Discriminatory Discourse Directed towards Mainlanders

Abstract

Research in critical discourse analysis (CDA) has shown considerable interest in the study of racial discrimination. In most of the reported cases, the victims of discrimination tend to be minority groups residing in a host country (e.g. Turks in Germany, Africans in France), and so discrimination tends to cut across both ethnic and language boundaries. Although few people who dislike members of other social groups would openly admit to harbouring discrimination, CDA research has demonstrated that a discriminatory stance may be shown to be embedded in discursive practices in the form of subtle linguistic strategies (e.g. Bar-Tal, 1989; Fairclough and Wodak, 1997; Graumann and Wintermantel, 1989; Gruber, 1997; Horvat et al., 1997; Teo, 2000; van Dijk, 1993a, b, 1995; van Dijk and Smitherman-Donaldson, 1988; Wodak et al., 1999).