Research On Stereotype In Intercultural Communication

Stereotype refers to the simple view of the members of another ethnic or national, or a preconceived impression got when there is no contact with certain cultural. It has attract great attention of scholars at home and abroad since it’s been proposed. A lot of research about it has been did. Based on the previous researches, the thesis analyses all aspects of stereotype in a multidimensional perspective with examples, which considers stereotype on a more neutral and objective point of view.Stereotype is a very important concept in intercultural communication. Successful intercultural communication is closely related to three factors:emotional factors, operating factors and cognitive factors. Stereotype, as one of the cognitive factors, is a learned behavior which would be more stable once formed. It has a profound impact on intercultural understanding and communication. In order to enable people to have a comprehensive understanding of the stereotype, this paper first explores intercultural communication, stereotype, and the relationship between the two, reviews the domestic and foreign literature on stereotype and makes reference to relevant theory as the theoretical research base. Secondly, the author designs a questionnaire and interview. The objects of questionnaire selected English majors in college students. It is divided into two parts. First is a survey of the stereotype of Americans who have their own culture as a social group in the eyes of the Chinese people; the second part aims to investigate the impact stereotype has on intercultural communication between the communicators of both sides. The questionnaire results show that the stereotype held by Chinese English majors for Americans is positive. Positive stereotype promotes communications. On the other hand, stereotype makes communicators have cognitive bias, and the negative stereotype may lead to prejudice or discrimination. Therefore, how to correctly understand stereotype contributes to set an active role and overcome the negative impact of the stereotype.The practical significance of this study is that it presents an overview of the subjective thinking of stereotypes’ effects on the part of communicators themselves. Thus people can have a clearer understanding of the difference between subjective knowledge and objective facts. On this basis, people can figure out a way to bridge the gap between subjective and objective, which can inspire and help communicators to improve their communication competency.