| Culture teaching has been advocated in the last few decades. There is a problem we should not neglect in EFL culture teaching and learning: on the one hand, to cultivate the learners'intercultural communicative competence, it's essential to generalize the differences between our own culture and the target language culture, so it is unavoidable to establish certain stereotype; on the other hand, the simplified and overgeneralized stereotype is likely to stand in the way of learners'intercultural communicative competence development. This is so–called"paradox of intercultural communication"(Gao Yihong, 2000), which has attracted linguists'attention these years. And many language educators are attempting to go out of the scope of this paradox all the while.However, as a cognitive factor, to a great degree, stereotype still influences learners'aspiration and motivation for intercultural communicative activities. Therefore, The thesis lays emphasis on putting forward some suggestions on how to help learners develop positive stereotypes to the target culture in foreign language culture teaching.Chapter One is a literature review of characteristics of cultures and of stereotype from five aspects: definitions, characteristics, categories, formation and change models. Chapter Two attempts to elaborate the influences of stereotypes on intercultural communication. In Chapter Three, the author makes a survey on cultural stereotypes of college EFL students. Chapter Four is the core of the whole thesis. The author puts forwards the relevant suggestions on how to help learners develop positive stereotypes to the target culture in foreign language culture teaching.The suggestions in the thesis are incomplete and tentative. However, the author hopes the present study will give some help to any study concerned with helping learners develop accurate stereotypes towards target culture in culture teaching and learning. |
