this text and others children are constructed as agents who enact the collective

spirit. The inclusion of children as agents creates a subjective position for child

readers to identify themselves with the protagonists or heroes practice of collective

spirit. In other words, they are positioned to learn from the moral models. As noted

at the beginning of this section, the discourse builds up the logic and rationale for the cultural value and belief on the premise that self-interest should be suppressed inorder to practise collective spirit. 

Honesty

      The themes of the texts range from not telling lies to not accepting what does not belong to you. Honesty is important to any society. It is a universal value and belief that is cherished and promoted. The meaning of honesty is clear, rendering further explanation unnecessary, so let’s turn to the text and see how the discourse is constructed in the textbooks. 

A Story of the Axe

     A long, long time ago, there was a poor boy. One day, he went to the mountain to cut firewood. He dropped his axe into a river by accident when he crossed the river over a single wood bridge. He was so worried that he burst into tears. He sobbed: ‘‘How can I cut fire wood without the axe!’’ Suddenly an old white-beared grandpa came out of the flowing water and asked with care: ‘‘Whose child is crying so sadly?’’ The boy said: ‘‘Grandpa, I dropped my axe into the river. I cannot cut fire wood!’’ The grandpa said: ‘‘Don’t cry, child! I’ll help you to find it.’’ While talking, he went into the river and came out with a golden axe. He asked: ‘‘Is this your axe?’’

The boy said: ‘‘No, it is not.’’ The grandpa went into the river again and came out

with a silver axe. He asked: ‘‘Is this yours?’’ The boy shook his head, saying: ‘‘No, it is not mine.’’ The grandpa went into the river again and came up with an iron axe.

He asked: ‘‘Is this your axe?’’ The boy said gladly: ‘‘Yes, it is mine. Thank you,

Grandpa!’’ The grandpa smiled and said: ‘‘Child, since you are honest, I give the

other two axes to you too.’’ The boy said: ‘‘Grandpa, they are not mine. I cannot

accept them.’’ The boy took his own axe and went away. Looking at the boy’s

disappearing figure, the grandpa nodded his head with a smile. 

Again, the story grammar consists of a repetition of a macro propositional sequence: initial event, internal response, attempt, and consequence. However, the sequence is realized by an intersubjective verbal exchange between the two protagonists, the poor child and the old man rather than mere physical actions, building up child reader’s expectations of outcomes and providing maximum opportunities for the teaching of simple questions and answers as well as direct speech. Through the repetition of ‘‘attempt and consequence’’, the poor boy’s honesty is tested: ‘‘never to take anything that does not belong to you’’. This moral lesson is further confirmed by the resolution at the end of the story ‘‘Grandpa nodded his head with a smile’’. 

Across this text and many others in the text corpus the discourse appears and reappears through different themes or aspects to emphasize the meaning of honest behaviour. These texts build up a version of the world where honest behaviour is conducted by adults; children are likely to go astray and, therefore, need to be supervised by adults. At the same time, they use textual and rhetorical devices to position the child reader in solidarity with the adults and the ideal child who performs honest acts and, hence, child readers might learn to behave in a like manner and take the same moral road.

The attitudinal orientation is further reinforced and extended by the last paragraph, where the resolution of the story is intentionally spelt out: if you are modest and tolerant of unfair treatment, you survive in society, whereas you cannot survive if you are arrogant and treat others unfairly. This moral lesson is elaborated by means of a timespan based on the common knowledge (or designed to teach it as such) that cultural relics are invaluable objects. The elaboration (Paragraph 3) covers almost the same length as the main story (Paragraph 2). By this choice, the text orientates the child reader to its ideological resolution. Again, interactions are the main textual devices, but this time the generic term ‘‘people’’ is used to initiate the interactions. This choice sets up an authoritative position that enables what ‘‘people’’ say appear to be a kind of common knowledge. Accordingly, the child reader is positioned to interpret the social behaviour of the ceramic jar as ‘‘beautiful’’ 0/‘‘don’t break it’’ 0/ ‘‘it is invaluable’’. The responses of the ceramic jar in the interactions ‘‘Thank you so much’’, and ‘‘My brother iron jar is lying beside me. Please dig him out’’ further show how tolerant the ceramic jar is towards unfair treatment, and the disappearance (rusted away) of the iron jar confirms that the iron jar’s antisocial behaviour cannot last. By using a long timespan, the value of tolerance is established as enduring over time. This value is constructed intertextually through a series of texts in the textbooks.