Bibliometric Analysis of Intercultural Communication Textbooks for English Majors in China/ L'analyse Bibliometrique Sur Les Manuels Scolaires de la Communication Interculturelle Pour Les Etudiants de L'anglais en Chine (Report‪)‬

The use of "Intercultural Communication" as a term in the FLT field in China started in 1988, when "a set of papers on cultural differences and their effects on foreign language teaching were published in the collection Intercultural Communication and English Learning(edited by Hu Wenzhong)" (Ke, 1990). At the same time, Wang Yuehan (1989) wrote an article to call on reform in the FLT field to make intercultural competence of language using a primary teaching goal. Wang Dexing, too, analyzed cross-cultural pragmatic failures in a paper published in 1990 (D. X. Wang, 1990). Yet, the term was used only in a sense of referring to a specific communication context, rather than as the name of a discipline. The recognition of intercultural communication (IC, hereafter) as a potential discipline did not occur until the first collection of IC readings from abroad were published in China as well as several articles introducing the American IC field appeared in the FLT journals (see Chen & Dong, 1991; He, 1989, 1990, 1991; Hu, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1990; Jia, 1992). Up to now, IC has become a specialized area and direction in the FLT field. Professional associations are established and regular conferences are organized biannually. There are also listed programs at both undergraduate and graduate levels in the English colleges or departments of many universities. This rapid development of IC in the FLT field in China has led to the increased publications of various textbooks for language majors, especially students of English language and literature.