TY - JOUR

T1 - Pride and prejudice: identity management in English people’s talk about ‘this country’.

AU - Condor, S.

PY - 2000/4

Y1 - 2000/4

N2 - This article discusses the ways in which a sample of English respondents oriented to the task of formulating an account of their country in an interview context. Attention to both the content and the organizational features of talk suggested that respondents were generally reluctant to be heard to speak about ‘this country’ in categorical terms, to adopt an explicitly national footing or to display a sense of patriotic national pride. They treated all of these as potentially hearable as symptomatic of ‘typical’ Anglo- British xenophobia. In contrast to many extant analyses, which suggest that national discourse may provide a legitimate vehicle for the expression of exclusionary or racist sentiments, it appeared that, for these English respondents in this context, talk about ‘this country’ was often treated as a delicate topic, functionally equivalent to, and subject to the same opprobrium as, talk about ‘race’. At the same time, however, various features of the respondents’ discourse pointed to the presence of banal (Billig, 1995) national referents. Possible interpretations of this are discussed.

AB - This article discusses the ways in which a sample of English respondents oriented to the task of formulating an account of their country in an interview context. Attention to both the content and the organizational features of talk suggested that respondents were generally reluctant to be heard to speak about ‘this country’ in categorical terms, to adopt an explicitly national footing or to display a sense of patriotic national pride. They treated all of these as potentially hearable as symptomatic of ‘typical’ Anglo- British xenophobia. In contrast to many extant analyses, which suggest that national discourse may provide a legitimate vehicle for the expression of exclusionary or racist sentiments, it appeared that, for these English respondents in this context, talk about ‘this country’ was often treated as a delicate topic, functionally equivalent to, and subject to the same opprobrium as, talk about ‘race’. At the same time, however, various features of the respondents’ discourse pointed to the presence of banal (Billig, 1995) national referents. Possible interpretations of this are discussed.

KW - discourse

KW - English

KW - impression management

KW - nationalism

KW - prejudice

U2 - 10.1177/0957926500011002003

DO - 10.1177/0957926500011002003

M3 - Journal article

VL - 11

SP - 175

EP - 205

JO - Discourse and Society

JF - Discourse and Society

SN - 0957-9265

IS - 2

ER -