ERIC Number: EJ1388915
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-Aug
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-6001
EISSN: EISSN-1477-450X
Destabilizing Racial Discourses in Casual Talk-in-Interaction
Applied Linguistics, v44 n4 p631-657 Aug 2023
Racialized descriptions are a constant practice in our societies and a fundamental aspect of racial discourses. This paper uses conversation analytic tools within a Foucauldian perspective on discourse to investigate how discourses of race are (re)produced, and consequently navigated, in talk-in-interaction among speakers of Chinese. Four instances of racialized person description, taken from a larger corpus of 16 hours of casual conversation among Chinese migrants in Melbourne and their acquaintances, are explored in detail. The analysis identifies two interactional sequences, joking and accounting sequences, which allow participants to resist racialized descriptions while still orienting to the interactional preference for sociality in casual conversation. The paper argues that casual and friendly interaction may provide empirical evidence for how discourses of race are destabilized at the level of talk-in-interaction.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Race, Discourse Analysis, Interaction, Dialogs (Language), Chinese, Racism, Interpersonal Communication, Social Attitudes, Evidence, Change, Language Usage, Migrants
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia; China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A