Language and Social Identity Gumperz Paperback Cambridge University Press

Language and Social IdentityAuthor(s): John J. Gumperz\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521288972, 978-0521288972\nSynopsis\nThroughout Western society there are now strong pressures for social and racial integration but, in spite of these, recent experience has shown that greater intergroup contact can actually reinforce social distinctions and ethnic stereotypes. The studies collected here examine, from a broad sociological perspective, the sorts of face-to-face verbal exchange that are characteristic of industrial societies, and the volume as a whole pointedly demonstrates the role played by communicative phenomena in establishing and reinforcing social identity. The method of analysis that has been adopted enables the authors to reveal and examine a centrally important but hitherto little discussed conversational mechanism: the subconscious processes of inference that result from situation.