Cultural Colonialism: A Perspective Of Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication is a marginalized subject which has just developed for the recent decades. With the economic globalization, the activities of intercultural communication will become more and more frequent. The intercultural communication will also become more and more important because the world is linked together closely. The current research in intercultural communication paid too much attention to the differences and barriers among cultures. Few scholars have focused on this aspect.The concept of cultural colonialism was first raised in the philosophical field. The leading scholars are Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha and Arif Dirlik. Although it is a concept raised in the philosophical field, on which philosophers heatedly discuss and argue, I think cultural colonialism is not a term for philosophical introspection, but a real fact.This dissertation aims at a study of cultural colonialism from the perspective of intercultural communication. Cultural colonialism is a cultural phenomenon whereby certain Western developed countries, taking advantage of their leading economic and political positions in the contemporary international community, try hard to impose their cultural stuff and values on other countries so as to influence or even to assimilate them culturally and ideologically.The thesis at first introduces the concepts of culture and intercultural communication, and the theory of cultural colonialism as well.In the second part, the serious phenomenon of English colonialism is discussed according to the facts in science, economy, education, mass media and international affairs. These prove the extremely promotion and expansion of English in the global world.In the third chapter, the analysis about the problem and negative influence of the media imperialism is made.In the fourth part, I discuss another special kind of communicating media, that is, the internet. America has become the framer of the game rules and biggest information source, taking the advantages of its own economy and technology. America is in a dominant status in the cultural communication on the internet. It has been infusing its values and life styles into the other nations through the internet that has become a new instrument for America to realize and strengthen its cultural hegemony.In the fifth chapter, the cultural colonialism in translation is studied. The power relations between the powerful and less powerful cultures have influence on the process of translation. Then I point out the differences between the choice of texts to translate and the adoption of different translation strategies caused by the powerful cultures and less powerful cultures.In the last part, the conclusion of the whole thesis is presented. The conclusion affirms the...