A Study Of American Teachers' Stereotypes About Chinese Non-english Major Postgraduates

Stereotype, as a cultural phenomenon, has long been the focus of sociology, socio-psychology and intercultural communication study. As we know that stereotype is inevitable in our daily life. Since the concept of it came into being in 1922, previous researchers explored stereotypes mainly from the perspective of socio-psychology, yet few empirical studies were found from the perspective of intercultural communication. The author intends to explore stereotype in a broader sense and do research on it from the perspective of intercultural communication. Moreover, from previous empirical studies on stereotype at home and abroad, we know that most of the researchers just pay attention to its negative effects and ignore its positive ones. Basing on the previous researches, the author of the thesis adopts a neutral definition of stereotype: stereotypes are an over-generalized and oversimplified set of beliefs about a group of people; it may be positive, negative or neutral; it has its reason to exist and we can't blame itself. The purpose of this study is to find out the content of American teachers'stereotypes about Chinese non-English major postgraduates and the general effects of their stereotypes on the actual communication between them.The author first advances an integrated definition of stereotype in a neutral term after presenting a number of previous definitions. Then in order to help us get familiar with the concept of stereotype, the author discusses the formation, characteristics, categories, dimensions as well as assessment of it from different perspectives. Stereotype in intercultural communication and empirical studies on stereotype are also introduced. In the thesis, a quantitative study is used. Besides, two questionnaires and an interview are designed as the major instrument. After that, according to previous scales on the studies of stereotypes, the author use free-response measurement, valence ratings and rating scales as the main scales. To carry out the study, 80 American teachers from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST)and Chinese non-English major postgraduates(also from HUST)are selected to represent the two parties in intercultural communication.From the two questionnaires, the author collects data. Then necessary further information which can prove the findings is acquired from the follow-up interviews. The study finds that the stereotype held by American teachers of Chinese postgraduates is positive. Findings reveal the origins of the stereotypes and discuss their types. In this thesis, American teachers learn the stereotypes mainly from their personal teaching experience in China and they use the attribute of personality characteristic most to describe Chinese students. At last, the study presents the influence of the stereotypes on intercultural communication. That is, positive stereotypes can promote the communication between American teachers and Chinese non-English postgraduates, while negative ones can impede their communication.The findings are consistent with those of previous studies to a certain degree, and at the same time is significant to foster the communication between American teachers and Chinese postgraduates.