The uses of stereotype in everyday argument

Abstract

In this article, first of all a concept of stereotype with respect to linguistic analysis is suggested. This concept preserves the interdisciplinary character of the term ‘stereotype’. Second, a notion of argumentation as a specific kind of interaction is developed. On the basis of an integrated multistructural and multifunctional analysis of argumentation, the different roles of stereotypes on the micro- and macrosemantic, as well as on the interactive realization level, are discussed. The most important feature of stereotypes in argumentation was found to be their quality of being expressions of collective knowledge. Consequently, stereotypes are defined in relation to other terms of common knowledge such as clichés, slogans, proverbs, laws-in-use, norms, and loci. On the basis of this classification, stereotypes and other expressions of common knowledge are explained not only in semantic terms, but also as inference triggering devices for the implicature from the semantic to the interactional level of interpretation. In German, the particles ja, eben and doch serve as markers for the common knowledge as a prerequisite for this implicature. The results of this study are based upon the analysis of four actual German conversations.