cultural stereotypes in Foreign Language Learning文献综述

 2022-09-09 16:00:11

2. Literature Review

2.1 The Definition of Stereotype

What is stereotype? A stereotype is a simplified generalization about specific types of individuals, cultures or certain ways of doing things, but the generalization may or may not reflect reality. The people who hold stereotypes tend to label people or something formulaically.

The expiation of stereotype given by Websterrsquo;s Third International Dictionary (1976) is that: Something repeated or reproduced without variation; something conforming to fixed or general pattern and lacking individual distinguishing marks or qualities: especially a standardized mental picture held in common by members of a group and representing an oversimplified opinion, affective attitude, or uncritical judgment (as of a person, a race, an issue or an event)

Walter Lippmann (1922) was the first man who coined “stereotype” in his influential book, Public Opinion, by distinguishing between “the world outside and the pictures in our head”. That means, he thought that stereotype is an oversimplified picture of the world, one that can satisfies a need to see the world as more understandable and manageable than it really is. In fact his exact words were “stereotypes are those pictures preformed in human beingrsquo;s brains and they will assist people to evaluate certain behaviors in nature. Moreover, stereotype is to assist people to recognize external world.” (Lippmann, 1992: 81)

Based on Lippmannrsquo;s study, many socio-psychologists define stereotype in different words. Allport (1954), in his classic book The Nature of Prejudice, stated that stereotype is a kind of fixed impressions which is in together with generalization and exaggerates facts. And the function of stereotype is to “justify (rationalize) our conduct in relation to that category.”(Allport, 1954: 191)

In 1981, according to Tajfel, a stereotype was regarded as a specific expression of attitude. “It entails an agreement between members of a single group on certain characteristics, which are accepted as a valid, discriminating means of describing the difference of other groups (the outside)”.

Thatrsquo;s to say, stereotypes are an overgeneralized and oversimplified set of beliefs about a group of people in a certain social category. (Kosslyn and Rosenberg, 2004: 683) they also pointed that a stereotype may be positive, such as “women are nurturing”; neutral, such as “Mexicans eat spicy food”; or negative, such as “Australians drink too much”

Form all above, the definition of stereotype is clear to us. Stereotype refers to shared conception of the character of a group. A stereotype is a fixed impression which conforms very little to the reality, and results from our defining first and observing second.

2.2 Classification of stereotype

Stereotype is a broad concept. It includes a lot and be classified as follow: (Zhao Aiguo, 2005)

Cultural Aspect

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