Linguistic Intergroup Bias: Stereotype Perpetuation Through Language

Publisher Summary Language is considered as the major means by which stereotypes are communicated through interpersonal discourse, by which they are transmitted from generation to generation, and by which the press and other mass media create social representations of social groups. Language also constitutes the principal means by which sociologists and social-psychologists tend to measure stereotypes. Language abstraction plays a subtle but important role in stereotype transmission and maintenance. The aim of this chapter is to describe language abstraction and its development over the past years. The chapter discusses its implications and proposes extensions of the model to related areas. The linguistic intergroup bias (LIB) model describes a systematic bias in language use, which can contribute to the perpetuation of stereotypes. The chapter describes the research paradigm most frequently employed in LIB studies, reviews empirical findings testing the main predictions, addresses questions of external validity, compares hypotheses about the underlying mechanisms of the LIB, speculate about extensions of the model beyond intergroup relations, and finally discusses a number of open problems that are of interest.

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