XENOPHOBIA AND NATIONAL STEREOTYPES

Abstract

This article is devoted to the studies of international relationships and an analysis of ethnic ‘portraits’ that find their reflections in national stereotypes and in a universal phenomenon which is called xenophobia. The research of the processes of verbalization of national/ethnic stereotypes and xenophobia in national languages requires a multivectoral approach because such words and phrases belong to the emotional and sensitive layer of vocabulary. Their analysis must not only be done on a serious linguistic level but with the respect of moral and ethical norms of research. Such an approach is necessitated by the fact that the studies include such topics as national dignity and national identity on the one hand, and on the other they are connected with the verbal representation of the attitude of one ethnic community to another which are very often derogatory. A subjective evaluation of the characteristic of stereotypes causes generalization at the expense of the particulars, and can not give accurate characteristics of denotata. At the same time a fundamental desire to create reduced characteristics of ethnic communities does exist and finds its reflection in a language in general and in its set expressions and idioms in particular. National stereotypes vary a lot from one ethnic community to another and there are very few nations whose national ‘portraits’ would be the same. Many of the existing stereotypes are xenophobic – the illogical fear of foreigners – which must be studied and explained in order to avoid international and ethnic clashes and to improve cross-cultural communication.