Teun A. van Dijk is a Visiting Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. From 1980 to 2006 he held a personal chair as Professor of Discourse Studies at the University of Amsterdam. A world leading scholar of discourse studies and author of over 250 books and articles, he edits the SAGE journals Disourse & Society, Discourse Studies, and Discourse and Communication.
How does everyday talk contribute to the spread and acceptance of ethnic prejudice? Communicating Racism is a revealing interdisciplinary study of ethnic prejudices and the ways in which they are diffused through interpersonal communication and intergroup interaction. In this clearly written and comprehensive study, van Dijk establishes a crucial link between the cognitive, social and communicative dimensions of racism. He examines: the social psychology of ethnic attitudes; the cognitive psychology of ethnic prejudice; and the social context of prejudice; the interpersonal communication of racism. By analysing informal discourse and the reproduction of racism within the white majority, the author offers us a new understanding of many deep-rooted and poorly understood patterns of prejudice.
