This paper investigates how a caller to a talkback radio show in New Zealand engages in trolling to make negative claims about the use of Te Reo Maori in New Zealand public discourse, while avoiding explicit accusations of racism. Utilizing Membership Category Analysis, this study analyzes how this is done in spoken interaction. One specific method of avoiding having one’s discourse characterized as racist is identified; that of relying on the inferential nature of social categories to facilitate the talkback host and listening audience in drawing their own potentially negative conclusions about the social category Maori and the use of Te Reo Maori in New Zealand public life.
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