BibTeX
@MISC{Dijk_2political,
author = {Teun A. Van Dijk},
title = {2 Political Discourse and Racism: Describing Others in Western Parliaments},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
Discourse plays an important role in the production and reproduction of prejudice and racism. From the socialization talk of parents, chil-dren s books, and television programs to textbooks, news reports in the press, and other forms of public discourse, white people are engaged daily in communication about ethnic minorities and race relations. In this way, they acquire the mental models, the social knowledge, the attitudes, and the ideologies that control their action, interaction, and dialogues with or about minorities. In this chapter, I examine the ways in which politicians speak about race and ethnic relations, immigrants, refugees, and other minorities as well as how they contribute through media coverage of their dis-course to the ethnic consensus in white-dominated societies. Analysis of fragments of parliamentary debates about ethnic affairs in Europe and North America shows that such talk often is premised on humani-tarian values of tolerance, equality, and hospitality. At the same time, however, politicians participate in more subtle forms of elite racism when they present immigration and minority relations as essentially problematic, if not threatening, while defining refugees, immigrants, or minorities as a main cause of many societal problems. Our analysis of political discourse is part of a larger project on discourse and racism in which earlier research was done on everyday conversations, textbooks, news reports in the press, and academic and corporate discourse. The goals of this project were to examine (a) the ways in which white people write and talk about minorities and eth-nic/racial affairs, (b) the social cognition that is the base of such discourse, and (c) the social, cultural, and political functions of such
Keyphrases
political discourse western parliament news report white people important role ethnic relation mental model social cognition north america chil-dren book parliamentary debate ethnic minority medium coverage humani-tarian value ethnic affair main cause public discourse ethnic consensus socialization talk eth-nic racial affair race relation political function everyday conversation elite racism corporate discourse television program many societal problem white-dominated society subtle form minority relation social knowledge
