Tracing the local culture in a reading book

There is a strong relationship between language and culture, both carries the DNA samples of one another, which makes it hard to imagine English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in classrooms and textbooks without any reference to target culture(s). Therefore, teaching a language cannot be thought only as teaching grammatical structures of the target language, but also teaching the culture(s) of the target language or society. However, considering intercultural communicative competence, along with the target culture(s), the local culture should also be included in the textbooks. This study aimed to trace the local culture (Turkish) in a book used in a Turkish higher education institution. In order to do this, an in-house published reading book was evaluated through thematic content-based analysis and item frequency analysis. The results showed that in spite of the fact that the evaluated reading book is dominated by the target culture, and there is an inadequacy in terms of providing elements from the local culture, it was revealed that the book does not favor any specific culture(s), and it exhibits an increased awareness about intercultural communicative competence.   Key words: Intercultural communicative competence, culture in textbooks, language, culture.