Elementi kulture u udžbenicima srpskog i hrvatskog jezika kao stranog – početni nivo

The process of language learning does not only include linguistic competence, but above all the use of language in everyday communication, so called, communicative or sociolinguistic competence. Culture is usually interpreted and expressed through the national heritage and the achievements in the fields of so called elite culture, arts, literature and music; while from the anthropological point of view the focus is on the study and representation of customs and habits of a nation. In this paper, starting from the above mention hypotheses we will analyse the course books of Serbian and Croatian as a foreign language (V. Barac-Kostrenčić, M. Kovačićek, S. Lovasić, D. Vignjević: Učimo hrvatski, 1999; M. Čilaš-Mikulić, M. Guleić Machata, D. Pasini, S. L. Udier: Hrvatski za početnike, 2008; I. Bjelaković, J. Vojnović: Naučimo srpski 1, 2004; N. Milićević-Dobromirov, B. Novković: Učimo srpski 1, 2009). We will analyse the way in which cultural elements are treated in these course books, as well as the way they interpret the notion of culture itself. We will focus on the cultural elements which are used in order to represent a nation whose language one learns. And at the same time these didactic materials (in most cases inauthentic) with their contents and lexicon serve as an immediate source for the interpretation of this culture.