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

82 Communicating Racism

on a general norm or principle, lest she may be found intolerant by the recipient. Therefore, she resorts to the general principie that "we," the Dutch, need not adapt to their different life-style in our "own" country. This is indeed one of the stereotypical moves made in argumentative strategies of many prejudiced majority members: In our own country we have the right to maintain our own life-style (norms, values, habits, and so on), which implies the other major opinion we find in our data: They must adapt to us.

Notice also that this woman's emphasis on the "noise" dimension of the cultural difference category of ethnic attitudes is perhaps in line with her basic personal and professional interests as a musician. In other words, as soon as ethnic groups are perceived as a threat to fundamental interests of a group, it is the relevant prejudice category that will become most salient. For a musician, this may be a "quiet" environment (ignoring for a moment that a musician's neighbors may in turn have little appreciation of practice sessíons). Based on the goals derived from this interest, she then must design her argumentative strategy so that there are "good reasons" for her to resent the presence of "noisy foreigners." She does not do this, however, by simply saying that she is a musician, and that, therefore, she needs quiet, because in that case the argument would be too personal and too obviously linked to her own interests. On the contrary, she comes up with the example of friends, and more generally argues at the abstract level of cultural differences, life-styles, and adaptation.

We have found this kind of argumentation, this abstractness and these generalizations, more often in the talk of (upper-) middle-class people and the (intellectual, political, and financial) elite in no-contact areas. Such talk has few concrete stories about personal experiences but tends to formulate general principies, usually based on information from the media or on occasional examples from hearsay (friends or acquaintances, typically maids, who do have personal experiences).

"They Have to Learn Englísh"

This also holds for the argumentations we find in the California interviews. Instead of stories about concrete experiences, people in the low-contact neighborhoods in San Diego typically give sometimes lengthy arguments about such well-publicized issues as ilegal immigration, affirmative action, or learning English. The last issue was particularly relevant during our field-work, and part of our interviews were clearly held against the background of an extended media discussion about bilingual education and voting and amidst protests against billboards in Asian languages (mostly Chinese) in some

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neighborhoods of Los Angeles. So let us summarize some of the premises used in argumentations that conclude that immigrants should al! learn English, an argument supported by many of the people we interviewed, whatever their opinions about other issues.

(6)(A-LG-3)

1.If you choose to be American, you ought to learn English.

2.If 1 go to Italy, 1 wouldn't expect the Italians to learn my language.

3.It is not sensible to encourage differences.

3.1.If you expect everybody to live in a society peacefully.

(7)(A-TD -la, b)

1.You should learn the ways of the country you come to.

1.1. Too many people demand that we adapt to their ways.

2.The United States is a melting pot, with people from many nations.

3.If you would go to Holland, and if people wouldn't speak English there, you would be in bad shape.

4.Children at school learn under an English teacher, they learn American laws, and about governing the American people.

5.If they didn't speak English in the working world, they would not know that two and two makes four in America (and, We would not educate them to take their place in the world).

6.We lost a whole generation (due to education in Spanish).

7.People must respect the country they are in, like we would do if we went to Mexico or other countries.

8.People from Northwestern Europe do adapt here, but people from

Southern countries they always demand their rights.

(8)(A-LG-2)

1.If they (Mexicans) learn English, it is easier for them to make their way.

2.Their kids must be immersed in it.

3.This is an English-speaking society.

4.It is for their own benefit.

5.It would do the kids a disservice not to learn English at school.

From these argument summaries, it appears that similar reasons are given to support the statement that immigrants must learn English. The general conditional underlying the argumentation is that if you (want to) live in an English-speaking country such as the United States, you have to learn English. This conditional may be further supported by more general if-statements about cultural adaptation, as well as by frequent (mostly hypothetical) comparisons. Just like the people in Amsterdam, the people in California also tend to say that immigrants should learn the ways (and hence the language) of the new country, just like we would have to adapt and learn the language in another country (we ignore at this point the arguable assumption that most Americans would learn the languages of the countries they are visiting or in which they are living). Typical for the United States is, of course, further support from the argument that

84 Communicating Racism

"this is a country of immigrants, a melting pot, where everybody should learn the common language," and hence the argument that presupposes that a different language would also favor other differences and would hence be a possible threat to peace (in example 6). Note that the interviewee in A-TD-1 goes much further than that and surmises, as elsewhere in that interview, that people from Northwestern Europe (the man was born in Sweden himself before emigrating to Canada as a boy) adapt themselves more easily than "southern" people—who also are perceived to be more "protesting" and claim their "rights." In other words, we see how prejudices against "southern" people, and hence people with a different appearance and culture, may support assumptions used in argumentations for adapting and learning the language.

The next set of arguments is well known in "ethnic arguing," that is, the altruistic type of arguments: It is for their own good. In the case of language learning, indeed, it is argued that people will do less well in society if they don't know the language. In line with these arguments, most people also oppose voting in minority languages, notably Spanish, or street signs in Chinese. One argument, given in a newspaper interview, is that people feel excluded and hence threatened when they are unable to read public messages or understand public conversations. One of our interviewees holds that he thinks people speaking another language to each other ín his presence might be making fun of him. We have found similar opinions and anxieties in our Amsterdam interviews.

Generally, we may conclude that argumentation types and styles in this kind of talk are rather similar in California and the Netherlands. Peopie may use the same arguments, the same implicit conditionals, and the same strategies to make statements or opinions (more) plausible. Learning the language is found to be a very important condition of (purported) acceptance of immigrants in both countries. It should be added, though, that in both countries people usually emphasize that they have "no problem" when immigrants speak their own language at home or when they keep other aspects of their own culture, especially, in private contexts. The implicit condition, of course, is that, publicly, immigrants should not be "bothering" us: They are welcome if they completely adapt to our ways. It is this conditional that is perhaps the most general, widespread, and most accepted opinion of the "ethnic consensus" both in the United States and in the Netherlands. It is the opinion that is most typical also for the self-defense of dominant group identity. Of course, the argument is only partly valid: Speaking the language may be a necessary but, of course, far from a sufficient condition for "acceptance," as is obvious from the position of Blacks, both in the United States and in the Netherlands, whose language and culture is not radically different from the dominant one, and who know the dominant culture very well, both as participants and as outside observers.

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Conclusions

Argumentative structure is the routine schematic form for the support of delicate opinions, and people who volunteer opinions about ethnic minorities will, therefore, implicitly or explicitly, state such opinions, preferably with several types of supporting evidence. Such arguments may involve general principies and general facts, as well as particular facts, such as personal experiences. As a general constraint, no arguments may be used that could be heard as expressing a racist opinion about foreigners. Therefore, supporting evidence and evaluations must be in accordance with accepted norms and principies, must avoid references to personal interests, and generally must be embedded in strategies of positive self-presentation. At the level of particular supportive facts, concrete stories have an important persuasive function because they are in principle "true" and not just "opinions." If such stories and their general conclusions show what kind of ethnic conflict exists, or why it is difficult to live with or accept foreigners, they yield intersubjectively defensible support for overall negative opinions about ethnic minorities.

Another frequent move in such argumentation is to emphasize cultural differences (they are "used to" making more noise, being livelier, or having more children), which may be used as a form of pseudoexplanation for the perceived cultural conflict. Such explanations presuppose, first, that the foreigners indeed have the cultural properties as stated and then attribute such cultural behavior (and hence the conflict) to such cultural differences. Thus, the others are blamed and, at the same time, the speaker contributes to positive self-presentation by showing explanatory "understanding" for such cultural differences. Similarly, pseudoaltruistic arguments are provided that claim that some action would be in favor of the foreigners (e.g., going back to their own country, "where they can help build up the economy"), where in reality the argument is self-serving.

Because many of the arguments are, at first sight, rather plausible, they can be very persuasive. The experiences people tell about seem real and the conclusions they draw are based on principies of reasonableness and generally accepted norms. Presupposed are the premises "we ahl know are true" (e.g., "they are noisy"), and the norms and values used forjudgments are also defensible ("making noise is unpleasant for other people"). It, therefore, is often difficult for recipients of such arguments to produce counterarguments. First, because they often lack the counterinformation to challenge the wrong (prejudiced) presuppositions, and second, because they are not aware that the application of specific norms may sometimes violate higher norms (even if foreigners were noisier, then this is no reason for discriminating against them). We shall see later

86 Communicating Racism

that such counterargumentation must be socially acquired, just as prejudices are acquired, and that the media, official discourse, and everyday talk of people provide few instances of such forms of persuasive (and hence equally acceptable) counterarguments against prejudiced opinions. Within a racist consensus, prejudices and their argumentative support are routine and, therefore, easy to formulate and more easily accepted.

7. Semantic moves

In each turn of a conversation, a speaker is accomplishing a variety of acts at several levels. One or more speech acts may be performed, each with several interactional and social functions within different local and global goals (Kreckel, 1981; Labov & Fanshel, 1977; McLaughlin, 1984). We have repeatedly shown in this chapter that prejudiced talk about mínorities, among other things, has the overall goal of negative other-presentation, while at the same time preserving a positive self-impression (or avoiding the loss of face). These goals are sometimes in conflict, for instance, when social norms do not allow uninhibited negative talk about minority groups. Therefore, expedient strategies are in order to reconcile these real or apparent inconsistencies. These strategies are accomplished by sequences of moves that try to realize both goals as effectively as possible, for instance, with a maximum of negative other-presentation and a minimum of negative self-presentatíon. In other words, speakers persistently try to manage or control the social inferences the recipient is bound to make about them on the basis of what they say (Arkin, 1981; Goffman, 1959; Hass, 1981; Schneider, 1981; Tedeschi, 1981). In Chapter 5, we shall analyze in more detail the persuasive and interactional dimensions of these forros of self-presentation. Here, we only pay attention to the discursive "implementation" of such strategies.

Global and Local Strategies

Whereas part of these moves are pragmatic and rhetorical, an improtant set of them may be called semantic because they may be defined as strategically managed relations between propositions, that is, in terms of the "content" of speech act sequences. Conversation content allows inferences by the recipient about speaker beliefs and opinions, and within the overall goal of establishing or preserving a positive social face, these inferences need to be managed carefully. The speaker, therefore, must take special care of what is said and how it is said. Thus, within the overall goal of negative other-presentation,

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the speaker may simply say "They always steal," but such an assertion may also be interpreted as an expression of a racist opinion. At the global level of conversation, therefore, the speaker will make sure to provide arguments and stories that are subjectively taken as "evidence" for such an opinion. In that case, the proposition would no longer be a subjective, prejudiced opinion but a statement of fact, a socially warranted judgment.

At the local level, there are other strategic moves that may inhibit negative inferences about the opinions or personality of the speaker. For instance, after saying "They always make a terrible noise;' the speaker may add "But the Dutch families do the same," or "You hear everything in these bad apartments." That is, by extending the negative characterization to Dutch neighbors, the speaker cannot be accused of ethnic prejudice, and by adding an explanation that specifies one of the causes of the noise as heard, a possible excuse is formulated: Not their noise, but bad apartments cause the speaker to be annoyed. Similarly, instead of expressing the negative general opinion that "they always make a lot of noise," the speaker may also say "I do not like it very much when they play music in the middle of the night;' which reduces the negative opinion to a matter of personal taste or preference, and downgrades the statement about (loud) music to a presupposition ("That they play music in the middle of the night"). In this way, the negative statement may be toned down or mitigated, and mitigation, thus, is one of the moves of presenting negative opinions that do not "sound" very negative.

There are a large variety of moves that mitigate negative propositions because they are often essential in polite interaction (Brown & Levinson, 1978; Goody, 1978; Leech, 1983). Mitigation, at the same time, is a move characteristic of "indirect" language use in general (Stubbs, 1983). In our case, however, politeness and indirectness are not so much a feature of concern for the status or respect of the recipient but rather part of the overall strategy of positive presentation of the social self. By being less extreme, and by moderating negative opinions about others, the speaker presents himor herself as more or less tolerant. The same impression management may be performed by the examples of "extensíon" and of "explanation," given aboye.

Definition of Moves

Theoretícally, these semantic moves can be defined as functional relationships between (sequences of) propositions (van Dijk, 1977, 1981b). That is, the strategic function of an (expressed) proposition is determined by the nature of its link with another, previous or following, proposition. Thus, the expression of B is a miti-

88 Communicating Racism

gation move, if B is less negative than a previous proposition A. And B is a generalization move, if B is more general than A. In formal terms, this means that A entails B. And conversely, B may also be an instance or example of A, and in that case B entails A. Similarly, B is a contrast or contradiction move if B entails not-A. In this way, the other strategic moves also may be defined in terms of abstract relationships between propositions, and that is why we call them semantic in the first place.

As soon as relationships between speech acts, as such, are involved, we would qualify them as pragmatic moves, as is the case, for instance, when an accusation is followed by a defense, or when a request is followed by a justification. Often we find a combination of such moves at several levels. That is, not only is the proposition itself strategically "chosen," but, of course, also its actual use—that is, its expression within the accomplishment of a speech act, for instance, an assertion. Similarly, mitigation or contrast may also have been conventionalized as effective moves, for instance, within a rhetorical framework, where they may be known as fixed operations such as litotes, understatement, and rhetorical contrast. Although these various levels of analysis are in reality often intertwined, we keep them apart for theoretical reasons. That is, moves defined in terms of propositional relations are called semantic, and the same holds for moves that involve referential links. Thus, providing causes or reasons for an event or act is a referential-semantic move, which, at the same time, may have the functional-semantic role of giving an explanation and the pragmatic function of making excuses to justify a previous (speech) act. Although the theoretical framework is much more complicated than this brief explanation, it will do for our purposes (see Kreckel, 1981, for a taxonomy and further analysis of such sets of communicative acts).

Moves as Functional Units of Strategies

Also the notion of move itself needs some comment. Although it has been used often in the analysis of conversation and other forms of dialogue and interaction (see, e.g., Coulthard, 1977; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975), there is no explicit definition of the concept. We simply define a move as a functional unit in a strategic interaction sequence. Whereas the overall strategy may be to reach a goal in an action sequence optimally and effectively, a move is each component act that is intended (consciously or not) to contribute to the realization of that goal (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983). Note that although the concept of move is a functional category, it does not specify the act itself, but the function the act has in a strategically controlled (and hence goal-directed) sequence of acts. Thus, justifications, motivations, expla-

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nations, challenges, confirmations, or disagreements are moves that have specific (pragmatic) links with previous speech acts, but they are not speech acts themselves: They may each be accomplished by many different speech acts. In conversation, such moves may also be defined in terms of relations to the acts of a previous speaker. We may not only correct what we have just said, but also what was said by the previous speaker, for instance, when what was said by that speaker shows a possible negative inference of what the actual speaker had said before.

Our notion of semantic move, defined in terms of propositional links, therefore, should be understood as a functional unit in semantic act sequences. Propositions, however, are not usually taken to be "acts," and, therefore, we should be more precise and talk about the interactional "use" (or "production" or "expression") of propositions, that is, in terms of propositional acts or semantic (intentional or extentional) acts. That is, we talk about "meaning" neither as an abstract concept nor as a cognitive construct, but as an interactional and social act. This is important, because if we simply have the sequence [A, B], where B is partly equivalent with, but also partly different from A, B may functionally be a "correction" of A only when actually used in a conversation and actually meant as a correction of the act of meaning A, that is as an act of canceling or substituting what was meant by uttering A. The conceptual meaning of A does not change in that case, of course, but a speaker may very well cancel, that is, change the present validity, of what was meant by a previous semantic act. Conversationally, such self-corrections may appear as various types of repair, to which we return briefly in section 10 below (see also Heritage, 1984; Schegloff, 1979; Schegloff, Jefferson,

&Sacks, 1977).

Socially speaking, this may mean that the speaker considers himor

herself no longer "responsible" for the earlier meaning act, nor for its possible consequences, such as—and this is most important for our discussion—the inferences the recipient may draw from the earlier meaning act (which does not mean that recipients always refrain from making such inferences, or that all corrections are socially acceptable).

Analysis of Examples

After this theoretical introduction, a number of concrete examples and analyses are in order. We discuss the major semantic moves as we have repeatedly found them in talk about minorities. This does not mean, by the way, that they are exclusive to such talk. We do not have special discourse rules or strategies that apply only for a specific topic of talk. Yet, a specific topic and the interactional strategies associated with it may require a specific choice or combination

90 Communicating Racism

of such moves. We limit our examples to utterances of people who are interviewed, although there are also examples in the questions of the interviewers themselves (interviewer turras are marked with "I" in our quotations):

Example. In the interview with the woman (the musician living in a rich neighborhood), from whom we also characterized an argumentation fragment, we also find a number of characteristic moves. One of the first is the move of providing examples when "evidence" is needed to back up a general statement, as in:

(9)(III-R1-2)

One can have an opinion about those people, irrespective of where you

This Example move explains why the woman feels entitled to have opinions about foreigners even when these do not live in her part of town. The example that follows is taken from reliable hearsay, and the general (negative) opinion is illustrated by the opinion her friends have about foreigners in their neighborhood. Thus, the Example (or Illustration) move is a typical argumentative move: It provides proof, evidence, or concrete facts that support a general opinion, in our case, often a prejudiced one. In high-contact areas, the Example move is typically introduced with a general statement, often negative, followed by a narrative illustration. The following woman, 62 years old, from such a neighborhood, first says that the neighborhood has changed, that it was a nice neighborhood, but that it has become "terrible," because of the many foreigners now living there:

(10)(II-MA-6)

Many strangers and uh, well that is not very nice. For instance, next door second floor, of course, it is none of my business, but when I am in the kitchen, 1 can see it all right. 1 think they live there three years, and never there has been a sponge or leather on those windows. In the kitchen, you see, well you see all kinds of open bins with rubbish and uhh that is always like that. Well, we are not used to that.

Generalization. The complementary move of giving instantiating examples, is, of course, Generalization. After a particular statement or after a story or example, the speaker generalizes to the whole group of Dutch or ethnic minorities. After stories, this is essential for the argumentation because otherwise the recipient may take the events as an incident or a personal experience only. Therefore, people typically will add sentences such as "This happens all the time," or "This also happens to other people here." Thus, the following

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statement is made by a 40-year-o1d woman who lives in a high-contact neighborhood:

(11)(II-MA 1)

I no longer dare to go out alone at night. But that is the same for the whole neighborhood here.

The generalization used by a California woman in the next example may also be interpreted as a form of mitigation: New immigrants may not want to learn English, but you may find such people "anywhere":

(12)(A-TD-4)

None of those who are newly arrived, uhh they're ... uh just like anywhere, there are certain personality types that say the hell to you (?) that I am gonna learn English.

Apparent denial and negation. One of the most stereotypical moves used in ptejudiced talk is Apparent Denial, which usually contains a general denial of (one's own) negative opinions about ethnic groups, followed by a negative opinion: "I am not a racist, but ...," or "I have nothing against foreigners, but ...." In the interview with the musician we have met before, we find an interesting example of such a denial, here in a concessive format:

(13)(III-RL-2)

And then YOU have to keep talking friendly about those people. They hardly manage that anymore, you know, even when they are of good will, and anti uhh or not uhh anti ... discriminatory and so.

That her friends (and by association the speaker herself because she agrees with her friends) have a negative opinion about foreigners in their neighborhood may be heard asan instance of a prejudiced opinion, and, therefore, the speaker Gloses her story with a denial of such a possible inference. We call this an Apparent Denial because it is nota real denial of what was said, but only a denial of possible inferences the recipient may make, as well as a statement that is inconsistent with what is actually stated in previous or next assertions.

A more direct form of denial is accomplished by simple negation. This interactional move is relevant as soon as the interviewer states or suggests that a person might have negative opinions, which at the same time would be inconsistent with dominant norms. In this same interview, for instance, the woman is confronted with an expressed inference of the interviewer and indignantly rejects that inference, after having just stated that these people have a different mentality: