Singaporean Image Constructed By Chinese Netizens

Intergroup contact plays an important role in breaking and reconstructing stereotypes and reducing prejudice.With the rapid growth of Internet media communication,direct and indirect intergroup contact has shaped stereotypes and attitudes of different groups towards other groups.China and Singapore have a long history of friendly exchanges and cooperation.China’s “Belt and Road” initiative has contributed greatly to the development of the bilateral relations between the two countries and made great contributions to the development and prosperity of Asia.However,relatively few studies have touched on perceptions of Singapore and stereotypes toward Singaporeans,and even less research on intergroup contact and stereotypes of Singaporeans held by Chinese people.To address these issues,this thesis used discourse analysis as the main method and corpus technique as a supplement to explore the content of the stereotype of Singaporeans held by Chinese netizens,and examined Chinese netizens’ attitudes toward Singapore and Singaporean people from the perspective of intergroup contact theory.Based on corpus-driven and concept-driven analyses,this thesis examined 310 answers to the question about impressions on Singapore and Singaporeans on the Zhihu platform,and sorted out the themes that most interested Chinese netizens.By extracting high-frequency words and key words,the author found that netizens’ discussion mainly focused on politics,economy,education,environment,language,lifestyle and so forth.Treating “Singapore” as salient linguistic item,the thesis analyzed the context containing stereotypes through the concordance lines,obtained the stereotype dimensions of Chinese netizens about Singaporeans within the matrix of warmth and competence in the Stereotype Content Model,and found that the image of Singapore constructed by the Chinese netizens is multi-dimensional,especially viewed from the perspective of intergroup contact theory.Some features were praised by Chinese netizens,while others were rejected by them.At the same time,in mixed areas,sometimes Chinese netizens were eager to learn from Singapore,while in other situations they viewed their own country more highly.This reveals the fact that intergroup contact can possibly change stereotypes of another group by learning from the outgroup,changing behaviors,generating affective ties and getting ingroup reappraisal.This research,by combining the Stereotype Content Model and intergroup contact theory,explored the impressions of Chinese netizens on Singapore and Singaporeans and the process of stereotype reconstruction under the guidance of intergroup contact theory.It provides insights into stereotype research based on discourse collected from knowledge-sharing platforms.The findings of this research can contribute to effective intercultural communication between China and Singapore as well as Chinese people’s understanding of the countries and their people along the“the Belt and Road”.