Page 34 - CROSS CULTURE

A. What is a Stereotype?

To talk or write about culture one has to generalise about

the cultural characteristics of the nationalities discussed.

According to Levine & Adelman (1993), the notion of

"stereotypes" is "exaggerated beliefs and images about groups

of people and are often based on a lack of information or contact.
Furthermore these "stereotypes" will easily evolve into

"generalizations". So, we should not make a generalization that

everyone who has the same culture will definitely have the same

attitude, behaviour, and character. Most of them may be yes, but

of course not everyone in the culture has such a character.

A stereotype is generalizations of people groups based on
past experiences, which are deep-rooted in the psyche of the

people. In another definition, it is said that stereotype is a fixed

idea or image that many people have a particular type of person,

thing, or event, but sometimes it is not true. Cultural

stereotypes mean applying both evidence and our existing
beliefs about the members of that cultural group.

Some linguists believe that stereotypization is an

epiphenomenon of thinking that is oversimplified, schematic,

and often wrong (Shaumyan, 2006), and that it falsifies the

picture of people and objects it refers to. However, performing

the nominal function, stereotype helps people categorize the
elements of the surrounding reality and understand their

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