An Investigation Of Cultural Stereotype Of English Majors

With the development of globalization, intercultural communication betweenChina and other countries becomes more frequent. It is clear that learning foreignlanguage to some extent means coming into contact with a new culture. Language isthe foundation and carrier of culture, and in turn culture constraints and influenceslanguage. The relationship between language and culture makes culture teaching animportant part for language study. To cultivate language learners’ culture awarenessand sensitivity towards target language and develop their intercultural communicationcompetence is one of the goals of foreign language teaching.Cultural factors have great influences on English teaching and learning, whichhas attracted more and more scholars’ attentions. As a component of interculturalcommunication, cultural stereotype is an essential part but usually neglected inEnglish teaching. Cultural stereotype is a complicated form of categorization andgeneralization that mentally organizes people’s experiences and guides people’sbehaviors towards another group of people. Stereotyping can help people generalizeand understand different cultures; however, at the same time it can also set up abarrier that hinders communication among people from different cultures.Based on the previous literature review, it is clear that the focus of traditionalresearches on stereotype has been put on non-English majors, and researchers haveexplored the issue from a social psychological viewpoint which sees stereotype as astatic factor in social perception. The present thesis, taking English majors as theresearch subjects, is to explore the issue from the aspect of interculturalcommunication which regards stereotype as a dynamic factor. In order to enablepeople to have a more comprehensive understanding of cultural stereotype, the studymakes a qualitative analysis, that is, a survey of the definition, formation,characteristics, classification of cultural stereotype and its impact on interculturalcommunication. Based on the literature review and theoretical background, the authordesigns a quantitative research in which two questionnaires are used as the major instrument. In the research,186English majors from Jinan University and ShandongNormal University are chosen as the subjects. They are divided into two groupsaccording to their English proficiency and length of English learning. Throughanalyses, it is found that cultural stereotype towards Americans does exist in Englishmajors’ minds and the media and school education are the main sources of culturalstereotypes. Finally, on the basis of the investigation, some feasible suggestions forculture teaching and learning of English majors are put forward, such as raisingcultural awareness, establishing correct attitude towards cultural stereotype andselecting appropriate teaching materials. In addition, some specific suggestions forteachers and English majors are also illustrated.The significance of the thesis is to guide culture teaching for English majors andto foster their intercultural communication competence. The author hopes that thisthesis can raise people’s awareness of cultural stereotype in interculturalcommunication and thereby improve their communication.