Cultural Authenticity In Children's Picture Books On Chinese Culture

ISBN-13: 9783659421099 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 372 str.

Dazhi Cheng

Opis

The present study, using multimodal analysis to examine both the texts and images of picture books portraying Chinese people and Chinese culture, revealed the very complicated nature of the concept of cultural authenticity, given that culture is never an unchanging monolith but is subject to constant changes while maintaining its core values more or less unchanged. For instance, the core value of filial piety in Chinese culture was depicted in different ways in terms of historical periods, with its full blown description and expression in stories set in ancient China and almost non-existence and even obliteration in the Cultural Revolution and its revival in later times as the selected picture books showed. The complication is also shown in other ways. For instance, the study analyzed why the depiction of emotions is often felt to be lacking by mainstream commentators accustomed to exuberant description of emotions (Nodelman,1988). Insider status, which is essential to cultural authenticity, is found to be relative, depending on the life experiences and the perspectives of the 'insider'. All these point to the need of a more sophisticated understanding of cultural authenticity.