Analysis On The Construction Of Intercultural Identity Of Chinese Americans In The New York Times(2006-2016)

As an immigrant society,the United States has witnessed increasingly diverse ethnic groups coming into contacts and exchanges.Problems about identity centering on values naturally arise in such frequent intercultural communication.Identity means identification.Minority groups,on one hand,try to keep their cultural traditions while seek to join the mainstream society on the other hand.Chinese Americans are being challenged by the identity crisis because they are caught between eastern and western cultures in the American society.Media,especially newspaper,plays a vital role in promoting identification and mutual understandings by representing different cultural values in news reports.Thus,this thesis focuses on The New York Times to explore the construction of intercultural identity of Chinese Americans.It applies “intercultural identity theory”,a Two-Directional Extension Model(TDEM),proposed by Dai(2010),and incorporates Collier and Thomas(1988)' cultural identity theory,to do the investigation.In the thesis,45 Chinese Americans covered in 71 reports by The New York Times from 2006 to 2016 are collected and analyzed within the framework of TDEM.Content analysis methods are adopted to conduct the quantitative and the qualitative analysis.It firstly studies local cultural identity of Chinese Americans in NYT.Then it analyzes how intercultural identity is constructed.At last,it examines the application of interculturality for developing intercultural identity and enlightening the transmission of Chinese culture overseas.Three research questions are addressed in the thesis:(1)How dose NYT construct intercultural identity of Chinese Americans centering on values?(2)How does NYT apply interculturality to promote the development of intercultural identity?(3)What is enlightenment for Chinese cultural transmission overseas?Results of the research are presented as follows:Firstly,as the key to constructing intercultural identity,two directional extension of values of Chinese Americans in NYT is based on local identification with American culture on one hand and exotic identification with Chinese culture on the other hand.Local cultural identity can be judged from three aspects: content,salience and intensity.In terms of content,mainly 11 individualistic values are recognized.Among which,independence receives the most attention,followed by competence and ambition.As to salience and intensity,they vary across situational contexts in reports.Meanwhile,mainly 11 collectivistic values from Chinese culture are found with diligence,respect for family and perseverance on the top.Moreover,in terms of two directional extension of value orientations in NYT,people with collectivistic value orientation occupy the biggest proportion.This implies the tendency in NYT to view Chinese Americans as “others” who are alienated from the dominant culture and reinforces stereotypes about them while it attempts to promote intercultural identification.Apart from gender,value orientations are influenced strongly by such demographic features like age,occupation and educational background.Secondly,compared with individualistic values,collectivistic values are represented differently in NYT.Due to cultural differences,such collectivistic values have either positive or negative implications,which breeds interculturality used by NYT to show cultural similarities and complementaries as well as cultural differences and conflicts.This application can expand consensus and deepen mutual understandings to develop intercultural identity.Thirdly,enlightenment for Chinese cultural transmission overseas lies in two aspects.Primarily,in terms of the content of transmission,we should focus on disseminating Chinese cultural values which are similar and complementary to western cultural values to get identification and acceptance in western society as soon as possible in the short run.But in the long run,more efforts need to be put into clarifying Chinese cultural values that are distinct and easy to lead to misunderstandings,which not only enables western audience to reduce the bias against Chinese culture,but also demonstrates the unique feature of Chinese culture.Then,in terms of the mode of transmission,we need to express the connotation of Chinese culture in a western way to achieve the desired effect when necessary.