Page 446 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

424 Janet Spreckels and Helga Kotthoff

way, with an emotionally valuing tendency, ascribes or denies to a class of persons
certain qualities or modes of behavior. Linguistically it is describable as a sentence
(1973: 28).
According to this definition, a stereotype therefore represents a verbal form of
stating a conviction. Thereby the first important step was taken to making a
formerly entirely social-psychological concept of stereotype for the first time
understandable from a linguistic perspective. Twenty-five years later the author
herself criticized her concept, however, insofar as it was presumably too static,
and demanded the “dynamization of stereotype research” (Quasthoff 1998).
Since she, similar to Sacks, understands “stereotypifications as components of
social categorizations” (1998: 47), this more dynamic approach likewise applies
to categorization research. The goal of more recent categorization research has
been to work with a process-oriented concept of stereotypes that makes it poss-
ible to empirically understand stereotypes and categories with the aid of conver-
sation analysis as interactively produced constructs.
In categorization it is always a matter of more than a pure assignment of per-
sons to larger units and of the thereby achieved structuration, or respectively
simplification, of the world. Interactants often categorize with a specific inten-
tion, which can be conversation-organizationally conditioned. Thus Sacks
(1992: 40) already stated that categorization questions often appear at the be-
ginning of a conversation, because they are suitable, as an important component
of everyday knowledge, for starting conversations with strangers. Categoriz-
ations can, however, be employed beyond the discourse level for the purpose
of social organization. Quasthoff (1998: 47), e.g., points out that connected
with stereotypifications and social categorizations are “processes of alliance
formation or respectively of the demarcation and exclusion of those present or
absent.” Categorization processes thus crucially determine the social frame-
work of a group; they are a possibility for ‘social positioning’ (Davies and Harré
1990; Wolf 1999). Interactants can categorize cooperatively or dissent from cat-
egorizations. The cooperative negotiation of a negatively connotated ‘other cat-
egory’ usually leads to alliance formation against it. Simultaneously, these pro-
cesses influence the interactive formation of group identity.
Kesselheim (2003: 57) names two essential lines of tradition that pursue
such a more dynamic conceptualization of categorization: For one thing, he
mentions the British Manchester School, which has further developed the con-
cept from a sociological (and social-psychological) perspective. As represen-
tatives of this research approach he names, among others, Antaki, Edwards,
Hester, Jayyusi, Widdicombe. On the other hand, he names linguistic work
on categorization in the German-speaking countries, such as the Bielefeld
“National Self- and Other Images in East-European States – Manifestations in
Discourse” project and the “Communication in the City” project of the Institute
for the German Language (IDS) in Mannheim (Kallmeyer 1994). From the first