A Cultural Look into the Persian Language Resources: Case of Dehkhoda Text books

Nowadays, teaching and learning the Persian language, an integral part of Iranian’s identity, has attracted many researchers’ attention. Accordingly, different approaches to material developments have been proposed among which selecting the appropriate one is still a great challenge for both the instructors and learners of this language. In this regard, this paper aimed at analyzing the representation of Iranian culture in the pedagogical textbooks written for non-native learners of Persian. In doing so, the elementary and intermediate Reading Comprehension books for non-natives, were selected with the purpose of discovering the underlying conventions which lay behind. Investigating the three dimensions of culture (Poetic dimension, Content dimension and Context dimension) and three approaches of cultural semiotics based on Tartu-Moscow school (Cultural self not the other, Cultural other, Cultural self and the other) revealed that material developers benefiting from "cultural self-not the other" approach needed to use the CONTEXT dimension of self in elementary level. In this regard, a recommended model was also proposed for teaching context and content dimensions of learning a second language. Finally, the pedagogical implication of the study was discussed and further suggestions were put forward.