7.5 Attitudinal Problems--Prejudice数字时代的商务英语写作.pdf

Intercultural CommunicationBarriers Intercultural CommunicationBarriers 7.5AttitudinalProblems--Prejudice In previous lessons, we have learned two kinds of attitudinal problems ethnocentrism and stereotyping. In this lesson, we’ll talk — about a third attitudinal barrier in intercultural communications. It is prejudice. Prejudice refers to the irrational dislike, suspicion, or hatred of a particular group, race, religion, or sexual orientation. Prejudice involves anunfair,biased,or intolerant attitudetowardsanother group ofpeopleor an individual fromthegroup. 严明大学英语跨文化交际教程 北京：清华大学 （ . [M]. 出版社, 2009:115. ）Have you ever heard of any prejudiced statements?You can share them with us in the discussion board.Now let’s come back to WangXin’sstory. If Wang Xin thought of American people as being indifferent to Chinese people’s hospitality, he would feel discontent with American people and believe that they are not worth making friends with and accordingly be very likely to stay away from Americans or refuse to communicatewiththem.Inthiscase,which doyou think isthe stereotype, which isprejudice?What about discrimination? As we can see, stereotyping is a cognition, while prejudice is an attitude which is readily applied to communicative behaviors. If Wang Xin develops a negative stereotype of Jerry and all theAmerican people: American people are indifferent to others’hospitality.And then he would form such a prejudice: I don’t like American people and they are not worth making friends with. Therefore, He would generate a discrimination:hewouldexcludethem fromhislifecycle. From Wang Xin’s experience, we can draw a conclusion that prejudice, like stereotype, is acquired. It is precedent or a prejudgment based on previous decisions and experiences, which becomes unchangeable even when people are confronted with new experience or