The “cultural map” of a Russian as a foreign language textbook as a tool for developing intercultural competence in university students (level A2)

The research aims to determine the methodological significance and didactic potential of the cultural content in A2-level Russian as a foreign language (RFL) textbooks through an analysis of the structure and distribution of national-culturally marked lexis. Based on the A2 RFL textbooks “The Road to Russia” and “Hello, Russia!”, a quantitative frequency analysis of culturally specific vocabulary is conducted to reconstruct “cultural maps” of the textbooks. In this study, a “cultural map” is defined as an analytical model of the distribution and hierarchy of cultural content within teaching materials (thematic spheres, cultural dominants, the balance of “capital/regions”, “Russia/world”, and “high/everyday culture”), reflecting the textbook’s methodological orientation and its potential for developing students’ intercultural competence. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the cultural component of an RFL textbook is treated for the first time as a structurally organized set of thematically distributed elements, reconstructed through the frequency distribution of national-culturally marked lexis. The paper justifies the interpretation of frequency indicators for various thematic groups (toponyms, personalia, institutional, ethnocultural, and everyday realia) as indicators of the textbook’s methodological focus and its mode of cultural representation (degree of centralization/decentralization, ratios of capital to regions, Russia to other countries, and high to everyday culture). The term “the cultural map of a textbook” is proposed and operationalized as an analytical construct reflecting the structure and balance of cultural content based on empirical frequency data. This approach facilitates a transition from predominantly descriptive analysis to systematic research based on quantitative methods. The results reveal differences in the distribution of culturally marked lexis and dominant cultural spheres between the analyzed textbooks, reflecting diverse methodological approaches to forming intercultural competence. The findings confirm the validity of frequency analysis as a tool for assessing the cultural potential of RFL textbooks and identifying structural balance and priorities in cultural representation.