Constructing the cultural ‘other’: prejudice and intergroup conflict in university students' discourses about ‘the other’

Abstract

This article analyses how university students in Hong Kong talk about ‘self’ and ‘other’. Three groups of students, Hong Kong Chinese, Mainland Chinese, and Overseas Exchange students, were asked to characterise these three groups in a pre-discussion questionnaire, and subsequently discuss freely what they had written. Selected excerpts from these discussions are analysed, and the analyses show that there are significant differences between the written and the oral responses. The pre-discussion stereotypes appear to be predominantly positive, whereas the students jointly construct predominantly negative stereotypes about ‘the other’ during their discussions. Different discourse strategies are employed by the three groups to discredit ‘the other’ and, at the same time, enhance intergroup differentiation and a positive ingroup identity. The findings are discussed vis-à-vis predominantly social psychological theories, and the study highlights that the attempt to create more internationalised universities may be jeopardised if negative intergroup stereotypes prevail. The article suggests that universities should take a more proactive role in promoting anti-racist multicultural education to counter intergroup prejudice and potential conflict.

本文旨在剖析香港的大學學生對於「自我」和「他者」的看法。研究以小組討論形式進行，召集分別來自香港、中國內地和海外國家的大學生，按上述地區分為三組。討論以前，每組學生先把他們對於其餘組別的看法寫在問卷上,然後自由及互相討論有關意見。本文把討論的節錄加以分析，展現小組成員事前寫下的看法，顯然與他們在討論時表達的觀點有別：他們寫下問卷的「刻板形象」以正面為主，討論時彼此對於「他者」的看法卻以負面居多。本研究發現，三組學生運用不同的話語策略來表達他們對於「他者」的負面看法，同時突顯群組之間的差別和鞏固我群的正面形象。本文主要以社會心理學的理論為本，分析負面的「刻板形象」或會有礙校園國際化的發展。 本文就此建議，大學應更積極地推廣反種族主義的風氣，促進多元文化教育，從而對抗群組彼此偏見和潛在矛盾所帶來的影響。

Keywords:

• stereotypes
• prejudice
• intergroup conflict
• internationalisation
• Hong Kong
• anti-racist multicultural education

Notes on contributors

Hans J. Ladegaard studied at Odense University, Denmark and Cambridge University, England. Prior to his present post as Professor and Head of the Department of English at Hong Kong Baptist University, he taught at universities in Denmark and the UK. His research interests include language attitudes and stereotypes, intergroup and intercultural communication, language and gender, and discourse analysis, and he has published widely in these issues in international journals and books. He is co-editor and review editor of Pragmatics & Society (John Benjamins).

Ho Fai Cheng is a postgraduate student in the Department of English at Hong Kong Baptist University. He has previously studied at the University of Amsterdam, Holland. His research interests include intergroup and intercultural communication, language and identity, and discourse analysis.

Notes

1. The pseudonyms we have selected for the participants reflect the reality of naming in Hong Kong. The HKC students have a Chinese name, which is usually reserved for family members and intimate friends, and an English name they use on campus, and in other official settings. This, incidentally, also coincides with the dual identity that many HKC students claim for themselves (see Ladegaard, 2011c). The MLC students, on the other hand, tend to use their Chinese name exclusively.

2. Several themes were discussed in all three groups. We identified 12 different themes in the HKC group, 10 in the MLC group and seven themes in the OE group. In the HKC group, the three predominant themes were (1) abnormalisation and social comparison between MLC and HKC (on personality, fashion, study, and hygiene), (2) social hierarchy and (3) ingroup diversity and outgroup homogeneity. The four dominant themes in the MLC group included (1) self-degradation, (2) subtle outgroup criticism, (3) meta-reflections on stereotypes (stereotypes as self-fulfilling prophecies) and (4) sharing personal experiences to support stereotypical claims about ‘self’ and ‘other’. In the OE group, the most salient themes were (1) illusionary positives, (2) abnormalisation and (3) identity realignment.

3. The second author has transcribed all the data and translated the Chinese data into English. All translations have been double-checked by another native-speaker of Cantonese who is fluent in English and Mandarin.

4. It is widely acknowledged that classifying adjectives as either positive or negative is problematic. Some adjectives could be perceived as positive in certain contexts, and negative in others. ‘Patriotic’, for example, is likely to be perceived as a positive trait in Mainland China, but not in Hong Kong. Other characteristics, such as ‘bumpkin’, ‘drunk’ and ‘dirty’ are probably unequivocally negative, while others would probably be seen as universally positive (such as ‘open-minded’, ‘friendly’ and ‘interesting’). However, as this article shows, even unequivocally positive traits such as ‘friendly’ and ‘happy’ can become illusionary positives, and thus, essentially negative. Therefore, when we argue that pre-discussion stereotypes may be characterised as predominantly positive or negative, we acknowledge that such dichotomies should be treated with caution, because, as the students’ discussions show, the exact meaning of stereotypes is variable and context dependent.