| Prejudice is one of major obstacles in intercultural communication as well as an important issue in the study of intercultural communication. Prejudice, between different cultural groups, mainly results from the cognitive, motivational and social-cultural causes. When prejudice is reflected in language, linguistic bias occurs, and in return, linguistic bias helps maintain and reproduce prejudice. In current intercultural communications, the explicit linguistic bias still exists; however, a large amount of linguistic bias is implicit. The implicit linguistic bias, due to its strategic and subtle representation, and entangled with ideology and power, unconsciously exerts influence on people’s perception, attitude and behaviors. Therefore, this naturalized, habitualized linguistic bias deserves our special attention and thorough research. Unfortunately, the systematic and in-depth research still lacks in this area.In fact, the researches on how language subtly represents prejudice have already been carried out by some western social psychologists from the perspective of psycho-linguistics, and some linguists from the angle of discourse analysis. Although their researches are of great benefits to the study of discourse prejudice in intercultural communication, there still exist some limitations.The research of prejudice in traditional intercultural communication study has drawn heavily on the research of socio-psychology. In addition to which, this dissertation holds that, prejudice should also be examined from the point of view of hermeneutics, and under the context of ideology and power (Chapter One). The intricate relationships among discourse, ideology and power inspire the author of this dissertation to study the issue of discourse prejudice from the perspective of critical discourse analysis (CDA). After careful comparison and contrast, this dissertation believes that the three-dimensional CDA theory by Norman Fairclough can provide a new approach for the research of discourse prejudice in intercultural communication (Chapter Two). His theory integrates the micro textual analysis with macro social-cultural analysis to disclose the hidden ideological meaning in texts, in particular, those matters of prejudice, discrimination and distortion, and explain the social conditions of its existence and its role in power struggle.This dissertation attempts to combine Fairclough’s theory with other relevant theories to investigate the issue of discourse prejudice in intercultural communication in three dimensions:textual analysis, discursive practice and social practice. In textual analysis, the various linguistic strategies for prejudiced communication will be analyzed (Chapter Three); in discursive practice, the prejudice discourse will be examined in the process of production and consumption (Chapter Four); in social practice, the interaction between prejudice discourse and social cultural context (ideology and power relationship) will be studied (Chapter Five). Finally, this dissertation proposes to connect the "liberation discourse" in critical discourse analysis with the "counter discourse" in postcolonial study to explore the possible ways to reduce the prejudice discourse, and then the prejudice itself (Chapter Six).It should be noted that there are no unified theory and method of CDA. Based on Fairclough’s theory, this dissertation also absorbs some relevant theories and methods from other branches of CDA. Moreover, more theories such as Linguistic Category Model, Linguistic Intergroup Bias theory, Hermeneutics, Semiotics, Culture Study, Postcolonial Study, Cultural Imperialism etc., are also incorporated into this research. With these theories, a couple of cases concerning the discourse prejudice in intercultural communication are analyzed.To sum up, this research is a multi-discipline and cross-discipline research, which attaches importance to both the theoretical exploration and the practical usage. |
PDF Full Text Request