University Hildesheim

Seminar-title: Intercultural Communication and Language Teaching

Stereotyping as a Phenomenon in Intercultural Communication

Name: Claudia Brunsch

2005

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 1
1. Communication 2
2. Culture 2

III. DEFINITION OF STEREOTYPE 3

IV. AUTOSTEREOTYPE AND HETEROSTEREOTYPE 3

V. HOW DO HETEREOSTEREOTYPES AND AUTOSTEREOTYPES OCCUR? 4
1. The Process of Heterostereotyping 4
2. The Process of Autostereotyping 4

VI. NORMATIVE AND PERSONAL STEREOTYPES 5 

VII. MINDLESS AND MINDFUL STEREOTYPING 5
1. Mindless Stereotyping 5
2. Mindful Stereotyping 6

VIII. POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE STEREOTYPING 6
1. Negative Stereotyping 6
2. Positive Stereotyping 7

IX. STEREOTYPING AND ITS EFFECTS ON COMMUNICATION 8
1. Stereotyping as a Positive Process 8
2. Stereotyping as a Negative Process 8

X. SUMMARY 9

I. Introduction

Intercultural communication has become more and more important in a world where everything is becoming global. Few centuries ago only international managers or diplomats had to think about intercultural communication and its problems.

These days not exclusively international managers but “ordinary” people from different cultures come into contact with each other. This phenomenon can be explained due to various reasons. The internet makes it possible to communicate with people from all over the word, modern technologies give people the chance to travel further and faster than ever before. Not only big firms, but also all kinds of organizations act more and more global instead of local. The European Union allows people to move to other European countries, to work and to live there.

We live in a multicultural society with various cultures. Intercultural communication has become a theme which concerns everybody and which will even become more and more important in our world of globalization where people from all over the world come together and get in contact with each other.

The topic of my paper is “Stereotyping as a Phenomenon in Intercultural Communication”. As a basis I will describe the term “intercultural communication” by explaining the model of communication and by trying to give a definition of “culture”. I will focus on the topic of stereotypes by giving a definition and by showing different forms of stereotypes and explaining the difference between positive and negative stereotyping. Furthermore, I will explain how stereotyping arises and how it can have a positive as well as a negative effect on intercultural communication.

II. Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication deals with the question how people with a different cultural background can understand each other.¹

Intercultural communication, also often called cross-cultural communication or trans-cultural communication can be defined as an “exchange process between persons of different cultures”.² The basis is the concept of communication.

To understand the term of intercultural communication it is necessary first to understand what communication is, what it concludes and how it works.

1. Communication

Communication is an exchange of meaning caused by a sender who sends a message to a person who receives the message, the receiver. In this process the sender encodes the message, which means that he produces a symbol message and the receiver has to decode the message, which means that he must try to understand the meaning of the symbol. The received message can be very different from the message which was sent. In other words: sent and received messages are never identical. This can be explained because of the fact that communication is a complex process. It does not only include verbal but also nonverbal messages. Verbal messages are the words, sentences and phrases which are spoken; nonverbal messages are gestures, mimic or the tone of voice.

Communication also contains consciously send messages as well as unconsciously send messages. Even if he does not want to, the sender sends messages he is totally unaware of. It can be seen that communication has many sources of misinterpretation which rise with the differences in cultural background. The greater the differences in cultural background between sender and receiver, the greater the differences in meaning connected to special words and behaviors.³

2. Culture

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¹ Bennett, Milton J.: “Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication” (1898), 1

² Ting-Toomey, Stella: “Communicating Across Cultures” (1999), 21

³ Adler, Nancy: “Communicating Across Cultural Barriers“ in: Bolten, J./ Erhhard, K.: „Interkulturelle Kommunikation. Texte und Übungen zum interkulturellen Handeln“ (2003), 247 f.