Croatian Studies Review, Vol. 6 No. 1, 2010.
Original scientific paper
Stereotypes of foreigners in textbooks of Croatian as second and foreign language at the beginner’s level
Eni Buljubašić
orcid.org/0000-0002-9992-9818
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Split
Abstract
This article analyses stereotypes of foreigners that can be found in textbooks of Croatian as a
second and foreign language at the beginners’ level. The premise is that, due to didactic reasons
of simplifying the content but also making it familiar to students, the occurence of stereotypes
in unavoidable. Since the characters in textbooks are often foreigners learning Croatian, their nationality and culture and its relationship with Croatian culture is in focus, especially so for the
characters that represent the Croatian diaspora. On one hand, textbooks written for homogenous
groups of students (English speaking) are looked into, and on the other, those written for
heterogenous groups. Many differences are encountered between the two types of textbooks with
conclusions that they are subjects to change through time and that constructions of stereotypes
cannot be overlooked, but taken into consideration in the making of textbooks so as to minimize
the possibility of them being derogatory.
Keywords
stereotypes; Croatian as L2 beginner level textbooks; intercultural communication; diaspora; foreigners; stereotypes’ connotations
Hrčak ID:
86314
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2010.
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