Goodman Speer 2007

This article was downloaded by: [University of Pennsylvania]On: 07 September 2011, At: 09:11Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Critical Discourse StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcds20

Category Use in the Construction ofAsylum SeekersSimon Goodman & Susan A. Speer

Available online: 03 Sep 2007

To cite this article: Simon Goodman & Susan A. Speer (2007): Category Use in the Construction ofAsylum Seekers, Critical Discourse Studies, 4:2, 165-185

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405900701464832

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representationthat the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of anyinstructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primarysources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcds20

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405900701464832

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Simon Goodman & Susan A. Speer

CATEGORY USE IN THE

CONSTRUCTIONOFASYLUMSEEKERS

By looking at category use within the asylum debate, this paper investigates how partici-pants construct ‘asylum seekers’. Critical discursive psychology is used to study a corpus ofpublic sphere data. Categorization is shown to be a powerful political and rhetoricalstrategy for participants in the asylum debate as they attempt to impose their ownsystems of classification onto the debate, and, in doing so, justify the (more or less)harsh treatment of asylum seekers. Three strategies that speakers use to justify the differ-ent treatment of asylum seekers are identified: first, speakers distinguish the categories of‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’; second, the categories of ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’ areconflated; and third, the categories of ‘refugee’ and ‘illegal immigrant’ are simul-taneously distinguished and conflated. We conclude by discussing some of the politicalimplications of these analyses – in particular, how category constructions can work tofocus attention on asylum seekers’ legitimacy, and not on how they can be helped.

Keywords asylum seekers; immigration; discourse analysis; public sphere;categorization; prejudice; racism; power

Introduction

Asylum is a prominent issue in public debate (Lynn & Lea, 2003; Randall, 2003;Schuster, 2004). A MORI poll in February 2003 showed that 34% of the Britishpublic believed that it was the most important political issue for voters, with 90%claiming that the number of asylum seekers is a serious problem (Institute forPublic Policy Research, 2003). In both the political and the public imaginationasylum has become associated with a broader concern about the rise in immigration.Asylum seekers are seen as a drain on the country’s resources, fuelling demands ‘thatthe access of asylum seekers to European states and, in some countries, that theirwelfare systems be curtailed’ (Schuster & Bloch, 2002, p. 393). These demandshave generally been successful; in the UK the reduction of benefits to asylumseekers (for example, cash benefits and access to housing) has become a reality(Bloch & Schuster, 2005; Schuster & Bloch, 2002; Schuster & Solomos, 2001), ashave attempts to curb entry to this country (Bloch, 2001; Sales, 2002).

Interest in asylum and immigration shows no sign of abating. In the spring of2005, the UK Conservative party made asylum and immigration a top priority in

Critical Discourse Studies Vol. 4, No. 2 August 2007, pp. 165–185ISSN 1740-5904 print/ISSN 1740-5912 online # 2007 Taylor & Francishttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/17405900701464832

Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

its election manifesto, emblazoning posters with the slogan, ‘It’s not racist to imposelimits on immigration.’ Similarly, the British National Party – renowned for itsracist views – launched a campaign in which the top policy statement was to‘clamp down on the flood of “asylum seekers”, all of whom are either bogus orcan find refuge much nearer their home countries’ (see http://www.bnp.org.uk,and for more on concerns about ‘floods of immigrants’ see Philo & Beattie, 1999;van der Valk, 2003; van Dijk, 2000a, 2000b).

Who are asylum seekers?

Despite public worries that asylum seekers are receiving preferential treatment, theyform one of the weakest groups in our society, and many are fleeing persecution. Anasylum seeker is defined legally as:

a person who has left their country of origin, has applied for recognition as arefugee in another country, and is awaiting a decision on their application. Inother words, in the UK an asylum seeker is someone who has asked theGovernment for refugee status and is waiting to hear the outcome of theirapplication.

(United Nations High Commission for Refugees, 2003)

It is therefore up to the Home Office to decide whether the asylum seeker is a refugeeor a failed asylum seeker.

Although this legal definition is clear, a number of social policy analysts and com-mentators have suggested that participants in the asylum debate do not always talkabout asylum seekers in ways that reflect this definition. For example, Layton-Henry (1992; see also Steiner, 2000) suggests that the government deliberatelyreclassifies many asylum seekers as economic migrants because of political pressure.This, he claims, ignores the terrible conditions that cause people to seek asylum inthe first place. Similarly, Bloch (2001) shows how the 1996 Asylum and ImmigrationAct separates asylum seekers into those who are ‘genuine’ and who apply for refugeestatus at the port of entry, and those who are ‘bogus’ and apply when they are alreadyin the country. Thus, in the Act, the term ‘bogus’ refers to the way in which theasylum seeker makes their claim – it does not mean that they are not genuinelyfleeing persecution. However, one of the consequences of the ‘genuine/bogus’ dis-tinction is that, in practice, it focuses our attention on the idea that many people areclaiming asylum when they are not really entitled to it.

Sales (2002; see also Philo & Beattie, 1999) supports this view. She shows how inpolitical debate about asylum, ‘bogus’ and ‘genuine’ asylum seekers are attributedtheir own moral status, with the former being seen as undeserving of sympathyand support. Here, again, public attention is focussed on the costs and financialdrain associated with granting refugee status to asylum seekers, rather than onhow they can be helped.

1 6 6 C R I T I CA L D I S COURS E S TUD I E S

Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

Categories and actions

A number of social psychologists and sociologists have shown how important the useof categories can be in talk. According to Fowler (1991, p. 94), groups are sociallyconstructed phenomena: ‘“[G]roup” is an instrument for handling discrimination, forsorting unequally, and it acquires much of its apparent solidity by being traded indiscourse’ (Fowler, 1991, p. 94). By highlighting the socially constructed natureof groups we do not mean to imply that asylum seekers are somehow not real.Instead, the point we wish to make here is that asylum seekers are a group ofpeople who may be discriminated against, and dealt with unequally, through theway in which they are constructed in discourse. It is in this way that power canfunction through discourse. As Bourdieu (1991, p. 223) emphasizes: ‘The act ofcategorization, when it manages to achieve recognition or when it is exercised bya recognized authority, exercises by itself a certain power.’ According to thisview power is held by those who are able to create and use, or ‘trade’, thesecategories.

The micro-analytic approach known as membership categorization analysis hasbeen used to great effect to show how categories function in discourse (Hester &Eglin, 1997; Hester & Housley, 2002; Sacks, 1992). Work using this approachhas shown how categories are never just neutral descriptors, used to report objec-tively on some state of affairs. Rather, the act of categorizing people into groupscan work to accomplish particular tasks. According to Leudar, Marsland, andNekvapil (2004, p. 244), for example, categorizing ‘is normally done to accomplishsomething other than just categorizating . . . it orients to practical action’. Thismeans that the categories we use in any particular instance will be driven in someway by the social action that is being accomplished.

The ‘practical actions’ that membership categories can achieve have been shownto include a moral dimension in inter-group relations (Rapley & Augoustinos, 2002).As Stokoe argues, ‘[W]hen people engage in the morally oriented activities ofdescribing, judging or making claims about others, their activities both reflect andcompose moral reality’ (2003, p. 322). It is in this way that category use can beseen as doing interactional work that may constitute political action. Categories,for example, may be deployed to make a social comment on asylum seekers’moral status and to present them as legitimate or illegitimate, deserving or undeser-ving, and welcome or unwelcome in this country.

Several studies that draw broadly on a range of discourse analytic methodologieshave demonstrated the significance of the categories ‘them’ and ‘us’ in the asylum andimmigration debate (Lynn & Lea, 2003; Mehan, 1997; van den Berg, Wetherell, &Houtkoop-Steenstra, 2003; van der Valk, 2003; van Dijk, 1997; Verkuyten, 2001,2005). As Lynn and Lea show in their analysis of a corpus of letters to newspapereditors, asylum seekers are differentiated into those ‘who have a genuine case andare entitled to various benefits, and those who are bogus and not so entitled’(2003, p. 434). They state that the ‘invoking of categories and their associatedmembership entitlements is a powerful rhetorical device’ (2003, p. 434). Thethem/us distinction can function to ‘other’ asylum seekers and immigrants, present-ing them as outsiders who are less deserving of our country’s help, and as individuals

CAT EGORY US E 1 6 7

Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

who need not be granted the same rights and generosity (particularly in terms ofwelfare support) as the British ‘us’. Collectively, these studies demonstrate thatthe way in which asylum seekers are classified can have serious political implicationsfor the way in which they are viewed and treated.

Our aim in the present article is to build on and develop these findings.However, unlike existing studies of category use within the asylum debate, whichhave tended to focus on broad, macro-level discourses and a limited range of data(i.e., data solely from monologic written texts, or from lay people’s views aboutthe asylum debate), we wish to use data from a range of publicly available sourcesin order to examine the detailed and variable ways in which members categorizeasylum seekers (by ‘members’ we mean participants in the asylum debate). Thismeans that we will be examining a range of members’ voices, all of whom, tosome extent, have a disproportionate amount of power in terms of ability todefine asylum seekers and to have their voices heard in the political, publicsphere. Specifically, we will examine how members of the asylum debate use theterm ‘asylum seeker’, how different categories of asylum seeker are formulated,reformulated, and used, and how members use, contrast, and combine categoriesto construct asylum seekers as more or less deserving of support, sympathy, or puni-tive measures.

Data and method

The data used here derive from a corpus of ‘public domain media texts’ (Leudaret al., 2004, p. 245) – that is, data which are available in the public sphere aspart of the public debate about asylum seekers. All the data were collectedbetween November 2002 and June 2004 by the first author as part of a broaderproject on the discursive construction of asylum seekers.

The corpus includes newspaper articles, televised political debates and inter-views in which politicians and other interested groups debated the asylum issue, tele-vised political speeches, documentaries, election broadcasts, pamphlets, and otherprinted materials available for purchase or on the websites of a range of politicalparties and pressure groups. The ten extracts we have used in this paper havebeen chosen to illustrate the range of ways in which asylum seekers are constructedin public debate.

The public sphere is an important site for the construction of the debate aboutasylum seekers, and for reflecting and shaping public opinion. It is the site wherepolitics ‘gets done’; many salient social policy issues are played out in this forum,and measures are implemented as a result. In this way the public sphere, andespecially the media – a key agent of power (Curran & Seaton, 1997; Chomsky,1989) – can construct the ‘problem’ of asylum seekers and immigrants (e.g.,Coole, 2002; Philo & Beattie, 1999; Togeby, 1998).

The multiple and conflicting voices that are articulated in the public sphere –and particularly the media – exist within a ‘dialogical network’ (Leudar and Nekva-pil, 2004) that constitutes the asylum debate. The notion of dialogical network wasdeveloped from Bakhtin’s concept of polyphony as ‘the plurality of independent andunmerged voices’ (1929/1973, p. 4). According to Leudar and colleagues (2004,


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

p. 245), ‘[T]elevision and radio programmes, press conferences and newspaperarticles are networked: connected interactively, thematically and argumentatively.’It follows that ‘conversations’ may occur not only within texts, between co-presentspeaker and recipient, but also between texts, as speakers/writers orient toward pre-vious comments which may have been made in another medium in another context,and/or toward possible future recipients and responses.

We adopt a critical discursive psychology (CDP) approach to these data (vanden Berg et al., 2003, p. 7; see also Edley, 2001; Dixon & Wetherell, 2004;Reynolds & Wetherell, 2003; Wetherell & Edley, 1999) because this allows usto investigate ‘the social and political consequences of discursive patterning’(Wetherell, 1998, p. 405) from within a non-cognitivist framework (cf. themore cognitivist CDA approach of van Dijk, 1993, 1997, 2000a, 2000b).CDP’s non-cognitivist approach to discourse derives broadly from discursive psy-chology (DP; Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter & Wetherell, 1987), which hasbeen used to great effect to study talk about racism, prejudice, and citizenship(Barnes, Auburn, & Lea, 2004; Billig, 1995, 2001; Condor, 1987; Edwards,2003; Lea, 1996; Mehan, 1997; Potter & Wetherell, 1998; van den Berget al., 2003; van der Valk, 2003; Verkuyen, 2001, 2005; Wetherell & Potter,1992). DP rejects the cognitive notion of attitude as an internally held and con-sistent entity with regards to prejudice1 and instead focuses on the action orien-tation of talk and attitudes (e.g., Billig & MacMillan, 2005, p. 462) and theinteractional work done by such race talk (e.g., Wetherell & Potter, 1992).Like much discursive work (e.g., Edwards, 1997; Lynn & Lea, 2003), ourapproach places special emphasis on how categories are deployed and used indiscourse.

The analysis is divided into four sections. First, we will show how the classifi-cation of asylum seekers is not just a theoretical concern of the analyst but is alsoan explicit concern of participants involved in the asylum debate. Second, we willshow how category distinctions are used to justify the speaker’s position onasylum speakers. Third, we will show how the categories of ‘refugee’ and ‘economicmigrant’ are conflated so as to present asylum seekers as migrants. Finally, we showhow the categories of ‘refugee’ and ‘illegal immigrant’ are simultaneously distin-guished and conflated so as to justify the harsh treatment of all asylum seekers.We conclude by discussing some of the political implications of these analyses –in particular, how category constructions can work together to focus attention onasylum seekers’ legitimacy, and not on how they can be helped. The source ofeach extract is shown in the extract header. For transcription conventions pleaserefer to the appendix.

Classification as a participant’s concern

This section shows how significant category use is in the asylum debate, and howmembers work to formulate and reformulate existing classifications in the serviceof other goals. In the following two extracts, the participants do not just usemember-ship categories in the course of their arguments about asylum. Instead, the


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

categorization of asylum seekers becomes their topic. That is, they almost becomediscourse analysts themselves – analyzing the terms of the debate on a meta-theor-etical level.

This first extract is from the UK BBC television debate Asylum: Face the Nation,chaired by the news presenter Dermot Murnaghan, in which politicians and inter-ested parties discuss the asylum issue in a formal news interview setting. HereMargaret Lalley, a representative of the pro-asylum Refugee Council, accusesthose working in the media of racism on the grounds of the ‘inflammatory language’(lines 1 and 5) that they use to describe asylum seekers. We then see Peter Hitchensof the anti-asylum Daily Mail newspaper respond with his own version of what countsas inflammatory language.

(1) Asylum: Face the Nation, BBC1, July 23, 2003

1. Lalley: . . . what can be racist is using inflammatory language and .hhh2. putting out misinformation if we look at what’s happened over the3. last century .hhh (.) throughout that century there’ve been times4. when the press .hhh has talked about asylum seekers in very5. inflammatory language we saw the same in the 1930s6. hhh and indeed before that when (.) Jewish people were7. over clearly fleeing persecution .hhh it was the British press8. hhh which has quite often opposed them coming over here . . .9. (five lines omitted)10. Murnaghan: well a a lot of issues to a lot of issues to [ ]11. Hitchens: [the]12. most in inflammatory language which is used is the is the13. false use of the word of the word of the words ‘asylum seekers’14. to describe people who are in fact15. illegal immigrants (.) it’s polluted the whole the whole debate16. (23 lines omitted)17. Murnaghan: OK well let’s just er pursue this issue of language er Oliver18. Letwin in Westminster there would you er go along with er19. Peter Hitchens and say that we really should be calling many20. of the people who are trying to get into our country and who21. are coming into our country are illegal (.) economic migrants22. (.) they’re not asylum seekers

Here Peter Hitchens turns Lalley’s use of the term ‘inflammatory language’ (line 1)against her when he suggests that what is ‘most inflammatory’ (line 12) is the incor-rect use of the term ‘asylum seeker’. Antaki and Leudar (2001) show how directlyreferencing one’s opponent is a useful argumentative device. In this case, Hitchensuses this reference to reclassify asylum seekers as ‘illegal immigrants’ (lines 11–15). The use here of ‘polluted’ (line 15) is a strong accusation regarding what heclaims to be the damage done by this ‘false’ classification. For him, it’s not journal-ists’ language that is the problem, but the incorrect category usage by those (perhapsespecially politicians) involved in the debate.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

It is by virtue of this attempt to reclassify many asylum seekers as illegal immi-grants that Hitchens engages head-on with the issue of how categories are used in theasylum debate, and with which categories he deems to be the most appropriate onesto use. Language use is a topic pursued by Murnaghan as chair of the debate, who asksthe politicians whether they would support Hitchens’ classification (lines 17–22).We will address the politicians’ responses to this question shortly. Before doingso we will turn to another example of classification as a participant’s concern, in apiece by George Monbiot, a columnist for the left-wing Guardian newspaper, inwhich he contrasts opposition to immigration and asylum with the economic benefitsthese people bring.

(2) ‘Immigrants the rich love’, The Guardian, May 25, 2004

1. The Sun, of course, has devoted page after page to the menace of illegal2. immigration. But when you read past the headlines, you see that the “illegal3. immigrants” it foams about are not undocumented workers but asylum4. seekers whose claims are rejected. As asylum seekers are forbidden to work,5. they are of no use to the rich men’s trade union.

Where Hitchens works to reclassify many asylum seekers as illegal immigrants,Monbiot works in the opposite direction to reclassify many illegal immigrantsas failed asylum seekers. What’s different here is that instead of topicalizingmembers’ incorrect categorization practices in order to defend himself and hiscolleagues against charges of racism (cf. Hitchins), here Monbiot topicalizessome journalists’ incorrect categorization practices in order to present a morepro-asylum position, and to undermine a rival paper and its corresponding rivalpolicies (see Fairclough, 2001, p. 237, for a discussion of the influence of com-petition on newspapers’ texts). He does this by placing The Sun’s use of ‘illegalimmigrants’ in quotation marks. This works to highlight the problematic use ofthis term. The use of ‘foams’ (line 3) contains strong connotations of madnessand ranting, which does further work to undermine the use of this ‘incorrect’term.

These extracts show that categorization is a participants’ issue. Participants arenot just using and responding to a set of agreed categories, they are debating and con-structing the rationale and the legitimacy of the terms that can – and that they claimshould – be used in the asylum debate. That the categories used to describe asylumseekers are being shaped and contested in this way shows that participants are alert tothe significance of the categories that they use.

These extracts are also testament to the political uses to which categories (andtalk about categories) can be put. Indeed, the very suggestion that someone is usingthe wrong words to have the debate, and by implication that they have misunder-stood the terminology upon which that debate is based, is a rhetorically powerfulway to wrong-foot the opposition, and to undermine the very basis of the opposi-tion’s argument.

Having established the importance of categorizing practices for members them-selves, in the remainder of this article we will demonstrate the range of ways inwhich asylum seekers are constructed in debates about them.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

Distinguishing ‘asylum seekers’ and ‘refugees’ from‘immigrants’ to justify the speaker’s position on asylum

In this section we consider how the categories of ‘asylum seeker’, ‘refugee’, and‘immigrant’ are distinguished in order to justify the speaker’s position on asylum.As an example of what we mean, consider the extract below, which comes from aspecial edition of BBC 2’s Newsnight, a daily ‘heavyweight’ news programme, inwhich the political interviewer Jeremy Paxman interviews the UK Prime MinisterTony Blair about a range of topical issues, including asylum seekers.

(3) Tony Blair interview on Newsnight, BBC2, 6 February 2003

1. Paxman: we ought to find out whether they are refugees shouldn’t2. w[e? (.) or migrants?]3. Blair: [yes you do (0.2)] er yes you do and it is correct4. that you detain them for that period of time

Here Paxman distinguishes between two very different types of asylum seekers: thosewho are refugees and those who are not. Those who are not refugees are constructedas migrants (lines 1 and 2). Sometimes the term used to refer to these ‘migrants’ is‘economic migrant’, sometimes ‘bogus asylum seeker’, or sometimes it is simply‘illegals’. By not challenging this terminology, Blair implicitly accepts this distinc-tion as fair and accurate. What is significant about this category distinction is thatit is not used simply to suggest that the two groups should be treated differently.Instead, Paxman and Blair use it to legitimize the highly contentious policy of detain-ing all asylum seekers while they are assessed to establish whether or not they have a‘genuine’ case for remaining in this country (lines 3 and 4). In this discourse, allasylum seekers must be treated harshly because they are potentially ‘bogus’.

Our fourth extract is from the same televised political debate as the first extract.Here we see the chair of the debate, Murnaghan, questioning the ConservativeShadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin about Hitchens’ suggestion that manyasylum seekers are actually illegal immigrants.

(4) Asylum: Face the Nation. BBC1, 23 July, 2003

1. Murnaghan: OK well let’s just er pursue this issue of language er Oliver2. Letwin in Westminster there would you er go along with er3. Peter Hitchens and say that we really should be calling many4. of the people who are trying to get into our country .and who5. are coming into our country are, .hhh illegal (.) economic6. migrants (.) they’re not asylum seekers7. (0.7)8. Letwin: uh the problem is that (.) er there are er (.) two (0.6) er "quite9. different kinds of case #that we’re dealing with one is (.) er10. a groups of people who’ve been appallingly (.) persecuted11. .s’ an’ who are refugees under the 51 convention, .hhh (.) and


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

12. the other is (.) groups of people who are "perfectly reasonable13. people .hhh (.) er whowant to er better their economic lot .hhh and14. who’ve discovered .and I agree with whoever it was that said at15. the beginning of the programme it isn’t the people it’s the,16. sy:stem that’s at fault .hhh (.) have discovered (.) that the system17. (.) after (.) some years of Jack Straw2 having made it.really very18. much worse, .hhh and a couple of years of David Blunkett and19. Beverly Hughes and others try:ing to make it better again (.) is still20. chaotic (.) and can still be used as a way (.) of getting into this21. country (0.5) without going through the ordinary immigration22. (controls )

Playing devil’s advocate, Murnaghan puts forward Hitchens’ version of categoriesfor comment from the politicians, here adding the term ‘economic migrant’(lines 1–6). This is significant because while Hitchens referred to illegal immigra-tion (first extract, line 15), Murnaghan adds an economic element to this group ofimmigrants: this category construction contains a reason behind the asylum seekers’‘illegal’ attempts to enter the country. Notice also that Murnaghan refers twice to‘our’ country (lines 4 and 5), which adds weight to the us/them distinction sooften found in talk about immigrants and asylum seekers (Lynn & Lea, 2003;Mehan, 1997; van den Berg et al., 2003; van der Valk, 2003; van Dijk, 1997;Verkuyten, 2001, 2005). Letwin, a Conservative member of parliament, respondsby distinguishing two distinct groups: those who can be legally defined as refugees(line 11), and those who are economic migrants (line 13). In doing so he presents amore subtle, nuanced, and considered approach than Hitchens.

Notice that whereas Hitchens responds to charges of racism and provocativelanguage (and Hitchens himself doesn’t actually deny racism, but simply offers acounter accusation which could be deemed equally racist), Letwin presents bothasylum seekers and economic migrants as ‘good’ people. Refugees are peoplewho’ve been ‘appallingly persecuted’ (line 10), and economic migrants are ‘perfectlyreasonable people’ (lines 12–13). These economic migrants are not morally repre-hensible but are actually clever enterprising people who have ‘discovered’ a hole inthe system – a hole which has been caused by the government, and specifically byJack Straw (line 17). As Letwin explicitly states, ‘it isn’t the people it’s the ,sy:stem that’s at fault’ (lines 15–16).

The important point to note here, which is central to our argument about thepolitical uses to which categorizing practices can be put, is that Letwin is not justusing this particular category construction simply because it is accurate. Rather,the precise wording he uses and the contrasts he draws allow him, first, to avoiddirectly agreeing or disagreeing with Hitchens. Indeed, it may be no coincidencethat Letwin’s portrayal of ‘good’ and ‘reasonable’ refugees and economic migrantscomes at precisely the point when he may be held accountable – just like Hitchensbefore him – for having prejudiced motives. Letwin’s portrayal of himself as a soph-isticated, caring, compassionate politician who has an empathetic grasp of asylumseekers’ plight stands in direct contrast to Hitchens’ arguably less subtle approach.The delicacy of the situation for Letwin – and evidence of his orientation to thenecessity for careful management of perceptions of potential prejudice – is


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

evidenced in his delayed response to Murnaghan, as well as in the false starts and hes-itations at lines 7–9 – a classic feature of a dispreferred answer (Pomerantz, 1984).3

Second, Letwin manages his stake (Edwards & Potter, 1992) as a Conservativemember of parliament with a responsibility to distinguish his party’s policies fromthose of the current government, to criticize them for their failures, and to arguefor a tougher (yet non-racist) system to be implemented to prevent abuse of theasylum system.

Moments later, Murnaghan puts a question to the then Immigration Minister,Beverly Hughes.

(5) Asylum: Face the Nation, BBC1, 23 July, 2003

1. Murnaghan: [OK we must (continue) we’re running out of time we2. must (.) .you’re laying some you’re laying quite a lot there at er3. Beverly Hughes’s feet there, .hhh Beverly Hughes (.) you’re4. confu::sing asylum seekers with economic migrants "you don’t5. know how to treat them because of that confusion6. B. Hughes: Quite the opposite "what we’d actually trying to do (.) and I7. think think we’ve quite touched on it in this programme .hhh is8. is separate those two things enti:rely .hhh which is why we’ve9. taken some difficult decisions not for instance allowing asylum10. seekers to wo:rk .hhh because we know that "the ability to work11. here is a big pu:ll factor .hhh "but I think one of the things I’d12. like to say (.) is that .hhh y’know (.) I do distinguish my views.and13. those of the government, from those say of Andrew Green and14. Peter Hitchen (.) .hhh we want to encourage migration into this15. country economically (.) we nee:d it our communities we need it16. but the public have to have confidence in the asy:lum system

Here Murnaghan accuses the incumbent minister of failing to deal with asylumseekers because she is confusing the categories of genuine refugees and economicmigrants (line 4). Beverly Hughes immediately and explicitly denies this accusation(lines 6 and 8) and uses the opportunity to justify her party’s policy of preventingasylum seekers from working, which she claims is designed precisely to make thisdistinction because working can be seen as a ‘pull factor’ for economic migrants(lines 8–11). Just like Blair in speaking of the policy of detaining all asylumseekers (extract 3), Hughes does not suggest in any way that this policy is a conten-tious one that leaves asylum seekers poor and reliant on benefits at the cost of thetaxpayer.

Beverly Hughes goes on to distance herself from the views of Hitchens (andAndrew Green, the leader of an anti-immigration lobby), who she accuses oftrying to prevent all immigration (lines 12–14). She emphasizes her opposition toeconomic migration, a position which, arguably, is not anti-immigration but onlyanti those who are not honest. Nevertheless, this category distinction is used inthe service of justifying the policy of preventing asylum seekers from working. Inour next extract the presenter asks the Liberal spokesman Simon Hughes whetherthe categories that are used in the debate are important.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1


1. Murnaghan: (OK (1.0) so you do want it ) just got to hear from Simon2. Hughes very very briefly on that one straight out of time (.) does3. it matter?4. S. Hughes: very quickly fo:ur out of 10 people roughly who come (.) have5. a good case (0.8) many of the others are economic migrants doing6. what Britons have done all over the world go to better7. themselves (0.3) I think we have to8. realize [they’re real people [THEY’RE REAL PEOPLE]9. Audience: [applause]10. Murnaghan: [OK well thank you we’re out of time]

Just like Letwin and Beverly Hughes, Simon Hughes distinguishes between refugeesand economic migrants. In a similar fashion to Letwin in extract 4, Hughes grantsboth groups a high moral status. However, unlike earlier speakers, Hughes compareseconomic migrants to the historically enterprising British ‘us’ (lines 5–7). SimonHughes is making an appeal for the fair treatment of all asylum seekers, eventhose who may not have a good case. In this way he is justifying a humanitarian pos-ition which requires the more liberal and less harsh treatment of all asylum seekers.In some respects, this works against the us/them distinction. At the same time,however, in implying that six out of 10 asylum seekers do not have a good case,he may inadvertently be presenting a distinction that potentially casts doubt on allasylum seekers.

In the final extract from this televised debate Polly Neate, then editor of the pro-asylum Community Care magazine, uses a category distinction to argue for more, notless, immigration.


1. Murnaghan: so you’re saying we’re still a soft we’re still a soft2. Lowe: Yes I think so (.) nobody benefits from it3. Murnaghan: Po - Polly Neate wh what do you say to that4. Neate: Well if you’re talking about upper limit (.) I think you cannot5. put a quota on human suffering (.) you have to make a6. distinction between immigration and asylum I think if you want7. to talk about .hhh immigration and actually about our8. immigration needs in this country which would mean that .hhh9. one of the only legal .hhh one of the only means of entry in10. the country for many people actually is asylum because our11. other immigration laws are so (.) erm archaic .hhh but I think12. if you’re actually looking at some kind of upper limit by13. definition you’re going to be imposing that limit on cases14. irrespective of the validity of the case15. [and the only] compassionate thing is to16. Murnaghan: [so so ]17. Neate: judge each case] on its own merit


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

While Hitchens has argued that many asylum seekers are illegal immigrants andLetwin, Beverly Hughes, and Simon Hughes have argued for a distinction betweengenuine refugees and economic migrants, here Neate distinguishes between asylumseekers and general immigrants (lines 5 and 6). She does this both to criticize thegovernment’s immigration policy, which is deemed to be so harsh that it forcespeople to claim asylum illegally, and, more importantly, to oppose calls to place aquota on the number of asylum seekers allowed to claim asylum in this country(quotas have now become Conservative party policy).4 Neate argues that asylumhas to be distinguished from other forms of immigration because it exists toprotect people; she therefore uses the distinction to argue for unlimited access forasylum seekers, whereas immigration can feasibly have a limit imposed withoutposing a risk for people fleeing persecution. Just like Simon Hughes in the extractabove, however, despite her pro-asylum position, one function of the category dis-tinction Neate deploys is that it presents asylum seekers as persons who might in factbe illegal immigrants, but are using the asylum system as a legal means of entry – thusagain casting doubt on all asylum seekers.

In this section we have explored how category distinctions function to justify thespeaker’s position on asylum. Blair separates refugees from migrants and uses this dis-tinction to justify the detention of all asylum seekers. Letwin distinguishes genuinerefugees from economic migrants to justify his party’s anti-government stance and toargue for a tougher asylum system. Beverly Hughes uses the same distinction todefend the government’s stance on asylum seekers, and to support existing harshmeasures. Simon Hughes also separates these categories but does so to justify a huma-nitarian approach to all asylum seekers. Finally, Neate distinguishes asylum seekersfrom other immigrants to argue in favour of unimpeded access for asylum seekers.Although Simon Hughes and Neate appear to be pro-asylum, the category distinc-tions they deploy may actually function to justify the harsh treatment of all asylumseekers by presenting many asylum seekers as economic migrants.

Conflation of ‘asylum seeker’ and ‘immigrant’ topresent asylum seekers as migrants

In the following extracts the categories ‘asylum seeker’ and ‘immigrant’ are con-flated so that asylum seekers come to be presented as economic or illegal immigrants.Extract 8 is taken from a double-page spread in The Sun newspaper (Lea, 2004).

(8) ‘Asylum Inc.’ The Sun, May 11, 2004

1. Headline: ASYLUM INC. (across the centre of the page)2. Subheading: HOW THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS HAS SPAWNED3. A CASH-RICH NEW INDUSTRY (smaller, top of page)4. Inset: LANDLORDS. LANDLORDS across the country are raking in5. millions of pounds by providing accommodation for asylum6. seekers. They are charging the Government up to £350 a week7. for a basic room.8. Inset: ADVISORS. An army of advisers now help illegal immigrants


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

9. try to beat the system. One, Nazir Ahmed, who was registered10. with the Office of the Immigration Service Commissioner,11. charged The Sun £30 cash for a ten-minute interview.

The main headline across the middle of the page refers to ‘Asylum Inc.’ (line 1), indi-cating that the article is about industries associated with asylum seekers. Howeverthe subheading, in smaller print across the top of the page, refers to the ‘immigrationcrisis’ (line 2). Furthermore, the inset ‘Landlords’ refers to accommodation forasylum seekers (lines 5 and 6) whereas the inset ‘Advisors’ refers to illegal immi-grants (line 8). Asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are therefore conflated;they are used interchangeably as if one. This functions to present all asylumseekers and immigrants as a burden to this country’s economy. As both asylumand immigration are presented as one, the implication is that this is one singleproblem that must be dealt with. The ‘army’ metaphor (line 8) is connected tothe ‘invasion’ metaphor often seen in negative talk about immigrants and asylumseekers (e.g., van der Valk, 2003).

The following extract also shows asylum seekers and immigrants being referredto interchangeably, here in a London election pamphlet by the British NationalParty (BNP), a party notorious for its extreme right-wing – and arguably racist –position.

(9) London Elections – The Candidates (booklet, 2004), p. 10

1. Subheading: ASYLUM2. Text: The British National Party is best known for its opposition3. to further immigration. This isn’t a matter of colour. Britain is4. an overcrowded island and the BNP is equally opposed to5. immigration from Eastern Europe. There is wide agreement on6. this point from people of all backgrounds.7. (Two subsections omitted)8. Subheading: HOUSING9. Text: The almost unbearable pressure of new homes is directly linked10. to the influx of thousands of ‘asylum seekers’.

The first subheading is ‘Asylum’ (line 1), yet the text under this subheading makes noreference at all to asylum seekers or their situation, but instead states the BNP’sopposition to immigration (line 3). Here, just as in extract 8, asylum and immigra-tion are conflated. The purpose of the conflation in this case is to present both asylumseekers and immigrants as equally problematic, and to justify opposition to bothasylum and immigration. According to the BNP asylum seekers are immigrants.

In the extracts in this section the categories ‘asylum seekers’, ‘immigrants’, and‘illegal immigrants’ are used interchangeably as if they are one. By conflating cat-egories in this way, the speakers present groups of people who should be treatedas morally, politically, and legally distinct as one and the same, and as deservingof the same harsh treatment. The specific circumstances and needs of asylumseekers are thereby overlooked.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

Distinguishing and conflating categories to justify theharsh treatment of asylum seekers

Our final extract is taken from a speech made by the then Conservative leaderMichael Howard. Here we can see both of the above strategies being employed;the categories ‘asylum seeker’ and ‘illegal immigrant’ are distinguished and then con-flated, all in the service of justifying a tough asylum system.

(10) Michael Howard’s ‘Burnley’ speech, broadcast on BBC News 24,19 February 2004

1. Howard: but people do: want to know (0.4) that immigration is2. being controlled (1.2) they " want to know that the asylum system3. is being used to protect those ge:nuinely fleeing persecution (0.8)4. and not being abused by those seeing (.) seeking a ba:ck door into5. Britain (0.8) You " can’t have (0.7) a credible (.) immigration policy6. (0.4) if anyone can circumvent it (0.5) by entering our country7. # illegally (0.8) by uttering the words (.) ‘I claim8. asy:lum’ (0.6) and by then being allowed to stay here (.) even (.)9. if they have (.) no genuine claim

Howard distinguishes between two types of asylum seeker: genuine asylumseekers who are fleeing persecution (line 3), and economic migrants who are‘seeking a ba:ck door into Britain’ (lines 4–5). He then moves immediately to con-flate those same categories by claiming that anyone (line 6) can get around immigra-tion controls by claiming asylum (lines 7–8). This applies both to groups of genuineasylum seekers and to economic migrants – categories that were distinguished in thepreceding lines. Here, again, this category conflation is used to argue for a harsherasylum system, in this case a system that cannot be abused.

This strategy is rhetorically powerful because it draws upon the argument wehave seen in earlier extracts, where speakers concede that some asylum seekersare ‘fleeing persecution’ (line 3). This functions to present the speaker as attentiveto, and concerned about, their plight. On its own this category distinction would bea useful strategy for justifying harsh treatment towards asylum seekers, as we haveshown above. However, when a speaker simultaneously conflates the categories ofasylum seeker and illegal migrant (line 7) this becomes even more powerful. Theimplication is that not only are there these two types of asylum seeker, but thatsince we cannot tell which type an individual asylum seeker is, we must thereforetreat all asylum seekers as though they are potential illegal immigrants. Thisworks to justify Howard’s harsh measures for dealing with asylum seekers, namelyending the right to claim asylum once the person has reached this country.

Discussion

In this article, we have explored the range of ways in which categories are used in theasylum debate. We have shown that it is important to explore members’


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

categorization practices because they can be used to encourage antagonism towards,and rejection of, asylum seekers.

We began by demonstrating that category constructions are not just a theoreticalpreoccupation of analysts, but are topicalized by members themselves, as they argueabout and debate what counts as appropriate (i.e., morally correct) terminology. Wethen went on to highlight some of the different ways in which the categories of‘asylum seeker’, ‘refugee’, ‘economic migrant’, ‘illegal immigrant’, and ‘bogusasylum seeker’ get used, distinguished, and conflated in the asylum debate. Weshowed that the categories members use, and the precise ways in which they con-struct asylum seekers, are tied closely to the specific interactional work they aredoing. In the majority of cases, for example, these category constructions arebound up with participants’ attempts to undermine their opponents’ position. Inthis sense, the construction of asylum seekers is always fundamentally a politicalaction.

By categorizing asylum seekers in terms of those who are genuinely fleeing per-secution and those who are economic migrants, the public sphere debate becomesone about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of asylum seekers’ claims. A system of classi-fication based around legitimacy has the effect of constructing all asylum seekers asimmigration ‘cheats’ and as untrustworthy and dishonest people whom we areright to treat with doubt and contempt.

Although it may at first seem entirely rational to separate these two groups –some who claim asylum may, in fact, be economic migrants – the rhetoricaleffect of this differentiation is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, used to de-legitimize and justify the harsh treatment of all asylum seekers, whatever their cir-cumstances. If the focus of the asylum debate is about the legitimacy (or not) ofasylum seekers’ claims, asylum seekers’ reasons for claiming asylum in the firstplace, the traumas they have endured, and how they can be helped (arguably ahumane stance to take even if they do not have a valid asylum claim; see Gibney,2004) come to be overlooked. Classifying asylum seekers in a way that always ques-tions their legitimacy, although convenient for those who are opposed to asylumseeking, serves to dehumanize asylum seekers. We would therefore expect thosewho oppose asylum seeking to continue using this genuine/bogus classification,whereas those who support asylum seeking will need to attempt to move thedebate away from this; indeed, we saw supporters of asylum attempting preciselythis in extracts 2 and 7.

It is noteworthy that the term ‘asylum seeker’ is used at all in this debate. Assomeone who is hoping to be granted refugee status, perhaps a more appropriateterm would be ‘refugee applicant’. However, the sense that the term ‘asylumseeker’ conveys that the term ‘refugee applicant’ does not is that these are peoplewho have come here to take something from us. This is significant because ifsomeone is coming to seek something from us, a rather different moral responsibilityis required from the host country than would be required in the case of an applicationfor a certain legal status.

The current category distinction, which draws a contrast between ‘genuine’ and‘illegal’ immigrants, is just one of many possible classifications that could be used.While we do not mean to imply that it should necessarily be this way, considerthe possible impact of the use of a different set of categories. Imagine, for a


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

moment, if instead of using the categories of ‘bogus’ and ‘genuine’ we separatedasylum seekers into those who are fleeing their home country because they havebeen tortured and may be killed upon their return, and those who may not.Other ways of categorizing asylum seekers could be in terms of those who havefled a country in which the British army is involved and those who have not, or interms of those who have come from ex-British colonies and those who have not.Each of these classifications would paint a very different picture of what an asylumseeker is; in particular, they would focus on the factors causing asylum seekers toleave a country, and not on the legitimacy of their claim to be here. This wouldalso shift the debate away from the possible costs to this country and toward afocus on the situation of, and our responsibilities towards, the asylum seekersthemselves.

The asylum debate is a powerful one because it has a profound bearing on andshapes how asylum seekers will ultimately be treated. And yet the debate itself isnot an equal opportunity phenomenon: Those who set the agenda and the terms ofthe debate – and whose voices constitute what we have defined as the dialogicnetwork surrounding asylum seeking – tend to have more power than those whodo not. Indeed, the speech act of categorizing can itself be an exertion of power,and in these extracts we can see politicians, journalists, and other interestedparties attempting to gain and wield power.

Fowler (1991) argues that categories are instruments of discrimination, and thatthey gain their credibility through discourse. The categories of ‘refugee’ and ‘econ-omic migrant’ are given credibility in these extracts and help make prejudicial ideasabout asylum seekers ‘congeal’ in apparently ‘natural’ forms. This is why it is import-ant that critical analysts focus on the way in which categories are used in talk. AsWetherell shows, power ‘seems to be the capacity to “articulate” and to makethose articulations not only “stick” but become hegemonic and pervasive’ (1998,p. 393). In this sense, asylum seekers remain a weak group being acted upon bythose with power. Perhaps this situation would improve if asylum seekers themselveswere given a voice (Lynn & Lea, 2005).

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Nick Lynn and delegates at the BPS Quinquennial conferenceat the University of Manchester in 2005, and two anonymous reviewers, for theirhelpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. This research was funded bythe Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) postgraduate studentship PTA-030-2002-00144.

Notes

1 See Speer and Potter (2000) for a discussion of the notions of attitude and cognitionin DP.

2 Jack Straw is the ex Labour Home Secretary.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

3 As Barnes et al. (2004, p. 202) claim, talk about ‘“who” can belong “where” is aprejudiced topic that requires an amount of discursive work to make it safelysayable’.

4 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk_politics/2004/party_policies_a-t_a_glance/default.stm and http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def!news.story.page&obj_id!119049

References

Antaki, C., & Leudar, I. (2001). Recruiting the record: Using opponents’ exact words inparliamentary argumentation. Text, 21, 467–488.

Bakhtin, M. (1973). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics (R. W. Rotsel, Trans.). AnnArbor, MI: Ardis. (Original work published 1929)

Barnes, R., Auburn, T., & Lea, S. (2004). Citizenship in practice. British Journal of SocialPsychology, 43,187–206.

Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London: Sage.Billig, M. (2001). Humour and hatred: The racist jokes of the Ku Klux Klan. Discourse and

Society, 12, 267–289.Billig, M., & MacMillan, K. (2005). Metaphor, idiom and ideology: The search for ‘no

smoking guns’ across time. Discourse and Society, 16, 459–480.Bloch, A. (2001). The importance of convention status: A case study of the UK.

Sociological Research Online, 6(1), http://www.socresonline.org.uk/6/1/bloch.html

Bloch, A., & Schuster, L. (2005). Asylum policy under New Labour. Benefits, 13, 115–118.Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, UK: Polity.British National Party. (2004). London elections – the candidates [booklet]. Greater London

Returning Officer: London, http://2004. londonelects.org.uk/resources/whole_booklet_a5_14.html.

Chomsky, N. (1989). Necessary illusions. London: Pluto Press.Condor, S. (1987). “Race stereotypes” and racist discourse. Text, 8, 69–89.Coole, C. (2002). A warm welcome? Scottish and UK media reporting of an asylum-

seeker murder. Media, Culture and Society, 24, 839–852.Curran, J., & Seaton, J. (1997). Power without responsibility. Routledge: London.Dixon, J., &Wetherell, M. (2004). On discourse and dirty nappies: Gender, the division

of labour and the social psychology of distributive justice. Theory and Psychology, 14,167–189.

Edley, N. (2001). Analysing masculinity: Interpretative repertoires, ideological dilem-mas and subject positions. In M. Wetherell, S. Taylor, & S. Yates (Eds.), Discourseas data: A guide for analysts (pp. 189–228). London: Sage.

Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London: Sage.Edwards, D. (2003). Analyzing racial discourse: The discursive psychology of mind–

world relationships. In H. van den Berg, M. Wetherell, & H. Houtcoup (Eds.),Analyzing race talk: Multidisciplinary approaches to the interview (pp. 31–48).Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive psychology. Sage: London.Fairclough, N. (2001). The discourse of New Labour: Critical discourse analysis. In

M. Wetherell, S. Taylor, & S. J. Yates (Eds.), Discourse as data (pp. 229–266).London: Sage.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the news. Routledge: London.Gibney, M. J. (2004). The ethics and politics of asylum. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

University Press.Hester, S., & Eglin, P. (1997). Culture in action: Studies in membership categorization analy-

sis. Washington, DC: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversa-tion Analysis/University Press of America.

Hester, S., & Housley, W. (Eds.). (2002). Language, interaction and national identity.Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). (2003). Asylum in the UK: An IPPR factfile.London.

Layton-Henry, Z. (1992). The politics of immigration. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Lea, S. J. (1996). ‘That ism on the end makes it nasty’: Talking about race with young

White South Africans. South African Journal of Psychology, 26, 183–190.Lea, M. (2004, May 11). Asylum Inc. The Sun, pp. 14–15.Leudar, I., Marsland, V., & Nekvapil, J. (2004). On membership categorization: ‘Us’,

‘them’ and ‘doing violence’ in political discourse. Discourse and Society, 15, 243–266.Leudar, I., & Nekvapil, J. (2004). Media dialogical networks and political argumenta-

tion. Journal of Language and Politics, 3, 247–266.Lynn,N., &Lea, S. (2003). ‘A phantommenace and the new apartheid’: The social construc-

tion of asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom. Discourse and Society, 14, 425–452.Lynn, N., & Lea, S. (2005). Graffiti and the asylum seeker: Text, context and social

comment. Visual Communication, 4, 39–63.Mehan, H. (1997). The discourse of the illegal immigration debate: A case study in the

politics of representation. Discourse and Society, 8, 249–270.Philo, G., & Beattie, L. (1999). Race, migration and the media. In G. Philo (Ed.),

Message received: Glasgow Media Group research 1993–1998 (pp. 171–196).Harlow, UK: Longman.

Pomerantz, A. (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of pre-ferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structuresof social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 79–112). Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press.

Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes andbehaviour. London: Sage.

Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1998). Social representations, discourse analysis, andracism. In U. Flick (Ed.), The psychology of the social (pp. 138–155). Cambridge,UK: Cambridge University Press.

Randall, M. (2003, December 8). Guest media alert. Asylum and immigration: Comparing theDaily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent. Retrieved 19 December,2003, from http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.html

Rapley, M., & Augoustinos, M. (2002). ‘National identity’ as a rhetorical resource. InS. Hester & W. Housley (Eds.), Language, interaction and national identity(pp. 194–210) Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

Reynolds, J., & Wetherell, M. (2003). The discursive climate of singleness: The conse-quences for women’s negotiation of a single identity. Feminism and Psychology, 13,489–510.

Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Sales, R. (2002). The deserving and the undeserving. Critical Social Policy, 22, 456–478.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

Schuster, L. (2004). The exclusion of asylum seekers in Europe. Oxford, UK: Centre onMigration, Policy and Society.

Schuster, S., & Bloch, L. (2002). Asylum and welfare: Contemporary debates. CriticalSocial Policy, 22, 393–414.

Schuster, L., & Solomos, J (2001). Asylum, refuge and public policy: Current trends andfuture dilemmas Sociological Research Online, 6(1), http://www.socresonline.or-g.uk/6/1/schuster.html

Speer, S., & Potter, J. (2000). The management of heterosexist talk: Conversationalresources and prejudiced claims. Discourse and Society, 11, 543–572.

Steiner, N. (2000). Arguing about asylum. New York: St. Martins Press.Stokoe, E. H. (2003). Mothers, single women and sluts: Gender, morality and member-

ship categorization in neighbour disputes. Feminism and Psychology, 13, 317–344.Togeby, L. (1998). Prejudice and tolerance in a period of increasing ethnic diversity and

growing unemployment: Denmark since 1970. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21, 1137–1153.

United Nations High Commission for Refugees. (2003). Public information, UK. Retrieved19 December, 2003, fromhttp://www.unhcr.org.uk/info/briefings/basic_facts/definitions.html

van den Berg, H., Wetherell, M., & Houtkoop-Steenstra, H. (Eds.). (2003). Analyzingrace talk: Multidisciplinary approaches to the interview. Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press.

van der Valk, I. (2003). Right-wing parliamentary discourse on immigration in France.Discourse and Society, 14, 309–348.

van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Elite discourse and racism. London: Sage.van Dijk, T. A. (1997). Political discourse and racism: Describing Others in Western

parliaments. Communication and Human Values, 24, 31–64.van Dijk, T. A. (2000a). On the analysis of parliamentary debates on immigration. In

M. Reisigl & R. Wodak (Eds.), The semiotics of racism: Approaches to critical discourseanalysis (pp. 85–103). Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

van Dijk, T. A. (2000b). Ideologies, racism, discourse: Debates on immigration andethnic issues. In J. ter Wal & M. Verkuyten (Eds.), Comparative perspectives onracism (pp. 91–116). Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

Verkuyen, M. (2001). “Abnormalization” of ethnic minorities in conversation. BritishJournal of Social Psychology, 40, 257–278.

Verkuyten, M. (2005). Immigration discourses and their impact on multiculturalism: Adiscursive and experimental study. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44, 223–241.

Wetherell, M. (1998). Positioning and interpretative repertoires: Conversation analysisand post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse and Society, 9, 387–412.

Wetherell, M., & Edley, N. (1999). Negotiating hegemonic masculinity: Imaginary pos-itions and psycho-discursive practices. Feminism and Psychology, 9, 335–356.

Wetherell, M., & Potter, J. (1992). Mapping the language of racism. London: HarvestWheatsheaf.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

Simon Goodman is an ESRC-funded research student (grant number PTA-030-2002-

00144) in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester, UK,

supervised by Dr Susan Speer. His research explores the discursive construction

of asylum seekers, and his interests include discourse analysis, critical discursive

psychology, and the social construction of categories, boundaries, nationhood,

and prejudice – particularly in relation to asylum and immigration. [email:

[email protected]]

Susan A. Speer is a Senior Lecturer in Language and Communication in the School of

Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on topics

and debates at the intersection of feminism, discourse, and conversation analysis. She is

currently Principal Investigator (collaborating with Professor Richard Green, Imperial

College School of Medicine, UK) on a three-year ESRC-funded project ‘Transsexual

Identities: Constructions of Gender in an NHS Gender Identity Clinic’, which is part of

the Social Identities and Social Action Research Programme. Her first book Gender

Talk: Feminism, Discourse and Conversation Analysis was published by Routledge in

2005, and she is collaborating with Elizabeth Stokoe (Loughborough University, UK) on

an edited collection entitled Conversation and Gender for Cambridge University Press.

[email: [email protected]]

Appendix: transcription notation

(.) A pause that is hearable but too short to assign a time to(2.0) The length of a pause or gap, in seconds[overlap] Square brackets indicate the onset and end of overlapping

speechºquiet º Degree signs enclose speech that is noticeably quieter than

the surrounding talkRea::lly Colons mark elongation of the prior sound" An upward arrow indicates rising intonation# A downward arrow indicates falling intonationLOUD Capitals mark talk that is noticeably louder than the

surrounding speechUnderline Underlining marks speaker emphasis.faster, ‘More than’ and ‘less than’ signs enclose speeded up talk! An equals sign indicates immediate latching of successive

talk(Brackets) Single brackets enclose the transcriber’s best guess (empty

brackets enclose talk that is not hearable)((laughs)) Double brackets enclose comments from the transcriber.hhh A dot before an h or series of hs indicates an in-breathhh An h or series of hs marks an out-breath. A full stop indicates a stopping intonation


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

, A comma indicates a continuing intonation? A question mark indicates a rising inflection- A dash marks a sharp cut-off of a word or sound( ) Inaudible


Dow

nloa

ded

by [U

nive

rsity

of P

enns

ylva

nia]

at 0

9:11

07

Sept

embe

r 201

1

Documents

Goodman Speer 2007