Page 410 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

388 Martin Reisigl

cialists in Austria, it is reasonable to suspect that many of the primary auditors
associated Haider’s insult with the two discriminatory stereotypes. Several ad-
ditional factors (both linguistic and contextual ones) which further increased the
probability of Haider’s primary audience to develop discriminatory antisemitic
associations are discussed in Wodak and Reisigl (2002).

6. Conclusion

Many supplementary questions and aspects of social discrimination in dis-
courses cannot be dealt with in the present chapter, for example the relationship
between discrimination and propaganda, instigation and ridiculation, the ques-
tion of whether there are specific “genres” or “text types” (e.g. transgressive in-
scriptions in public space, jokes, caricatures and satires) which are more fre-
quently employed for discrimination than other “genres” or “text types”, and the
question of whether there are culture-dependent and legal norms that variably
delimit the boundaries between verbal discrimination and joking, caricaturing
and lampooning backed by freedom of speech. A critical analysis must also take
them into consideration.
Such a critical analysis of discursive practices that aim at discriminating
against specific social groups or at disguising discrimination has both theoretical
as well as practical relevance. Linguistic critique or language critique can be a
means of anti-discrimination policy and politics (see Reisigl and Wodak 2001:
263–271). Its controlling and sensitizing contributions consist (1) in the narrow
text- and discourse-related reconstruction and description of the use of semiotic
means of discrimination (e.g. in the accurate linguistic and interactional analysis
of Haider’s utterance and the reactions of the primary audience); (2) in the socio-
diagnostic integration of the linguistic analysis into a broader, trans- or interdisci-
plinarian framework that uncovers socio-political functions of discriminatory dis-
cursive practices that are performed at a specific time in a specific place, i.e. in a
specific historical situation (e.g. in the analytical embedding of Haider’s speech in
the actual political situation of the election campaign and of the controversial dis-
cussions about the so-called “sanctions” and the restitution of Jewish spoils, as
well as in the embedding in the historical context of coded antisemitism in the
Austrian post-war era); and (3) in prospective practical critique which aims to
contribute to the solution of discrimination-related social problems, for example,
by attempting to improve the communicative relations between different (sub)cul-
tural groups within the political system of a democracy, by attempting to sensitize
speakers and writers of a specific society with respect to discriminating semiosis,
and by offering, for example, discourse analytical knowledge in the area of anti-
discriminating argumentation and media coverage (e.g. in writing a specialist lin-
guistic report for the legal proceedings started by Muzicant against Haider).