摘要：The notion of the stereotype is categorized as a semiotic and ideological construction in the representation of the Other, whose articulation consists of locating it in the area of a distant space and time. The semiotic deictic categories associated with the opposition between the present and the past tenses and the personal pronouns «I», «we» / «they», «them», are representative of the distinction between periphery and center, which is at the root of the gulf existing between cultures that interact asymmetrically. The cultural subjects exerting a symbolic dominance place themselves in the centre / present, indicating progress and civilization, while positioning the Other in the past / periphery, implying primitivism and underdevelopment. Bringing to the fore the internal semiotic mechanisms with which the stereotype presents specific views of the world as naturalised versions of reality, i.e. binary oppositions and static borders, may help explain the ideological role of the stereotype in the perpetuation of certain dominant discourses.
