Racist discourse adapts to context so similar prejudices get varying formulations

Evidence

Current discourse analysis emphasizes the fundamental role of context for the understanding of the role of text and talk in society. As will also appear several times below, dominant discourses do not merely exercise their influence out of context. When defining discourse as communicative events, we also need to take into account, for example, the overall social domains in which they are used (politics, media, education); the global social actions being accomplished by them (legislation, education); the local actions they enact; the current setting of time, place, and circumstances; the participants involved, as well as their many social and communicative roles and (e.g., ethnic) group membership; and not least the beliefs and goals of these participants. These and other properties of the social situation of the communicative event will influence virtually all properties of text and talk, especially those properties that can vary, such as their style: how things are said. That is, similar prejudices may be formulated in very different ways depending on these and other context structures - for example, in government discourse or parliamentary debates, quality broadsheet or tabloid, on the left or on the right, and so on. In other words, the large variety of racist discourses in society not only reflect variable underlying social representations, but especially also adapt to different contexts of production: who says what, where, when, and with what goals. A theory of context also explains in part why, despite the dominant ethnic consensus, not all talk on minorities will be the same. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1071

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Racist discourse tends to favor the ingroup and derogate the outgroup — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1062; Racist discourse varies by context of production, not only by underlying beliefs — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1071; Shared ethnic mental models yield divergent discourse across news contexts — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1100 (+1 more)