The Concept of the Interculture in Time: (Inter)cultural Topics in Textbooks of French as a Foreign Language

The article deals with the concept of interculturality as used in foreign language didactics. In accordance with the definition of interculturality given in the first part of the article, two categories are included in the analysis-two "levels" of culture, each of them bearing a different name in literature, namely high and popular culture. Various textbooks used for teaching French as a foreign language in Slovenia in both the past and present were chosen for the analysis of topics that cover a fairly long period of time -among them the textbooks by two Slovenian authors: Juznic (1938) and Grad (1954), as well as some generally-used French textbooks, such as Cours de langue et de civilisation francaises (1953), Le nouveau sans frontieres (1988) and Nouveau rond point (2011). The article is based on the hypothesis that high culture is more likely to be present in the older textbooks, which are based on traditional methods, whereas in modern textbooks more popular, everyday topics can be found. It is also presumed that topics in modern textbooks are, compared to their more traditional counterparts, introduced in an intercultural manner which could encourage students to compare the culture of the foreign country with their own. Both hypotheses are partly confirmed. In Slovenian textbooks there are very few culture-based topics. On the other hand, they are present in all French textbooks, regardless of the methodology. It is true that Mauger introduces more high culture than the others and that the intercultural topics are presented only in the most recent textbook. In all the others, it is exclusively the culture of the target country that is introduced.