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Glite Dictionary
to orientalize

to orientalize

9.9
To make something look like it comes from Asian culture, often using simple, wrong ideas
  • verb
  • /ˌɔːrɪˈɛntəlaɪz/
  • Offensive
translation icon : orientalizar (ofensivo)
  • The book orientalizes its setting by using vivid descriptions of exotic landscapes and traditional rituals.

Examples

  • In its pages, he also entertains Orientalizing fantasies about a Japanese servant and pines for a former piano student named Mary Elizabeth Riordan.

    Academic text (2016)

  • Orientalizing the irregular features of the poem condemned by Hill, the lines ask that Night Thoughts be taken as an affective whole.

    Academic text (2016)

  • In other words, we fear that a textual focus on Orientalizing, like Orientalizing itself, may curtail our understanding of more fundamental processes.

    Academic text (1991)

  • Perhaps more than any other anthropologist, Mead not only Orientalized the "other" but Occidentalized "us." (n2)

    Academic text (1991)

  • Thus far, our argument concerning Mead and Bateson has been that by Orientalizing the "other" as culturally determined, it has been possible for them to Occidentalize "us" as free to choose our destinies.

    Academic text (1991)

  • As Gurnah justifiably points out, this brief glimpse of Amuri in the novel draws on problematic orientalizing tropes of Islam in northern Nigeria (77-78).

    Academic text (2008)

  • The film orientalized its characters, presenting them with exaggerated traditional clothing and customs.

  • Many Western artists have orientalized their works by incorporating stereotypical elements of Asian cultures.

Antonyms

to occidentalize
  • Formal
9.9

To make someone or something take on Western ways and ideas

How Orientalized

to orientalize
  • Offensive
9.9
stereotype
224 4.6
to evoke
71 4.8
to suggest
∞ 2.1
hint
229 1.5

Surface Forms

orientalize infinitive
orientalized past
orientalized past participle
orientalizing present participle
orientalizes third person singular

Morphology

orientalize = oriental (semi-transparent) = orient + al + ize

The verb is transparently formed by adding '-ize' to 'oriental' meaning 'to make or render oriental', but the typical connotation of exoticizing or stereotyping is pragmatic and not fully predictable from form alone.

Etymology

Orientalize comes from Orient, a word meaning 'east', and the ending -ize, which means 'to make'. So to orientalize something is to 'make it eastern' or give it 'Asian' features, often in a simple or unfair way that makes it seem 'exotic'.