Page 444 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

422 Janet Spreckels and Helga Kotthoff

Each category is related, according to the respective circle of usage, to vari-
ous “category-bound activities” (Sacks 1992: 568), thus ‘typical’ activities for
all members of the category. We expand the Sacksian concept to the term “cat-
egory-bound features,” proposed by Jayyusi (1984: 35), thus category-bound
characteristics that besides activities and modes of behavior also include aspects
such as category-bound external appearance (clothing, hairstyle, political sym-
bols, etc.), convictions, competencies, rights, etc.
Besides such categories, which refer back to a societal knowledge stock,
there are also categories that are only understood by a narrow circle of persons
(e.g., a community of practice, see Meyerhoff and Marra in this volume). Such
categories that are accessible only to a limited extent arise in the frame of com-
mon experiences. Hausendorf (2000: 14) points out that making links with
existing categories and creating one’s own categories are often closely linked.
Tajfel (1959) has pointed out that categorization processes can occur not
only inductively, but also deductively, i.e., “the assignment to a category of
some attribute perceived to characterize an exemplary member.” The categoriz-
ation thus occurs deductively, if one knows that an individual belongs to a spe-
cific category and on the basis of this knowledge imputes to him certain ‘typi-
cal’ attributes. Conversely, it occurs inductively, if one assigns a person to a
category on the basis of certain category-typical attributes. Both sequence di-
rections of categorization often unavoidably include stereotyping.

1.5. Stereotyping as part of categorization
Whether we want to categorize or not: Categorization processes are unavoidable
in our everyday interactions. We continually and automatically categorize our
environment, i.e., we assign persons, animals or also objects to larger units in
order to structure the complexity of our experiences: “There is nothing more
basic than categorization to our thought, perception, action, and speech. Every
time we see something as a kind of thing, for example, a tree, we are categoriz-
ing.” (Lakoff 1987: 5) In his study Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, George
Lakoff goes even further when he asserts that, “without the ability to categorize,
we could not function at all, neither in the physical world nor in our social and
intellectual lives” (1987: 6). That means that we must categorize in order to
make the world understandable, for categorization means simplification. But it
is precisely in this simplification that we find a danger of stereotyping and
thereby as a consequence the danger of developing prejudices.
Categories are often very large units that of necessity entail reducing indi-
viduals to one or a few attributes, equating them with other representatives of
the category and thereby robbing them of their individuality. Such a large cat-
egory as, e.g., ‘women’ or ‘blacks’ or ‘Italians’ makes it clear how problematic
it can be to subsume individuals under a unit on the basis of an individual at-