Stereotypes Of The French Held By Chinese College Students Majoring In French

Stereotypes exert a profound influence on intercultural communication and relations.Language learners’ stereotypes of their target cultural group also play an essential role in foreign language learning.College students majoring in French bring into classroom their various stereotypes about France,French culture,and the French and modify them over time.In China,studies on foreign language learners’ stereotypes mainly focus on English,Japanese,and German majors,while learners of French have surprisingly received scant attention.Further,prior research in the field of foreign language teaching mainly used a unidimensional-approach to obtain stereotypical traits from respondents,and few studies have attempted to construct such traits into multiple dimensions.To expand the literature,this thesis utilizes a multi-dimensional approach to explore the content of stereotypes of the French held by Chinese students of French.The current research project is composed of two studies.Study 1,using content analysis,examined the words describing a typical French listed by 102 Chinese students majoring in French.A total of 33 frequently selected trait descriptors were obtained based on the binomial distribution formular.Using the 33 distinct descriptors as an instrument,Study 2,which is a quantitative study,asked 146 students to give the percentage they believed each of these traits matched with the characteristics of the French.A Principal Component Analysis revealed five primary dimensions of stereotypes,namely,“Extrovert”,“Intellect”,“Humanitarian Hedonist”,“Laid-backer”,and “Eloquent Defender of Rights”.The current research provides an empirical basis for relevant educators to grasp the cognitive structure of French language learners and has important implications for intercultural studies and foreign language teaching.