CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

This chapter will enable you to:

STEREOTYPES

As most readers will be aware, intercultural communication advice is a well-established genre that fills shelves and sections in bookshops and your local library, and has, of course, an established presence on the Internet and in training workshops. On my bookshelf, for instance, I have titles such as Beyond Chocolate: Understanding Swiss Culture (Oertig-Davidson 2002), Don't They Know it's Friday? Cross-cultural Considerations for Business and Life in the Gulf (J. Williams 1998) and a few Xenophobe's Guides (Bilton 1999; Hunt and Taylor 2004; Yang 1999). These last are part of a ‘series that highlights the unique character and behaviour of nations’. The website lists the available Xenophobe's Guides by nationalities from ‘the Albanians’ to ‘the Welsh’ and in this way is typical of many websites that provide intercultural communication advice and that usually provide intercultural communication advice sorted into national categories. Reading such literature reminds me of those silly national stereotype jokes most of you will also be familiar with. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, I shall start with an example of such a joke; I imagine that most of you will easily be able to add your own favourite (best-loved or best-hated) examples from the genre. I will follow this with two examples which I am quoting from intercultural communication advice.