Stereotypes and stereotyping

Stereotyping is a simplification and generalization process. It helps people categorize and understand their world, but at the same time it often leads to errors.

Stereotypes can be positive or negative, such as when various nation­alities are stereotyped as friendly or unfriendly. We often find people stereotyped around characteristics of age ("All teenagers love rock and roll and have no respect for their parents."), sex ("men want just one thing from a woman."), race ("All Japanese look and think alike."), reli­gion ("All Catholics love the Pope more than their country."), profes­sion ("All lawyers are greedy.") and nationality ("All Germans are Na­zis").

Objects can be stereotyped around characteristics of places ("All cit­ies are corrupt and sinful." "Small towns are safe and clean." "In Eng­land, it rains all the time.") and things ("All Korean cars are cheaply made.").

The term "stereotype" initially referred to a printing stamp which was used to make multiple copies from a single model, but the great journalist and commentator Walter Lippmann adopted the term in his 1922 book "Public Opinion" as a means of describing the way society is set about categorizing people — "stamping" human beings with a set of characteristics — as well. In his pioneering work, Lippmann identified four aspects of stereotypes. A brief look at them will serve as a summary of this valuable popular cultural tool. Lippmann wrote that stereotypes are:

1) Simple: certainly more simple than reality, but also often capable of being summarized in only two to three sentences.

2) Acquired secondhand: people acquire (and absorb) stereotypes from someone else rather than from their own experience. The culture "distills" reality and then expresses its beliefs and values in stereotypical images.

3) Erroneous: all stereotypes are false. Some are less false thanothers, and (more importantly) some are less harmful than others.Butare false by their very nature. They are attempts to claim thateach individual human being in a certain group shares a set of common quality. Since an individual is different from all other individuals by definition stereotypes are a logical impossibility.

4) Resistant to change: during the last twenty-five years the difficulties with racial and gender inequalities in American life have alerted most people to the tragic consequences of popular stereotypes.

Despite the fact that stereotyping is a natural method of classification and despite the fact that stereotyping has some useful functions under certain circumstances, it can be problematic.

Stereotypes can reduce a wide range of differences in people to simplistic categorizations, transform assumptions about particular, groups of people into "realities".

Задания. Прочитайте текст и ответьте на вопросы.

1. What is stereotyping?

2. What is the main function of stereotyping?

3. What characteristics are people most often stereotyped around?

4. What does the term stereotype initially refer to?

5. Who adopted the term in its modern meaning?

6. What are the four aspects of stereotypes according to Lippmann?

7. What does it mean that stereotypes are acquired second-hand?

8. Are all stereotypes false? What is negative about stereotyping?

Simplification упрощение

generalization обобщение

initially изначально

stamp штамп, печать

multiple множественный

to summarize быть собранным

to acquire secondhand приобретать из вторых рук

erroneous ошибочный

impossibility невозможность

resistant имеющий высокую степень сопротивления

gender inequalities неравенство полов

to alert настораживать

circumstances обстоятельства

simplistic упрощенный

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26