ABSTRACT
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word ‘stereotype’, first used in 1798, is ‘a method or process of printing in which a solid plate of typemetal is cast from a plaster mould taken from the surface of a forme of type that is used for printing from instead of the forme itself’. The word acquired its figurative meaning in the 1850s as ‘something continued or constantly repeated without change’. It was originally derived from the Greek word stepeós, meaning solid. And this is precisely what stereotypes are: they are fixed, solidly cast models or elements in patterns of mind that refuse to explore and learn anything that might modify their rigid nature. In the context of culture, they feature in attitudes that may display obstinacy, ethnocentricity, chauvinism and xenophobia. Stereotypes are closely related to generalisation and prejudice and are often negative, spiteful and hostile. They can easily become an integral part of the popular mythology of a nation. Cultures have used them as a key instrument for defining and conventionalising their own national, political or religious identities. Unlike its namesake in the printing trade, the figurative form of stereotype is rather an easy technique that does not require much knowledge, insight or even reflection: condemn, ridicule, distort, defame the foreign culture and instantly yours is the superior culture!
