The study of the role of discourse in the enactment and reproduction of ethnic and
“racial” inequality has slowly emerged in CDA. Traditionally, such work focused on
ethnocentric and racist representations in the mass media, literature, and film (Dines
and Humez 1995; UNESCO 1977; Wilson and Gutiérrez 1985; Hartmann and Husband
1974; van Dijk 1991). Such representations continue centuries-old dominant
images of the Other in the discourses of European travelers, explorers, merchants,
soldiers, philosophers, and historians, among other forms of elite discourse (Barker
1978; Lauren 1988). Fluctuating between the emphasis on exotic difference, on the
one hand, and supremacist derogation stressing the Other’s intellectual, moral, and
biological inferiority, on the other hand, such discourses also influenced public opinion
and led to broadly shared social representations. It is the continuity of this sociocultural
tradition of negative images about the Other that also partly explains the
persistence of dominant patterns of representation in contemporary discourse, media,
and film (Shohat and Stam 1994).
Later discourse studies have gone beyond the more traditional, content analytical
analysis of “images” of the Others, and probed more deeply into the linguistic, semiotic,
and other discursive properties of text and talk to and about minorities, immigrants,
and Other peoples (for detailed review, see Wodak and Reisigl, this volume).
Besides the mass media, advertising, film, and textbooks, which were (and still are)
the genres most commonly studied, this newer work also focuses on political discourse,
scholarly discourse, everyday conversations, service encounters, talk shows,
and a host of other genres.
Many studies on ethnic and racial inequality reveal a remarkable similarity among
the stereotypes, prejudices, and other forms of verbal derogation across discourse
types, media, and national boundaries.