This article examines ethnic solidarity as a phenomenon contingent on how ethnicity is formulated as a category of experience and deployed as a category of interpretation in interaction. Analysis of interethnic complaint sequences from Romanian and Hungarian group discussions — consisting of generic formulations of complaints as commonsense knowledge followed by personal experience stories offered as illustrations of the generic complaint — shows that the accomplishment of ethnic solidarity depends on the discursive practices implicated in constructing complaints by reference to commonsense knowledge or personal experience. By analyzing the discursive construction of commonsense and experience-based interethnic complaints and its implications for the achievement of group solidarity, this research extends the insights of the sociological and anthropological literature on the situational and contextual nature of ethnicity, and contributes to conversation analytic approaches to the deployment of shared knowledge and experience in interaction.
Banks, M. ( 1996) Ethnicity: Anthropological Constructions. London: Routledge.
2.
Barth, F. ( 1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference. London: Allen & Unwin.
3.
Brubaker, R. ( 2002) ‘Ethnicity Without Groups’, European Journal of SociologyXLIII(2): 163-89.
4.
Brubaker, R., Feinschmidt, M., Fox, J. and Grancea, L. ( 2006) Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
5.
Brubaker, R., Loveman, M. and Stamatov, P. ( 2004) ‘Ethnicity as Cognition’, Theory and Society33: 31-64.
6.
Clift, R. ( 2006) ‘Indexing Stance: Reported Speech as an Interactional Evidential’, Journal of Sociolinguistics10(5): 569-95.
7.
Cohen, R. ( 1978) ‘Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology’ , Annual Review of Anthropology7: 379-403.
8.
Cornell, S. and Hartmann, D. ( 1998) Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World . Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
9.
De Fina, A. ( 2003) Identity in Narrative: A Study of Immigrant Discourse . Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
10.
De Fina, A. ( 2006) ‘Group Identity, Narratives and Self Representations’ , in A. De Fina, D. Schiffrin and M. Bamberg (eds) Discourse and Identity, pp. 351-75. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
11.
Díaz, F., Antaki, C. and Collins, A.F. ( 1996) ‘Using Completion to Formulate a Statement Collectively’ , Journal of Pragmatics26: 525-42.
12.
Drew, P. ( 1998) ‘Complaints about Transgressions and Misconduct’ , Research on Language and Social Interaction31: 295-325.
13.
Drew, P. ( 2003) ‘Precision and Exaggeration in Interaction’ , American Sociological Review68(6): 917-38.
14.
Drew, P. and Holt, E. ( 1988) ‘Complainable Matters: The Use of Idiomatic Expressions in Making Complaints’, Social Problems35: 398-417.
15.
Edwards, D. ( 1994) ‘Script Formulations: A Study of Event Descriptions in Conversation’, Journal of Language and Social Psychology13: 211-47.
16.
Edwards, D. ( 1995) ‘Two to Tango: Script Formulations, Dispositions, and Rhetorical Symmetry in Relationship Troubles Talk’, Research on Language and Social Interaction28: 319-50.
17.
Edwards, D. ( 2000) ‘Extreme Case Formulations: Softeners, Investment, and Doing Nonliteral’, Research on Language and Social Interaction33: 347-73.
18.
Edwards, D. ( 2005) ‘Moaning, Whinging and Laughing: The Subjective Side of Complaints’, Discourse Studies7(1): 5-29.
19.
Edwards, D. ( 2008) ‘Some Functions of Subject-side and Object-side Assessments in Conversation’, paper presented at the Language, Culture, Mind III International Conference, Odense, 14-17 July.
20.
Eriksen, T.H. ( 1993) Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives . New York/London: Pluto.
21.
Eriksen, T.H. ( 2005) ‘Economies of Ethnicity’, in J. Carrier (ed.) A Handbook of Economic Anthropology , pp. 353-69. Cheltenham/Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
22.
Fox, A.B. ( 2001) ‘Evidentiality: Authority, Responsibility, and Entitlement in English Conversation’, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology11(2): 167-92.
23.
Goodwin, C. ( 1996) ‘Transparent Vision’, in E. Ochs, E.A. Schegloff and S. Thompson (eds) Interaction and Grammar, pp. 370-404. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Handelman, D. (1977) ‘The Organization of Ethnicity’, Ethnic Groups1: 187-200.
24.
Hansen, A.D. ( 2005) ‘A Practical Task: Ethnicity as a Resource in Social Interaction’, Research on Language and Social Interaction38: 63-104.
25.
Hechter, M. ( 1987) Principles of Group Solidarity, 4th edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
26.
Heritage, J. ( 2002a) ‘Oh-prefaced Responses to Assessments: A Method of Modifying Agreement/ Disagreement’, in C. Ford, B. Fox and S. Thompson (eds) The Language of Turn and Sequence, pp. 196-224. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
27.
Heritage, J. ( 2002b) ‘The Limits of Questioning: Negative Interrogatives and Hostile Question Content’, Journal of Pragmatics34: 1427-46.
28.
Heritage, J. ( 2005) ‘Cognition in Discourse’, in H. te Molder and J. Potter (eds) Conversation and Cognition, pp. 184-202. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
29.
Heritage, J. and Raymond, G. ( 2005) ‘The Terms of Agreement: Indexing Epistemic Authority and Subordination in Talk-in-Interaction’, Social Psychology Quarterly68: 15-38.
30.
Holt, E. ( 1996) ‘Reporting on Talk: The Use of Direct Reported Speech in Conversation’, Research on Language and Social Interaction29(3): 219-45.
31.
Holt, E. ( 2000) ‘Reporting and Reacting: Concurrent Responses to Reported Speech’, Research on Language and Social Interaction33(4): 425-54.
32.
Jenkins, R. ( 1997) Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations. London: Sage.
33.
Koshik, I. ( 2002) ‘A Conversation Analytic Study of Yes/No Questions Which Imply Reversed Polarity Assertions’, Journal of Pragmatics34: 1851-77.
34.
Lerner, G.H. ( 1991) ‘On the Syntax of Sentences in Progress’, Language in Society20: 441-58.
35.
Lerner, G.H. ( 1993) ‘Collectivities in Action: Establishing the Relevance of Conjoined Participation in Conversation’, Text13: 213-45.
36.
Lerner, G.H. ( 1996) ‘On the "Semi-permeable" Character of Grammatical Units in Conversation: Conditional Entry into the Turn Space of Another Speaker’ , in E. Ochs, E.A. Schegloff and S.A. Thompson (eds) Interaction and Grammar, pp. 238-76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
37.
Lerner, G.H. and Takagi, T. ( 1999) ‘On the Place of Linguistic Resources in the Organization of Talk-in-Interaction: A Co-investigation of English and Japanese Grammatical Practices’, Journal of Pragmatics31: 49-75.
38.
Moerman, M. ( 1974) ‘Accomplishing Ethnicity’, in R. Turner (ed.) Ethnomethodology, pp. 54-68. Harmondsworth, MD: Penguin Education Series.
39.
Moerman, M. ( 1988) Talking Culture: Ethnography and Conversation Analysis . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
40.
Moerman, M. ( 1993) ‘Ariadne’s Thread and Indra’s Net: Reflections on Ethnography, Ethnicity, Identity, Culture, and Interaction’, Research on Language and Social Interaction26: 85-98.
41.
Nagel, J. ( 1994) ‘Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture’, Social Problems41: 152-76.
42.
Nielsen, F. ( 1985) ‘Toward a Theory of Ethnic Solidarity in Modern Societies’, American Sociological Review50(2): 133-49.
43.
Ochs, E. and Capps, L. ( 2001) Living Narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pomerantz, A.M. ( 1984) ‘Agreeing and Disagreeing with Assessments: Some Features of Preferred/ Dispreferred Turn Shapes’, in J.M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, pp. 57-101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
46.
Pomerantz, A. ( 1986) ‘Extreme Case Formulations: A Way of Legitimizing Claims’, Human Studies9: 219-29.
47.
Raymond, G. and Heritage, J. ( 2006) ‘The Epistemics of Social Relations: Owning Grandchildren’ , Language in Society35(5): 677-705.
48.
Sacks, H. ( 1972) ‘On the Analyzability of Stories by Children’ , in J.J. Gumperz and D. Hymes (eds) Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, pp. 325-45. New York, NY : Rinehart and Winston.
49.
Sacks, H. ( 1974) ‘An Analysis of the Course of a Joke’s Telling in Conversation’, in R. Bauman and J. Sherzer (eds) Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking, pp. 337-53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
50.
Sacks, H. ( 1992) Lectures on Conversation (Vols I and II, ed. G. Jefferson). Oxford: Blackwell .
51.
Schegloff, E.A. ( 1996) ‘Some Practices for Referring to Persons in Talk-in-Interaction: A Partial Sketch of a Systematics’, in B. Fox (ed.) Studies in Anaphora. Amsterdam : John Benjamins.
52.
Schegloff, E.A. ( 2005) ‘On Complainability’, Social Problems52(4): 449-76.
53.
Scott, G.M. ( 1990) ‘A Resynthesis of the Primordial and Circumstantial Approaches to Ethnic Group Solidarity: Towards an Explanatory Model’ , Ethnic and Racial Studies13: 147-71.
54.
Sneijder, P. and te Molder, H.F.M. ( 2005) ‘Moral Logic and Logical Morality: Attributions of Responsibility and Blame in Online Discourse on Veganism’, Discourse & Society16(5): 675-96.
55.
Stivers, T. ( 2005) ‘Modified Repeats: One Method for Asserting Primary Rights from Second Position’, Research on Language and Social Interaction38(2): 131-58.
56.
Stivers, T. ( 2008) ‘Stance, Alignment, and Affiliation During Storytelling: When Nodding is a Token of Affiliation’, Research on Language and Social Interaction41(1): 31-57.
57.
Stokoe, E. and Edwards, D. ( 2007) ‘"Black This, Black That": Racial Insults and Reported Speech in Neighbour Complaints and Police Interrogations’, Discourse & Society18(3): 337-72.
58.
Tileagă, C. ( 2005) ‘Accounting for Extreme Prejudice and Legitimating Blame in Talk About the Romanies’, Discourse & Society16(5): 603-24.
59.
Tileagă, C. ( 2006) ‘Representing the "Other": A Discursive Analysis of Prejudice and Moral Exclusion in Talk about Romanies’, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology16(1): 19-41.
60.
Tilly, C. ( 1973) ‘Do Communities Act?’, Sociological lnquiry43(3-4): 209-40.
61.
Van Dijk, T.A. ( 1984) Prejudice in Discourse: An Analysis of Ethnic Prejudice in Cognition and Conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
62.
Van Dijk, T.A. ( 1987) Communicating Racism: Ethnic Prejudice in Thought and Talk. London: Sage.
63.
Van Dijk, T.A. ( 1993) ‘Stories and Racism’, in D.K. Mumby (ed.) Narrative and Social Control, pp. 121-42. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
64.
Verkuyten, M. ( 2001) ‘"Abnormalization" of Ethnic Minorities in Conversation’ , British Journal of Social Psychology40: 257-78.
65.
Verkuyten, M., de Jong, W. and Masson, C.N. ( 1995) ‘The Construction of Ethnic Categories: Discourses of Ethnicity in the Netherlands’, Ethnic and Racial Studies18(2): 251-76.
66.
Weber, M. ( 1978) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (edited by G. Roth and C. Wittich). Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
67.
Whitehead, K.A. (forthcoming) ‘Categorizing the Categorizer: The Management of Racial Common Sense in Interaction’, Social Psychology Quarterly.
68.
Whitehead, K.A. and Lerner, G. ( 2009) ‘When are Persons "White"? On Some Practical Asymmetries of Racial Reference in Talk-in-Interaction’, Discourse & Society20(5): 613-41.
69.
Wodak, R., de Cillia, R., Reisigl, M. and Liebhart, K. ( 1999) The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
