Page 398 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

376 Martin Reisigl

flow of knowledge – and/or all societal knowledge stored – throughout all
time […], which determines individual and collective doing and/or formative
action that shapes society, thus exercising power” (Jäger 2001a: 130, 2001b:
34). Within this approach, “discourses” are understood as historically deter-
mined, transindividual, institutionalized and regulated social practices that be-
come material realities sui generis. The “Duisburg group” especially focuses on
racist, ethnicist, “xenophobic” and nationalist discrimination against foreigners
since the unification of West and East Germany in 1989 and 1990 until now. A
specific research interest of this approach relates to the linking up of discourses
or “discourse strands”. The latter are conceptualized as thematically interrelated
sequences of “discourse fragments” (i.e. texts or parts of texts that deal with a
specific topic) which manifest themselves on different “discourse levels” (e.g.
science, politics, the media, education, everyday life, business life, adminis-
tration). The Duisburg discourse analysts are also engaged in proposing strat-
egies against discrimination, for instance, against verbal discrimination in the
media press coverage (see Jäger, Cleve, Ruth and Jäger 1998; Duisburger Insti-
tut für Sprach- und Sozialforschung 1999).
This short overview shows that to speak, write or read about “discrimination
in discourse” can imply a variety of things, since “discourse” functions as a
broad cover-term for very different meanings, which can at best be inferred
from the respective contexts. Researchers on “discrimination in discourses”
often are not aware of this conceptual heterogeneity.
The following section will primarily build on my own understanding of
“discourse” outlined at the beginning of the section. In accordance with other
approaches to discourse sketched out above, I consider “discourse” to be a so-
cial-semiotic practice. More precisely than most of the above-mentioned ap-
proaches, I take topic-relatedness, problem-centeredness, argumentativity and
pluri-perspectivity as basic constituents of a “discourse”. Explicitly introducing
these constitutive features, I hope to conceptualize “discourse” empirically
more comprehensibly than many discourse approaches do.

5. The realization of discrimination in discourses

The relationship between “language and discrimination” (see, e.g., Roberts,
Davies and Jupp 1993) can generally be analysed from at least two viewpoints.
On the one side, language is employed as a means of social discrimination (see,
e.g., Billig 2006). On the other side, language becomes an object of discrimi-
nation (see, e.g., Skuttnabb-Kangas and Phillipson 1994; Skuttnabb-Kangas
2000; Bough 2006). The two forms of discrimination often overlap, as in cases
in which discrimination is directed against a language (for example, by language
prohibition) and, therefore, also against the group or community of speakers