Examining the content and cultural elements in "Parfa 1" textbook based on the integrated pattern of "Cortazzi and Jin" and “Adaskou et al"

The importance of learning Persian for non-Persian speakers has a significant impact on the compilation of educational materials based on the needs of Persian learners. Since language teaching is mainly associated with the introduction of cultural issues into the knowledge of the language learner, the contribution of educational books to the transmission of cultural concepts is undeniable. This research aims to investigate the amount of reflection of cultural content and elements based on the cultural patterns of "Cortazzi and Jin" (1999) and “Adaskou et al." (1990) in "Parfa 1" textbook. The research method is a statistical analysis of the content of this book based on the integration of the mentioned patterns. Based on this, Cortazzi and Jin (1999) have considered the cultural content of language teaching books into three types: source culture, target culture, and international culture. Noteworthy is that Parfa collection is designed for general Persian language teaching purpose for adult speakers. Accordingly, during the current research process, Iranian culture is determined as the "target culture" and the source and international cultures have been classified under a same group, entitled "other cultures". On this basis, by combining the cultural pattern of Adaskou et al. (1990), the four elements of this concept, including "aesthetic elements", "sociological elements", "semantic elements" and "sociolinguistic elements", are used as the base of statistical analysis for examining the cultural content of "Parfa 1" with an emphasis on Iranian culture as the target language. The research results show that the main cultural elements represented in the culture of the target language are: 1- Aesthetic elements (art, literature, music and media), 2- Sociological elements (everyday life), 3- Semantic elements (cultural conceptualizations of various issues) and 4- Sociolinguistic elements (the way of using language according to social cultural conditions).