The Impact Of Stereotypical Linguistic Realization On Intercultural Communication

Stereotype represents a fixed belief (or a set of beliefs) about people of aspecific social category, and people’s ideological abstraction and generalization ofdifferent cultures. The phenomenon of stereotype has always been meriting the focusesand attentions of diverse disciplines within social sciences, in recent years, researchershave put forward that future researches concerning this subject should accentuate thefunction of language, which is thus one of the main tasks of this thesis. Interculturalcommunication is one of the most important approaches that promote the globalizationof the contemporary world. While it is easy to encounter different language forms thatencodes diverse stereotypes, these language forms not only bring the communicatorssome fixed ideas of a certain social group, if not been properly pinpointed and rectified,will also have the potential hazard of causing cultural prejudices and thus affectingcommunicators in their process of intercultural communication. By taking acomprehensive look on the issue of linguistic realization mechanisms of stereotypes,we can analyze various stereotypes more thoroughly, which obviously has duesignificance in guiding and solving the problem of how to handle stereotypesencountered in intercultural communication.Under the guidance of some relevant theories such as Linguistic Inequality,Linguistic Category Model, Discourse System Analysis and so on, this thesis hasclassified and summarized many solid examples, which have been collected fromvarious dictionaries and relevant researches, of linguistically realized stereotypes. Andbased on previous research outcomes concerning the realm of interculturalcommunication, this thesis has done a detailed and in-depth analysis on the effects oflinguistically realized stereotypes on intercultural communication. This thesis mainlyrevolves around three questions:(1). How many linguistic levels are there by means ofwhich stereotyped beliefs can be invoked or encoded?(2). What are theinterrelationship among language, stereotype and intercultural communication?(3). How can the linguistically realized stereotypes influence intercultural communication?Through the analysis, it is found in this thesis that language, at all levels, fromaccent to words, sentences and discourses, can somehow encode certain stereotypes.And after clarifying the fact that stereotype can be realized via different languagelevels, this thesis has revealed the interrelationship among language, stereotype andintercultural communication. It is found that accent can trigger listener’s stereotypesand thus affect intercultural communication in a direct manner; while words, sentencesand discourses are responsible for the perpetuation, transmission and distortion ofstereotypes, thus have deeper effects on intercultural communication. In the end, thisthesis has put forward different suggestions for stereotypes which have been realizedvia diverse linguistic approaches, with the aim of minimizing the impact oflinguistically realized stereotypes on intercultural communication, and it is hoped thatsuch suggested solutions can act as theoretical guidance for further promoting thecause of intercultural communication.