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прагматика и медиа дискурс / Teun A van Dijk - Communicating Racism

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292 Communicating Racism

the speaker on the basis of characteristics that can be strategically controlled only in part, such as (beliefs about) appearance, expertise, status, gender, age, social class, or professional and institutional functions (Cronkhite & Liska, 1980). Speaker credibility, unlike content credibility, is usually context independent, but may be a function of discourse and topic type. A mechanic, thus, is more credible when speaking about cars than a professor is, who again will be more credible when talking about his or her own field of expertise.

Because people can only partly control the inherent physical or social features that influence credibility judgments of hearers, they will first of all tend to remind the hearer of such credibility features: They tactically present their "credentials," if unknown, for the context as a whole, for instance, during presentatíons, or while presentíng evídence for a specific fact in the model to be communicated (e.g., "my experience as a doctor tells me that ...").

Credibility management, however, is just one strategy type among many forms of impression management. To control not only what is believed by the hearer, but also his or her opinions and attitudes, including the opinions about the speaker, the speaker must aim at the construction of other positively valued personal or social characteristics in the speaker model: honesty, modesty, charm, originality, tolerance, and so on. These attractiveness-enhancing strategies may be verbal or nonverbal (smiles, gestures, and so on). The verbal ones may control discourse content, but are most typical for style in the broad sense: all the (variable) ways a situation model is expressed and conveyed. Assuming that more or less the same "message" must be communicated, which in our theoretical framework means more or less the same text and situation models, the speaker may do so in a more or less tactful, honest, straightforward, modest, friendly, polite, or understanding way.

This means that speaker model manipulation is not just a set of strategies for the construction of a desired person schema dominated by such personality "traits." After all, (semi)permanent person schemata about other people, just like frames or scripts, require many particular models. Yet, here too, fast strategies apply, and a "first impression" is known to be very influential. Hence, first encounters are crucial, and this also holds for the impression management strategies in incidental conversations such as interviews. Although it is less serious to make a bad impression on people we meet only once, even in such occasional encounters, a speaker will make sure to enhance his or her attractiveness, if only to promote the actual goals of the interaction. Thus, it has been found that if the recipient aims at forming an impression of the speaker, the contents of talk will also tend to be better recalled (Hamilton, Katz, & Leirer, 1980). Thus, event and speaker models in the recipient may be interre-

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lated and may mutually enhance credibility and acceptability, including social acceptability. In other words, the person impression management strategy may be context-bound, and.typical for the interaction and discourse type. For instance, in requests, the speaker's purpose is to persuade the hearer to accomplish an action in the speaker's favor. In that case, politeness may be more effective than power display or more relevant than aggressiveness, which might be the preferred strategy in ransom notes or other types of threatening speech acts.

Opinion Interviews

In opinion interviews, there are also a series of typical self-presentation strategies. Part of these strategies are similar to those also followed in self-disclosure: giving personal opinions about a delicate matter is also providing delicate information about oneself (Gilbert, 1976; Jourard, 1971). In this case, personality management may focus on characteristics that promote the goal of getting one's beliefs, opinions, attitudes, experiences, and so on respected, if not accepted. To control such internal "belief attributions" by the hearer, the speakers in our interviews have recourse to the following moves:

(1)Provide supporting evidence for any opinion expressed (see aboye for the situation model strategies).

(2)Show that the opinion (evaluative belief) is based on consensually shared values, and does not conflict with other values.

(3)Show that the opinion is not merely a personal one, but endorsed by many other people.

(4)Show that the opinion is coherent (consistent) with other opinions expressed that are easier to justify.

(5)If opinions expressed may have negative implications for the speaker, formulate them in such a way that these negative implications are denied or mitigated.

(6)Show understanding for other opinions or show why other opinions are wrong.

Strategic Talk About Ethnic Groups

The analysis presented aboye for strategic communicative interaction also holds for persuasive talk about ethnic affairs, and we already gave a few examples of such strategies. It has been repeatedly assumed during this study that prejudiced conversations about ethnic groups and encounters have two global strategic goals:

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(a)the expression of (negative) experiences and opinions about such groups, and, at the same time, (b) the social protection of self by positive face-saving strategies, or rather, the avoidance of negative impressions. Because the social norm that prohibits discrimination and racism is rather strong, most speakers are aware of the possibility that negative stories or opinions about foreigners might be interpreted as signaling underlying prejudices. This is why negative statements appeared to be often accompanied by "qualifications" of different types, such as denials of generalized prejudice, concessions of positive properties of ethnic groups or negative ones of the speaker's group, and so on. In this part of this section, therefore, we further examine these strategies—this time from a cognitive, communicative, and persuasive point of view. We want to know how negative other-presentation and positive self-presentation (or the avoidance of negative self-presentation), which are often contradictory, are managed interactively. How does the speaker take into account possible or actual reactions or assumed inferences of the hearer? We do this, first, by analyzing a few examples in detail, and then giving an overview of the specifically persuasive moves that characterize these strategies.

Let us first analyze the case of a woman and her husband, both about

60years old, living in a high-contact neighborhood. From the interview, in which initially the woman, who is highly prejudiced against foreigners, talks most, we take all the passages that contain persuasive strategies for negative other-presentation and positive self-presentation. The contents embedded in these strategies are summarized in this case

(the interview is 25 transcript pages long). Literal passages are marked with quotes. To each passage we try to assign analytical categories that characterize the moves aimed at the persuasion of the interviewer (a male student). We follow the interview línearly (W: Woman, M: Man, I: Interviewer).

(1)W: We lived in another popular neighborhood for years. "But yet, this lot here can't touch that. I mean that. Yes, excuse me, but then there were not so many minorities yet, as they call it, because you are not allowed to say foreigners of course."

The comparison with the previous neighborhood where the woman lived is negative for the present neighborhood, especially because of "this lot" here, which is identified especially as being ethnic minority groups. As a credibility enhancing move, the comparison provides evidence about a positively valued previous situation model: There were no foreigners there, and, therefore, it was better than here. She is notjust making things up: She has evidence from comparisons with another situation. "I mean that" is the usual expression for the persuasive affirma-

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tion of both honesty and credibility. The ironical introduction of minorities, the formal term that is seldom used outside of political or academic contexts, has several persuasive functions. First, W shows that she knows the formal conventions. Second, the use of this formal term in an informal context expresses irony about the people who talk about foreigners in a neutral or positive way, such as politicians or academics. The implication is that she does not agree with such neutral or positive evaluations, but the rhetorical move of ironical quotation allows her to avoid saying so explicitly. Yet, introducing minorities as the cause of the decay of the neighborhood may be heard as racist, and, hence, she uses the formal apology move, which is literally translated as, "Don't hold it against me," obviously a move of avoiding negative inferences (I know one shouldn't say these things, but 1 have no alternative). In other words, the comparison, the honesty signal, the ironic formality, and the apology contribute to the goal of enhancing credibility (by model comparison), and positive self-presentation (by conformity to the norms), while at the same time expressing a very negative opinion about foreigners. That is, avoiding negative self-presentation is functionally triggered by negative other-presentation.

(2)My son is living with me now, and we have to move and he doesn't get an apartment. "And those foreigners they take people with them when coming back from their vacation, also the children of other people, and they get a house right away, you know, and many Blacks, not because they are Blacks of course, I have never disliked them, NOW I do. Now I dislike them very much. I live here. Just for fun you have to come and live here for a week when we move, but then you shouldn't sleep at night."

The moves in this passage may be summarized in the following format:

Credibility enhancing moves: Her own experiences, observation of what negative things foreigners do (brin back other people), and favorable treatment of foreigners; appeal to tnterviewer to try it out for himself (verification);

Positive self-presentation: Negative comparison between us and them: we are the victims (engender empathy) of unfair competition; denial of racist reasons fbr dislike, stressing "good reasons" for dislike;

Negative otherpresentation: evidence that they take our houses, and bring back (illegally?) other people and children; intense dislike is defensible.

(3)They should build a police station here. Everybody is free to do as they please, if only they do not offend me. I have my rights. I am not the police, but I could tell a lot, and I see a lot. I hate them.

Credibility moves: hinting at personal experiences and observation;

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Negative other presentation: intentional implicitness ("a lot"). Positive self-presentation: quasi-tolerance (acknowledging other's freedom).

(4) "We had trouble with that [Black] woman there, and I tell you exactly what it was all about, about nothing. And listen, she was air to me, I couldn't stand her. So she provoked it. Once it carne to an explosion." Granddaughter passed house of that woman, who says something and granddaughter reacts and a filht results. Son Jumps through the open window (destroying window sill) to help granddaughter. Black woman shows a big knife and threatens. "I am always very calm in such moments," and defied her. Her husband didn't dare do anything. Police were phoned and carne, and 1 told them "It was the same little joke as last time," you can go back because we already arranged it. Police warns Black woman. Everybody to police station. Talked to old policeman (longing for his retirement) I know. Scorned the young policemen who do not know to handie the woman who is dressed in a blouse "from which her tits are half hanging outsider'

This paraphrase of a long story has been given to show how the woman essentially provides evidence in a story about negative characteristics of a Black woman across the street. Most moves are credibility enhancing, such as emphasis on preciseness of the narration (see the honesty move in an earlier example), a move blaming the other for the cause of the aggression ("she was air to me," i.e., I did not pay attention to her), small details in story (jumping through the window, broken window sill, and so on) that enhance the observational dimension and, hence truthfulness, and so on. The very length and details of the story show how the interviewee has represented the situation, and persuasively shows the interviewer that this is a true experience. It was the Black woman who provoked it, and used a knife (negative other presentation, such as the sexual allegations about confusing the young policemen). Positive selfpresentation in the expression of such situation models that represent conflict involves the transfer of guilt or cause to the other group, and the contrastive comparison between the threatening knife-brandishing Black woman, and the very "calm" storyteller.

(5)Some of them have never worked. And if you SEE how they live. My son and daughter work hard, and so do 1, and they tell me to go on welfare too to take a rest. "You know what I mean? It is, OK I know, like those Blacks here, I tell you in confidence, but if you SEE what kind of stolen goods are being carried into that house during the night. They enter with four of five people, they come in Surinamese dress, that folklore, and they leave, man, wife and children dressed from top to bottom. You know what I mean? Big cars, they are better off than we are. If anybody is being discriminated against, our children are. That's is what 1 make of it."

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Credibility moves: reporting personal observations (emphasis twice on "see"), appeals to and confidence sharing with interviewer; model is (typical) example of general fact (they are better off); also my children think I am right (consensus);

Negative other-presentation: cheat on welfare, steal, have a good life (nice dress, big cars, as "observable" evidence for their cheating, because people who have those things cannot be on welfare);

Positive self-presentation: contrasted positive characteristic (we work hard), victim role (we are being discriminated against), and altruism (I do it for my children).

(6)Turkish boy of upstairs neighbors spit on me in the face. My son beats him up. His father protests, but after talk also gives him a beating. We help each other. But the kids demolish my husbands's car, which he needs because he is an invalid. "May ¡be quite honest with you": I was so mad that I said they can all use them to make a new polder. My husband has a small welfare allowance. Has worked hard all his life, always proper. And then they, married and divorced but together, in business and both on welfare. "What do you think about that?"

Here is another story that presents minority group members negatively, such as fights and cheating on welfare, contrasted explicitly with positive "we" image: Her own husband always worked hard. Details (such as husband ate a loaf of bread everyday) to enhance credibility about how hard husband worked; honesty (or frankness) move to formulate very negative opinion; and final appeal to the interviewer, requesting an opinion but also a move that rhetorically asks for agreement. The next passages will be given together:

(7)"But on average the people dislike the what you call it the foreigner like the pest. But you know what. Most people don't dare to talk about it, you know."

(8)You hear people say in shops or in the street that next time they will vote for a racist party. "And when it comes to that, who is to blame? According to me, that whole government. What do they want in fact? What do they want?" These people are here to stay, even when they don't work.

(9)Mother-in-law and daughter tell about bad experiences in streetcar with Blacks. "That kind of things. And look, Dutch youth also demolishes much in streetcars, but on average the foreigners do that. Don't think I am cris—ris—discriminate, because I take [tram] line 3 very often."

(10)"They want their own culture. I also have to adapt when I go to Turkey." Clandestine slaughtering. Neighbors took old refrigerator from the street, which didn't work so that all their meat started to rot, and they put that on the street, so that big bugs were crawling on the street. "WE always get that mess." . . . "Look, those things. Dutch

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people should try to do that with them. Try to live here for a week, when we have moved.

M:"Then he can see something here. They steal and rob everything. NOT only because they, they are, there are of course also good ones among them, but on the whole is not much, you know."

M/ W: [Black?] neighbor is a junkie and has stolen many bicycles which he sells to the students here.

(11)M: And what is worse, is that they mug old people. The other night I was walking home, and saw two old people being mugged and I attacked the muggers with my bike "I saw these guys on the back but could see they were dark ones"; I broke one's arm,

and the other split.

W:"That's what we have to call minorities."

M:Police carne, and I told the story. Old people shocked. To the police station, and then they brought me home.

W:"Yes, I thought it was just a fantasy story. But he carne honre at three in the night." So I went to the police station, and they told me "Everything is really true."

M: And the old people wanted to vive me a new bike because my wheel was bent, but I had repaired that, and so they gave me a new watch.

These further passages from the same interview briefly summarize and occasionally quote from long stories. The woman especially volunteers many narrative "proofs" for her very negative opinion about foreigners. Although her opinions are often stated quite bluntly, she nevertheless takes care to show that her "evidence" is valid, and that her opinions are defensible, that is, she at the same time tries to avoid giving a bad impression to the interviewer. A few of the interaction moves in these passages are as follows:

In example 7, we find the usual generalization move that is used to enhance credibility: This is not a personal opinion, but all people think like that. In other words, the personal model I have about foreigners is a socially shared, and, hence, (more) acceptable one. In example 8, too, reference is made to other people, this time to spell out the (negative?) consequences of the presence of all these foreigners: People say they will vote a racist party (the woman does not use this qualification, of course, but mentions the narre of the leader of that—forbidden—party). Yet, the move following this evidence based on "bad consequences" is one of transfer or attribution: It is the government that is to blame. Indeed, throughout this interview, and often in others, we find a general distrust of the government and the authorities "who haven't done anything against it." The government is seen as protecting and favoring minorities. In fact, what we find here is a form of counterattribution: If they blame us for becoming racist, I blame them for letting these foreigners come to our country or neighborhood in the first place. Obviously, this is an

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important move within the strategy of avoiding negative impression formation.

Example 9 at length details the reported experiences of family members in the Amsterdam streetcar (Blacks bothering other people, trying to pick pockets, and so on). The streetcar situation model, however, also activates the common knowledge that streetcars are constantly being destroyed by youth. The woman directly comments on and evaluates that dimension, and attributes that other negative situation also to young foreigners, despite counterarguments of a streetcar driver she knows. Counterarguing against possible counterarguments of the hearer is a well-known move. This requires, of course, some backing up, so she has recourse to the standard quasi-denial that she doesn't want to discriminate. Such denials show that despite her overt hate of ethnic minority groups, she is also aware of the norms that blaming foreigners for negative situations may be heard as a form of discrimination.

Example 10 features the well-known contrastive comparison move, which emphasizes the differences between us and them: What they do here, we canand would not do there. We would adapt ourselves. The repeated invitation to the interviewer to take their place is, of course, a powerful move to enhance credibility for the stories (the interviewer can see for himself in that case), as well as for the defensibility of the opinions based on those experiences. In the same example, the man also starts to contribute to the conversation, and concludes that "they steal," which in the next move is, however, qualified by the standard quasiconcession that there are exceptions.

In the summary of another long story (example 11), we find a number of credibility enhancing moves because the story is so "strong" and "heroic" that it might be disbelieved. The woman has a very effective strategy to prove the truth of the story: She says that she didn't believe it herself, at first, but the fact that her husband did come home very late, and especially the confirmation by the objective authorities, namely, the police, are enough evidence to show that the story was true. Finally, the woman again interpolates scorn about the (positively interpreted) term minorities, which she thinks is a ridiculous name for people who mug old people. We see that also during "objective" (truthful) storytelling, people routinely insert subjective evaluations, strategically intended to manage the conclusions and the evaluations of the hearer about the story, and at the same time as a form of their own-opinion-presentation.

Conclusion

From these brief qualitative analyses of a number of passages from a long interview with a highly prejudiced couple, we have found instances of several strategíc moves aimed at the

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enhancement of model-credibility, including negative other-presentation, and the avoidance of negative self-presentation. The overall strategy in this interview is to provide personal (including family) experience stories that are so detailed and concrete that they can hardly have been made up. But we also found that even in such stories, moves are built in to "guarantee" their truth, such as personal observation, evidence from other people (the consensus move), or confirmation by authorities (the authority move). The major goal of these narrative strategies is negative other-presentation. Ethnic minority groups are being systematically accused of stealing, mugging, cheating on welfare, lack of hygiene, laziness, and so on. That is, if the event as (re)presented, that is, the model, is found to be truthful, then this will also enhance the acceptability of the overall evaluations associated with the participants to which these true negative acts are attributed. So, strategies that aim at enhancing credibility indirectly contribute to the enhancement of opinion acceptability.

The second major strategy within the combined overall strategy of negative other-presentation and self-defense is the systematic contrastive comparison between us as poor victims and them as the perpetrators of crime and as the cause of all our troubles. The others are represented as dressing well (despite their "official poverty"), driving big cars, and as generally being better off than "us." We (mother, father, son, and daughter) either did or now work hard and do not get appropriate housing, and the others get everything for nothing. This comparative contrast is one of the powerful rhetorical devices organizing this conversational interaction. Representing oneself as a victim is apparently a good move in the overall strategy of moral self-defense. In this case, even if we would hate foreigners, we would be justified, and could not be accused of discrimination. Hence, the legitimacy of (negative) opinions further contributes to their acceptability.

Finally, the persuasive nature of these examples is enhanced by stressing the generality of the experiences. Other people also complain and my other family members have similar experiences (consensus), the experiences are frequent and not occasional (frequency and reliability), and they are also typical: They conform with what we may expect from foreigners (typicality). These moves appear to follow well-known criteria of causal attribution (Kelley, 1967, 1983). That is, attribution criteria may be used also for the justification of causal judgments. This strategy, then, allows the inference from particular opinions to general opinions, and from there to the general, negative attitude, summarized as "I hate them." By these moves, the speaker shows that her judgments are not idiosyncratic or personal, but those of a competent and concerned in-group member. For the interviewer, belonging to the same in-group, such a strategy is a further contribution to the acceptability of

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the opinions expressed: The problems I am talking about are problems for al! of "us."

3. Understanding and representing prejudiced communication

In this section, we analyze the final and crucial phase in the interpersonal communication of ethnic prejudice through conversation, namely, the processing of persuasive talk by the recipient. Again, our approach is cognitive: We make explicit the structures and strategies that characterize the representation and uses in the memory of the recipient of information and actíon interactively displayed by a prejudiced speaker. According to our model of text and information processing outlined in Chapter 4, we may distinguish the following steps in this process of interpretation, of which the last steps (attitude change) will be dealt with in the next section (for details, see van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983):

(a)Understanding and representing the communicative situation (including understanding and representing the speaker);

(b)understanding and representing the speaker's utterances;

(c)construction of a model of the situation referred to;

(d)updating of own previous model(s) of similar situation(s);

(e)possible generalization of the constructed/updated model(s); and

(f)partial change of ethnic attitude contents or structures.

Although there is some temporal and conditional ordering in these steps, it should be emphasized that a strategic theory of (prejudiced or other) information processing assumes that, in principie, understanding may take place, often incompletely, at several levels at the same time, and in a different order. For instance, the recipient will usually interpret the context and the speaker at the same time as interpreting the utterances of a conversation. In fact, the utterances of the speaker may be primarily understood and used to form "impressions" of such a speaker. We have seen earlier that speakers also know this and, therefore, have strategic recourse to many impression managing moves in their talk. They will try to influence the interpretation of the situation, the formation of models and attitudes about ethnic groups, and the formation of (positive) models of themselves. In the same way as speakers may be consciously monitoring such strategies, hearers also may well be aware of specific strategic steps, and may form speaker and event models accordingly.