Latino Identity

Journal of Pragmatics xxx (2018) 1e14
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Pragmatics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma
Globalization, transnational identities, and conflict talk: The

superdiversity and complexity of the Latino identity
s-Conejos Blitvich
Pilar Garce
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of English, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: The aim of this paper is to analyze the functionality of conflict talk (Grimshaw, 1990; Bou-
Available online xxx Franch and Garce s-Conejos Blitvich, 2014) as an ideologically loaded, indirect index of
identity construction (Kiesling, 2013). It focuses on the construction of the Latino identity:
Keywords: a transnational (de Fina & Perrino, 2013), top-down identity, that was created in the 1970s
Superdiversity by the Nixon administration.
Complexity
The data for this study comprise the comments posted on a CNN discussion forum in
Latino identity
response to Soledad O'Brian's question “What did you think about Latino in America?” A
Impoliteness
Conflict talk
cursory look at the corpus indicated that many Latino participants felt insulted arguing
Digital discourse CNN e with its focus on illegal Latinos e had presented the community in a bad light.
Globalization Thus, transnational identities and the internet, crucially related to globalization, come
together in this study.
Results show that conflict talk plays a major role in the construction of intragroup
dissociation both thematically and at the microlevel. Furthermore, the fact that complex
selective dissociation (Garcia-Bedolla, 2003), rather than simpler dis/affiliation processes
routinely associated with the construction of social identities (van Dijk 1998) is more at
play in the corpus seems to confirm the need for complexity in the study of culture and
identity (Blommaert, 2013a).
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The main aim of this paper is to analyze the functionality of conflict talk (Grimshaw, 1990; Bou-Franch and Garce s-Conejos
Blitvich, 2014). Conflict is here seen as an ideologically loaded, indirect index of identity (Kiesling, 2013) involved in the
construction of the superdiversity and complexity (Blommaert, 2013a) of a transnational identity, namely Latinos in the
context of the US (De Fina, 2013). More specifically, the analysis will focus on processes of intragroup disaffiliation.
Vertovec (2007: 1025) argued that globalization has resulted in a diversification of diversity. Hence, it is not enough to see
diversity in terms of ethnicity, since variables such as “different migration statuses and their concomitant entitlements and
restrictions of rights, divergent labour market experiences, discreet gender and age profiles, patterns of spatial distribution,
and mixed local area responses by service providers” play a role in how people of the same ethnic group live and acquire
experience. To further this line of research, this paper seeks to study of the role that mobility and complexity play in the
construction of late modern identities and more specifically the coexistence of conviviality and conflict within superdiverse
populations (De Fina et al., 2017: viii).
Thus, focusing on the functionality of conflict talk, this paper analyzes comments posted on a CNN discussion forum in
response to the question “What did you think about Latino in America?” posed by former anchor Soledad O'Brien. O'Brien
E-mail address: pgblitvi@uncc.edu.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.02.001
0378-2166/© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article in press as: Blitvich, P.G.-C., Globalization, transnational identities, and conflict talk: The superdiversity and
complexity of the Latino identity, Journal of Pragmatics (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.02.001
2 P.G.-C. Blitvich / Journal of Pragmatics xxx (2018) 1e14
hosted a two-part documentary series titled “Latino in America” which, focusing on several individuals sharing the last name
Garcia, aimed at presenting a comprehensive picture of the Latino experience in the US. A cursory look at the corpus indicated
that many participants in the discussion, self-identifying as Latinos, felt uneasy about the documentary as they believed it had
presented the Latino community in a bad light, by accentuating negative attributes and not dwelling on the positive ones.
More specifically, the analysis seeks to unveil the micro processes involved in intragroup disaffiliation whereby participants
selectively dissociate from those representations of internal others1 who, in their view, perpetuate the stereotypes associated
with the group. The interconnections between on/off line universes are of capital importance to the understanding of what a
superdiverse society entails (Blommaert and Varis, 2013: 144).
The paper is structured as follows. The background section (Section 2) is divided into three sub-sections. Section 2.1 argues
that conflict talk is a more inclusive term than impoliteness and allows impoliteness scholars to look at phenomena which are
conflictual, but not necessarily aggressive in nature or aimed at causing offense. Section 2.2 looks at the relationship between
globalization and identity, with especial attention to the Latino identity, a transnational identity. The Latino identity can be
described as a superdiverse identity in the sense of Vertovec (2007) and Blommaert (2013a) and thus needs to be understood
in the context of globalization. For its part, Section 2.3 explores the connections between conflict and identity construction
processes and ends by posing the research questions that guide the analysis. Section 3 describes the methodological approach
taken. Section 4 presents the qualitative and quantitative results obtained in the two-part analysis, whereas Section 5 dis-
cusses and interprets these findings. The paper concludes with Section 6 where the research questions are answered and
additional discussion and some suggestions for future research are provided.
2. Background
2.1. Issues of nomenclature: why conflict talk rather than impoliteness?
Impoliteness research is a relatively recent development in the field of politeness. It started in the late 90s with Culpeper's
(1996) and Kienpointner's (1997) positioning papers and came to fruition in the mid-2000s (Locher and Bousfield, 2008).
Sifianou (2010: 119), for instance, commented that 2008 could be dubbed “The Year of Impoliteness”. However, terms such as
rudeness or impoliteness have been proven difficult to define (Culpeper, 2008, 2011; Terkourafi, 2008). Furthermore, much of
impoliteness research has drawn from interaction displayed as confrontainment, such as “conflictebased televisual enter-
tainment” (Lorenzo-Dus, 2008: 83) or characteristically confrontational genres of media discourse, (see, among others,
Culpeper, 2005; Garce s-Conejos Blitvich, 2009, 2010a, b; Lorenzo-Dus, 2009; Bayraktarog lu and Sifianou, 2012; Perelmutter,
2013) such as reality TV, which is by definition scripted, storyboarded, and highly edited. For its part, research offering new
participant frameworks for analyzing impoliteness in multi-party interaction has substantially drawn on scripted, fictional
discourse (Dynel, 2012; Ka dar and Haugh, 2013). One interesting exception is recent work by Ka dar (2017) in which the
author looks at four case studies of naturally occurring interaction that reveal the interface between im/politeness and ritual.
The kind of data impoliteness research has traditionally been based on has, as it were, oversimplified the task of locating
instances of impoliteness, which are not necessarily so clear cut and evident in real interaction. Far from it, impoliteness
occurrences are subtle and often require an in-depth knowledge of participants and relationships to be properly understood
(Dobs and Garce s-Conejos Blitvich, 2013). Therefore, although expanding the scope of impoliteness research to encompass
unelicited, naturally occurring interaction presents challenges related to both data collection and analysis, it can also lead to
new insights into the everyday, often more understated, manifestations of impoliteness. As Blommaert (2013b: 620) argues,
we will continue learning about how people live and behave even if “data are not spectacular instances of acute conflict”.
One of the hurdles in the development of the field has been issues of nomenclature and the disparity between first and
second order uses of the labels that describe the phenomena under study (Garce s-Conejos Blitvich et al., 2010; Garce
s-
Conejos Blitvich, 2012). Sometimes, as in the case of politeness, often associated with mitigation and indirectness, labels
can be restrictive and limiting. I believe that conflict talk is a more comprehensive term to refer to the gamut of problematical
forms of interaction: from disagreement (Sifianou, 2012) to hate speech (Garce s-Conejos Blitvich and Sifianou, 2017). Along
the same way that politeness is much more than just mitigation of threat, impoliteness can be seen as one of many ways in
which conflict talk can be interpreted. Rather than just focusing on aggression and threat to face, it would be worth inves-
tigating how conflict talk can be used other than to cause offense.
Conflict2 is an inherent part of human communication. Any verbal action can be potentially conflictive, what makes it so is the
reaction it gets (Hutchby, 2001). That's why conflict needs to be understood in situated terms, since as Grimshaw argues “conflict
is in the eye of the beholder” (1990: 283). Conflict involves some measure of different positionings and is not inherently negative,
as it can be used to build communal life (Garce s-Conejos Blitvich, 2009; Pagliai, 2010). Furthermore, conflict may not always be
resolved as conflicting positions are attached to particular identities that would cease to exist if the conflictive situation ended
(Bou-Franch and Garce s-Conejos Blitvich, 2014). In this paper, I am more interested in what conflict does than on what conflict is.
For Example, as recent research has shown (see Section 2.3 below), conflict is intimately linked to identity construction.
1
The term internal others, or national strangers who cannot abide by “our” norms or embody the ideal national character because of their cultural
collective difference (Tileag
a, 2005), is used here in a slightly different way to refer to in-group members from which selective dissociation is carried out.
2
For a recent discussion on definitions of conflict and aggression, please see Janicki (2017).
P.G.-C. Blitvich / Journal of Pragmatics xxx (2018) 1e14 3
2.2. Globalization and identity
The Latino identity is a transnational (De Fina and Perrino, 2013), top-down, imposed identity, one that was created in the
1970s as a census category by the Nixon administration to refer to all immigrants that could trace their roots back to Latin
America/Spain.
Transnational identities and the internet, crucially related to globalization, come together in this study. Taken together,
these two forces have re-shaped social life around the world (Blommaert, 2013c). The internet, more specifically, gives us
unprecedented access to public discourse and has contributed to the growth of a transnational public sphere (Tho €rn, 2007).
The transnational public sphere e here viewed as a contentious arena within global civil society e is an ideal site to research
transnational identities which are associated with transnational publics, defined by Olesen (2005: 435) as social spaces for
activism.3 Understanding transnational identities requires situating them in a globalized world. And no matter which way
globalization is defined, there are some core elements that appear in all definitions: the idea of trans-border relations,
especially in the economic realm, coupled with the increased mobility of goods, capital, people, and ideas (Dutceac, 2004: 20).
Furthermore, globalization is frequently discussed in terms of its impact on identity.
Different scholars, however, have disparate views on how globalization affects identity. For Example, Naz et al. (2011: 2)
argue that through globalization the entire world is changing into a single place, single culture, and single identity.
Conversely, Tomlinson (2003: 271) states that “globalization actually proliferates rather than destroys identities … global-
ization is really the globalization of modernity and modernity is the harbinger of identity”. Others (see Dutceac, 2004: 24) see
globalization as the trigger of ethnic conflict and nationalism which surges as a reaction against the pressure of cultural
homogenization. Castells (1996) sums up this position well when he argues that our lives are being shaped by the conflicting
trends of globalization and identity.
Recent advances in sociolinguistic theory and practice also focus on globalization which they see as having had a radical
impact on changing the way we perceive identity. These two main changes, according to Blommaert, are superdiversity and
complexity. Regarding superdiversity, Blommaert argues that globalization has drastically changed the way we perceive the
“other”. This is due to the interaction of new and more complex forms of migration and communication as well as of
knowledge circulation. According to Blommaert (2013a) this has generated a situation in which two questions have become
hard to answer: who is the Other? And who are we? The Other is now a category in constant fluctuation, “a moving target
about whom very little can be presupposed “(5). He argues that we have become also much more complex with lives
distributed over on and off-line lives with access to worlds of knowledge and information we could not have dreamed of a
couple of decades ago:
The impact of superdiversity questions the foundations of our knowledge and assumptions about societies, how they
operate and function at all levels, from the lowest level of human face to face communication all the way up to the
highest levels of structure in the world system (Blommaert, 2013a: 5e6).
The changes in the perception of the Other due to superdiversity are especially relevant to my study since, as we will see
below, it focuses on internal-othering processes, i.e. intragroup disaffiliation, more specifically on selective dissociation
(Garcia-Bedolla, 2003).
Regarding complexity, Blommaert (2013a) argues that, in traditional sociolinguistics, language and other socio-cultural
features were seen as quite fixed in time and space. Due to massive and quick mobility, these correlations do not work
anymore, and they can only be established by means of ethnographic examination. Furthermore, mobility, globalization and
superdiversity are conducive to more and more situations in which full membership or knowledge of a community are not
there. Therefore, fundamental rethinking of the basic tenets of sociolinguistics is required. The aim of sociolinguistic analysis
is then according to Blommaert (2013a) not to reduce but to show complexity. The results of the analysis of the data here
under scrutiny lend support to Blommaert's views on complexity, as we will see below.
2.3. The transnational Latino identity and conflict
As mentioned above, the Latino identity needs to be understood in a mediated, globalized world characterized by
€ rn (2007: 899) does, among:
superdiversity and complexity. Within this context, it is useful to distinguish, as Tho
✓ International processes: interaction across borders including exclusively national originations or institutions (states
or national labor unions),
✓ Transnational processes: referring to any interaction across national borders not exclusively based on national or-
ganizations or institutions, and finally
✓ Global processes: which are different from international and transnational process in the sense that they cannot be
reduced to interaction that links national spaces.
3
According to Olesen (2005: 43), the social space of transnational publics is both physical and nonphysical. Whereas the non-physical space is a place for
information exchange and coordination of activities among different movements and individuals, states and national public spheres define the physical
space.
This terminological distinction comes in handy in coming to grips with the Latino identity, a transnational identity. De Fina
and Perrino (2013: 510) view transnationalism as (i) one of the most important effects of globalization, as it forces redundant
workers out of their countries, and (ii) “a focal domain of interest for the study of new forms of identity construction and
communication”. Along the same lines as Blommaert (2013a), they argue that these phenomena have caused a tension be-
tween homogenization and differentiation regarding language practices, ideologies, and identities.
This tension is extremely relevant for the present paper as it is usually realized discursively by means of conflict talk. In
fact, the transnational public sphere is seen as a contentious arena within global civil society (Olesen, 2005). What is also
relevant for this study that analyzes processes of intragroup disaffiliation drawing from digitally mediated discourse is the
fact that the internet has become a forum in which, according to Blommaert and Varis (2015: 17), “superdiversity appears
more palpably and visibly”.
Thus, transnational identities, and identities in general for that matter, have been related to conflictual processes. Indeed,
identity construction has often been seen in terms of a similarity/difference dialectic. Many scholars (see Hall and Du Gay,
1996; Mendoza-Denton, 2002, among others) strongly argue that identity construction is all about marking difference. Ac-
cording to Hall and Du Gay (1996), identities emerge within different power systems, and thus they are the product of dif-
ference and exclusion rather than unity. What is more, it is only in relation to the other, to what one is not, that recognition is
produced. Mouffe (2005: 129), along the same lines, states that there cannot be a common identity without drawing a
frontier; those frontiers used to be political but are currently drawn along moral categories, “between ‘us’ the good’ and ‘them’
the evil ones”. Thus, the us, for its mere existence, is dependent on a constitutive outside. This tension, often or potentially
conflictual, is an inherent part of identity construction.
It is the main goal of this paper to analyze the functionality of conflictual language involved in the discourse realization of the
intragroup differences influenced by and contributing to superdiversity and complexity within the Latino community. The
present paper was triggered by a previous study on social identity construction. This former study focused on the effects of
negative group representation on Latino ingroup identification (see Garce s-Conejos Blitvich, 2015). The results of the analysis
confirmed Doosje et al.'s (1995) claim that individuals tend to emphasize heterogeneity within both the ingroup and the out-
group when their group is represented in negative terms when compared with a relevant outgroup. This also lends further
support to ethnographic work such as the one carried out by Garcia-Bedolla (2003) and Garcia (2003) who have argued that the
onslaught of immigrants was claimed to have split the Latino community. For Example, Garcia-Bedolla (2003) reports that US-
born Latinos seek to differentiate themselves from immigrants, and the negative stereotypes that “white America” associates
with them. Therefore, they implement a process of selective dissociation, whereby they continue to identify with the Latino ethnic
identity, but exclude from their definition of this identity those groups that “they see as perpetuating the negative image of their
group, namely immigrants” (2003, 276), who are stereotyped as uncultured, poor, and monolingual. Garcia (2003) describes a
similar situation in the city of Los Angeles, where she reports an increase of factions within the Latino population created as a
result of long established feelings of uneasiness by US-born Latino community members towards immigrants' use of Spanish.
Due to the nature of the Latino identity and its inherent variability because of its wide geographical, cultural, racial, and lin-
guistic variety, a closer look at intragroup differentiation or selective dissociation presented itself as a worthy object of further
research. Most work on social identity has involved intergroup relations, ethnocentrism, and concomitant processes of othering
(Van Dijk,1998). Intragroup comparison as a way to construct identity has been significantly less researched (but see Sanchez et al.,
2012). One of the reasons for this, in my view, is that most related work has focused on top-down processes of othering often
involving the elites, i.e. traditional media, institutions, etc., which tend to emphasize in/out group homogeneity. However, glob-
alization processes and how these have superdiversified and made identity much more complex make it necessary to bring
ingroup comparisons to the forefront. Also, since conflict/tension/difference seem to be an intrinsic part of identity construction,
looking at the role of conflictual strategies in the construction of superdiversity and complexity seemed like a necessary part of the
analysis.
Thus, the second part of the study, described in detail here, focuses on the micro-processes of intragroup disaffiliation
which reflect and help construct superdiversity and complexity with a special look at how conflict talk played a role in said
processes and seeks to answer the following research questions:
1. How is intragroup differentiation realized discursively?

2. What role, if any, does conflict talk play in the construction of a complex identity?
In order to answer these research questions, the following methodology was devised.
3. Method
3.1. Data
The reference corpus for this study e a sizeable corpus of citizen discourse, digital data (circa 63,352 words) e comprises
594 comments posted on a CNN discussion forum in response to the question “What did you think of Latino in America?”
posed by Soledad O'Brien. O'Brien, who has since then left CNN, was a top, award recipient anchor of Afro-Hispanic roots on
her mother's side.
From this reference corpus, an analytical corpus was derived made up of 171 comments in which members of the low
status group, the Latino community, selectively dissociated themselves from what they considered to be CNN's negative
stereotypical presentation of their ingroup. The 171 comments (18, 793 words in total) were posted by 146 Latinos.
These data were selected for various reasons. First, it was expected that the topic of the documentary would attract many
Latinos to the discussion forum. This was a way to access a significant number of Latino voices discussing Latino related issues
where matters of identity were highly likely to surface due to the themes of the documentary to which they were responding.
Second, the deindividuated environment e leading to loss of self-awareness- afforded by the digital medium has been proven
to accentuate the salience of social rather than individual identity (Reicher et al., 1995), such as the Latino identity which is the
main focus of the present study. Third, the naturally occurring data provided access to a new site of identity construction,
different from ethnographic interviews or institutional surveys which have constituted the more traditional methods of
research into identity matters (Garcia-Bedolla, 2003; Rosa, 2016; Sanchez et al., 2012). Fourth, since the comments included in
the corpus were posted in response to a televised documentary, the data afforded us a rare opportunity to compare the
construction of the Latino identity from a top-down, institutional perspective (identity definition, see De Fina, 2013: 597) as
presented by such an influential channel as CNN with a bottom-up, ordinary citizen perspective (identity negotiation, see De
Fina, 2013: 597), as represented in the comment posted on the forum.
This top-down/bottom-up tension is especially relevant for the purposes of this paper which explores the nuanced
processes of intragroup dissociation influenced by and contributing to superdiversity and complexity. As argued in the
literature, Latinos have been homogenized as a market segment group by the media and advertising agencies (García, 2007;
Bachmann, 2010) who tend to embrace a pan-Latino identity by emphasizing similarities and deemphasizing traditional
boundaries (De Fina, 2013). Access to ordinary discourse as a site of identity construction will allow us to analyze whether/
how this imposed, homogenized identity is negotiated and superdiversity is constructed instead.
Another criterion for selection was the fact that the data were extracted from a moderated forum. As mentioned, Soledad
O'Brien posed the question “What do you think of Latino in America?” on a forum linked to the show's webpage: she
participated in the discussion (albeit very sparingly), and some comments posted (#3) were deleted (supposedly by the
moderator). It was expected that a moderated forum would afford a more even-keeled e although still conflictual -discussion
where the more nuanced unfolding and functionality of conflict could be analyzed without the discussion unfolding as a
series of ad hominem attacks, not infrequent on on-line discussions.
In order to protect the anonymity of the commenters, the commenters' screennames were replaced with numbers and all
other information that could identify them was removed. Due to the publicly available nature of this data, IRB approval was
not required. This conclusion is in line with Page et al. (2014), who connected a researcher's right to analyze online data to two
contingencies: “whether the material is made publicly available and [whether it is] considered to be free from privacy re-
strictions” (64). In this case, the “What did you think about Latino in America” discussion forum can be viewed by any in-
dividual who accesses the website, as the website is publicly available and does not require that the user log in. There is,
therefore, no expectation of privacy. However, should the commenter want to maintain anonymity, as many commenters do,
the commenters can protect their privacy by choosing screennames that do not reveal personal information, as most par-
ticipants did in this case. All examples included in the paper are reproduced here as they stand in the original corpus; thus,
typos and other orthographic errors have not been corrected.
3.2. Procedure and framework
Regarding procedure, first, the corpus was downloaded and the comments numbered. The next step consisted in the
coding of the corpus. Only those comments whose authors identified as Latinos directly or indirectly were coded.
An Example of a comment that was coded as having been posted by a Latino in which the identity of the poster could be
directly accessed is number 45. In it, the poster explicitly self-identifies herself as a Latina:
Example 1
(45) I'm a fan of CNN. I'm a 26 yr old Salvadoran-Honduran female born and raised in East L.A. I graduated with a Bachelors of Science from the #11
ranked college in the country, am now a combat veteran working towards further education while serving my Country and always maintaining my
Latino culture.
The next comment was also coded as having been posted by a Latino. In this case, the poster does not explicitly, but
implicitly (thus indirectly) self-identify him/herself as Latino:
Example 2
(58) I must say that I enjoy and respect Soledad O'Brien, and looked forward to watching her tell our story for months. Unfortunately, she missed the
mark and I was left severely disappointed last night. I was sorry to see that the “Latino” that Soledad introduced America to last night is the same “Latino”
America thinks it already knows. Illegal residents, pregnant and suicidal teenagers, one dimensional Catholics, and families with identity crisis. She sis
not show me, my family, or my friends. Well educated, law abiding, tax paying Americans who are proud of their rich heritage and the many
contributions they make to this country. It was nice to see the mayor, the senator and the popular chef, but she showed them as exceptions.
I will be watching tonight hoping that the portrayal gets better. Hoping …
It is worth pointing out that the deindividuated online environment in which these comments were posted does not
guarantee that those self-identifying directly or indirectly as Latinos were indeed members of that ethnic group. Researchers
are never immune to dishonest responses, however. This is true of online contexts, but also of more traditional data collection
methods: respondents can lie during interviews or provide misleading answers to questionnaires. In the case under scrutiny,
the saliency of the topic under discussion and the emotional connotations it carries for the Latino community would lead us to
take in-group claims at face value.
Other comments which were off topic, regardless of the identity of the poster or on topic but posted by non-Latinos were
coded as non-relevant. Examples 3 and 4 illustrate comments which were coded as non-relevant. In the first case, the
comment is off topic and the poster could not be identified directly or indirectly as a Latino.
Example 3
(27) I hope Ms. Soledad O'Brien is covering another major American minority next. “Asians in America!”.
In the case of Example 4, the poster does engage in negatively evaluating the Latino culture but does so from an outgroup
perspective. Thus, this comment was viewed as not relevant and was not included in the final sample.
Example 4
(44) What a stark difference between Latino and other immigrant cultures such as the Vietnamese. It appears as though a large percentage of Latinos
drop out of school, get pregnant at 16, suffer from alcohol and drug addiction, and think about committing suicide. They need to get over there “Poor Me”
attitude. The main message from the special seemed to be “Poor Me”. The Latino culture needs to start placing more emphasis on education and less on
“Machismo” attitudes and these values must be instilled at the family level. One thing I do know is that having lived with and around Latinos for the last
60 that most Latinos I have known are nothing like the ones portrayed in this special. I feel like this special did not portray Latinos as I know them.
In a second phase of coding, the 171 comments in which selective dissociation occurred were subject to thematic analysis
(Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, 2006; Namey et al., 2007) Thematic analysis, a foundational method for qualitative analysis,
offers an accessible and theoretically-flexible approach to analyzing data (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Themes are patterns
across data sets that are important to the description of a phenomenon and are associated to a specific research question. In
this case, the goal of the thematic analysis was to help unveil on what grounds diversity and complexity were constructed.
On occasion, more than one of the recurrent themes identified came up in a given comment in which case the comment
was coded for different themes. Example 5 below was coded thematically for Theme 2 e a proud Mexican-American, Vietnam
Vet e, for Theme 3 e 4th generation Mexican American-, and for Theme 4 e the poster does not want to be assimilated to
other Latino groups; he wants to maintain his Mexican-American identity and objects to the government's overarching racial
and ethnic categories.
Example 5
(31) I watch about 5 min of your program and changed the channel. What little I saw appeared to be generalizations of Latino Americans. Very little of
what I watched applies to me or any Latinos I know. I am 4th generation Mexican-American (and a Vietnam Vet) and proud. Not, Hispanic, not Latino, not
Spanish, but just plain Mexican American. I do not like to be assimilated with or compared with other latino groups. It seems that the government loves
to classify Americans by their ethnic backgrounds (apparently to continue to make us different) as if we all lived in the same neighborhood, isolated from
all others. How about just plain American? Rather than exploring what makes us different, why not concentrate on exploring what makes us all the
same. As before, Mrs. Obrien's presentation was a complete waste of tv time.
Furthermore, in a second stage, those same 171 comments were coded at the microlevel with special attention to the
strategies used to construct selective dissociation. A pilot study of 25 comments revealed the overwhelming presence of
conflictual strategies as ways to convey selective dissociation. So as to use a shared language regarding patterns of behavior
which have been associated with conflict in the literature, a modified version of Culpeper's (2005) taxonomy of impoliteness
strategies (see Appendix 1) was used in the analysis of the corpus (Garce s-Conejos Blitvich, 2010b; Lorenzo-Dus et al., 2011).
In the present analysis, the distinction between positive/negative impoliteness oriented strategies and on record/off record
strategies was eliminated.
Regarding the former, Culpeper's initial taxonomy was inspired by Brown and Levinson's (1978) taxonomy of politeness
strategies and developed around the dual concept of positive and negative face which is not relevant to the present analysis.
In this paper, the focus is the role that conflict plays at the micro-level in processes of intragroup dissociation which are
related to social identity, rather than face. Conflict is seen here as an indirect index of identity construction.
As I have argued before (see Garce s-Conejos Blitvich, 2010c), in relation to the off/on record distinction, taxonomies such
as this one establish the distinctions between explicitly and implicitly conveyed impoliteness as unproblematic, when the
truth is that the levels of (in)explicitness are context/content bound, hence extremely dependent on the relationship between
interlocutors. Also, this distinction, in its simplicity, rests squarely on Gricean foundations, and ignores the ongoing debate in
cognitive pragmatics and related disciplines where strong disagreements exist regarding what is to be considered implicitly
versus explicitly conveyed meaning (see among others Carston, 2002, 2009; Recanati, 2004), i.e., what belongs to the level of
explication versus the level of implication, or the difference established between implicated premises, implicated conclu-
sions, on the one hand, and strongly versus weakly made manifest implications and how those differences may impact their
ability to recover or cancel meanings (Sperber and Wilson, 1986: 195e197). Furthermore, Relevance Theory practitioners do
not see direct/indirect utterances as standing in binary opposition (Christie, 2007). More importantly, in interaction, hearers
seem to orient similarly to both on-/off-record instances of impoliteness (Rees-Miller, 2000: 1093). Thus, the on-record/off-
record distinction only presents itself as a remnant of Brown and Levinson's (1978) speaker-based taxonomy, which was
dictated by the sense that on-record/off-record strategies carried along with them, intrinsically, different values. Here, then,
strategies were coded regarding what was explicitly and/or strongly implicitly conveyed.
This approach fits in well with thematic analysis based studies which “move beyond counting explicit words or phrases
and focus on identifying and describing both implicit and explicit ideas within the data, that is, themes” (Guest et al., 2012:
10). The strategies were coded at the utterance level. Once again, due to their multifunctionality, a given utterance may have
been coded for more than one strategy:
Example 6
(587) As a Latina college student i find myself constantly fighting against the stereotype that has been place upon me by a country built and continually
supported by immigrants
This utterance was coded for SD (seek disagreement) as the poster expresses her disagreement with the stereotypes
associated with Latinos and dissociates herself from the view that all Latinos are uneducated immigrants by presenting
herself as a college student. Therefore, it was coded for DFO (dissociate from other) as well. (See Table 1).
Table 1
Coding and analytical steps.
1st Stage of coding/analysis

1. Comments in the reference corpus were downloaded, numbered, and anonymized
2. Only comments by posters self-identifying as Latino (explicitly or implicitly) were included in the analytical corpus. Others were coded as
nonrelevant.
3. The analytical corpus was subjected to thematic analysis. Comments tended to contain a multiplicity of themes, and the coding process reflected this
fact.
2nd Stage of coding/analysis
4. The analytical corpus was subjected to further analysis at the micro-level in order to identify the conflictual strategies that carried out self-
dissociation processes.
The corpus was coded separately by the author and her research assistant and any discrepancies were resolved through
discussion.
4. Results
4.1. 1st part e thematic analysis
The thematic analysis unveiled the following recurring themes that needed to come up at least #5 or more times to be in
included in the Table 2 below:
Table 2
Themes.
Theme #Occurrences Description

1. Education/Productivity 89 Selective dissociation was carried out by Latinos specifically presenting themselves as educated
and productive members of American society, in contrast with what they perceived to be CNN's
representation of their ethnic group as uneducated and a burden on American society
2. Stereotyping 81 Latinos involved in the discussion selectively disassociated themselves from the Latino identity as
presented by CNN in “Latino in America” because they argued that CNN had presented a
stereotypical image of Latinos
3. Migration patterns 23 The Latinos participating in the discussion argued that CNN's documentary had focused mostly on
immigrants and first-generation Latinos without taking into consideration the many Latinos who
have been in the US for generations, as was their case.
4. Heterogeneity 22 Latinos bemoaned what they saw as CNN's very homogeneous presentation of the Latino ethnic
group, a group they believe is highly heterogeneous geographically, culturally, linguistically,
racially, etc. These participants presented themselves as very different at some level from CNN's
depiction.
5. Legality 14 Latinos self-dissociated themselves by emphasizing their legal status in opposition to what they
perceived CNN's emphasis on Latinos and illegality.
6. Illegality 8 Posters urged all Latinos to come to this country legally, self-dissociating themselves from the
perception, according to them, perpetuated by CNN that all Latinos are pro-illegal immigration.
7. Language/culture 6 Posters addressed issues of monolingualism. In them, Latinos dissociated themselves from Spanish
monolingual Latinos and urged them to learn English and embrace English and the US culture as
they themselves had done.
8. Race 6 It was argued that black Latinos had been left out of the documentary and, therefore, black Latino
audience could not self-identify with the image of Latinos portrayed on the show.
4.2. 2nd part e the role of conflictual strategies
Processes of selective dissociation are intrinsically conflictual, as individuals separate themselves from the representation
of internal others on the basis of some undesirable characteristic or behavior these others are perceived to exhibit. These were
the main strategies used to realize the processes of selective dissociation at the micro-level. For discussion purposes, see
Section 5.2 below, all strategies in the taxonomy are displayed on the table even if they don't occur in the corpus with a view
to relate their occurrence or lack thereof to the antagonistic/agonistic nature of the corpus: (See Table 3)
Table 3
Strategies.
Conflictual strategies # Occurrences %

ISO e Ignore, snub the other 0
EOA e Exclude other from activity 0
DFO e Dissociate from other 480 27%
DUU e Be disinterested, unconcerned, unsympathetic 0
IIM e Use inappropriate identity markers 0
OSL e Use obscure, secretive language 0
MOFU e Make other feel uncomfortable 336 19%
SD e Seek disagreement 446 25%
TW e Use taboo words 0
CON e Call the other names 1 0.1%
ANA e Associate with a negative aspect 472 26%
FR e Frighten 7 0.4%
CSR e Condescend, scorn, ridicule 30 2%
IOS e Invade other's space 4 0.2%
PIR e Put the other indebtedness on record 23 1.3%
BO e Block the other linguistically or physically 1 0.1%
Total 1800 100%
5. Discussion
5.1. Thematic analysis
Themes 1 and 2 often occurred simultaneously. As can be seen in Example 7, posters would dissociate themselves from the
stereotypical representation of Latinos they perceived CNN had portrayed and presented themselves in positive terms, as
educated and productive citizens:
Example 7
(41) After all the hype and a great “Black in America” series, this was truly a disappointment. I thought that the presentation was a mere confirmation of
the way the majority sees us …illegal, lazy, drop outs and teen pregnancy […] What about the positive influence and extraordinary accomplishments
along with the cultural impact we have had on our country? My father is a WWII vet and all my brothers are college educated. As a physician I have been
a Chicano activist since my undergrad days and I have spent many years treating Latinos in the Southwest. I have had the pleasure to meet many well
informed Latino scholars who could add so much to this series and perhaps provide us with a better historical perspective along with a projection of
what our future holds […]
What can be gleaned throughout the corpus is that Latinos participating in the discussion attempt to reposition them-
selves as they feel they have been subjected to malignant positioning (Sabat, 2003) by CNN's documentary. Malignant posi-
tioning is dangerous, according to Sabat (2003: 86) since it can have negative effects not only on the way a person is seen by
others, but also on the ways in which the person may come to see themselves.
From the point of view of a transnational identity in the context of globalization, a process often associated with
neoliberalism, it is interesting to note that when they reposition themselves, they do so as neo-liberal subjects. Park (2010)
describes the neoliberal individual as engaged in self-assessment and self-improvement and not reliant on structured social
relations that may suppress unconstrained competition. Further, the neoliberal subject tends to overlook the inequalities that
neoliberalism aggravates and tends to see class as a personal trait or life choice. Thus, responsibility for overcoming structural
barriers to social advancement is transferred from the state to the entrepreneurial individual. Success or failure is no longer a
result of unequal structures of class relations, but a matter of the individual's aspirations and capabilities e that is a reflection
of one's naturalized inner qualities (see also Mouffe, 2005). Park (2010) also argues that the ideology of neoliberalism has
become hegemonic, instantiated in narratives of success. This is certainly shown in the corpus, as can be seen in the following
examples:
Example 8
(57) I thought this was an insult, a disgrace to a community that has labored soo hard to rise above these stereotypes. Soledad, you missed an opportunity
to do something really great here (but you already know that). Maybe we (the Progressive Latinos) can come together and help in the production of a
uplifting documentary that will show where we are now, show how entrepreneur we are, how business oriented we are, how we are changing the face
of businesses and universities, our contributions to technology (did you noticed, when you registered that you had to type some numbers and letters
from a distorted note, it was a Latino who came up with that and patented and is now used world wide) […]
Example 9
(271) I understand the intent of “Latino in America” but I feel like it is instead fueling more stereotypes than it is negating […] As a 4th generation
Mexican American female who is working on her PhD in Mathematics at the age of 22, I feel like I have yet to see someone who I can identify with. I have
yet to see a featured Latino/a who is focused on education and becoming a leader of tomorrow […]
s-Conejos Blitvich et al. (2013) following van Dijk (1998) and applying Wodak et al.'s (1999) methodology, unveiled
Garce
six dimensions included in the matrix of thematic contents on the basis of which the Latino identity is constructed. One of
those dimensions was the tension between immigrants and US born Latinos. Theme 3 orients towards that tension. Those
who addressed this issue in their comments argued that “Latino in America” had mostly focused on recent immigrants
without devoting sufficient time to those Latinos who are US citizens and can trace their roots in the country to many
generations back. However, on the whole and with few exceptions, posters did not exhibit strong positions against immi-
gration. This actually supported Garces-Conejos Blitvich et al.'s (2013) findings. It was the fact that Latinos had been portrayed
by CNN as mostly immigrants (illegal and first generation) without delving into the fact that Latinos have been in the country
since its inception that upset them. They believed, as we can see in Examples 10 and 11 below, that this portrayal was a
confirmation of mainstream America's stereotypical view of Latinos which are especially negative in the case of illegal im-
migrants (Lee and Fiske, 2006: 764):
Example 10
(64) I do thank Soledad for her efforts. But, all I saw last night was a dismal perspective that allows non-Latinos to come to the same old stereotypical
conclusions about Latinos in America. [… The truth is, this story is about First Gen immigrants. The missing story is one of the majority of Latinos who are
2nd, 3rd, and 4th gen citizens who don't fit the mold presented in “Latino in America”. So, I say, DO NOT judge the Latino populous by this myopic report
… there is a missing story called “Generational Latinos: THE SUCCESS OF AMERICA”, that needs to be produced. Then, America will understand, as Paul
Harvey states, “the rest of the story”.
Example 11
(424) I was appalled by this serieseit would have been more appropriately called Latino Immigrants in America, as Soledad focused primarily on only
first generation immigrants and in some cases, their children. If I knew nothing about Latinos, I'd think that all Latinos are immigrants, that the only
successful Latinos are entertainers, and that young Latinas are all getting pregnant and unsuccessful in school. As a third generation Chicana who is a
professor at an elite institution [who speaks Spanish and chooses to go to both Spanish and English masses] it was disappointing not to see ANYONE who
represented my students and colleagueseprofessional Latina/os who are educators, lawyers, MBAs, etc, or any of the institutions that have fought for
their to be a [albeit small] socially mobile class. Shame on Soledad.
Often, as a counterpoint, posters tried to dissociate themselves from the Latino ¼ Illegal immigrant stereotype by
emphasizing their own legal status in their US and their belief in the rule of law, which is the content of Themes 5 and 6:
Example 12
(13) My mother's maiden name is Garcia. Her paternal grandparents were from Spain. Her father born in California. Her maternal grandparents were
Native American. My Irish roots come from my father. ALL of my relatives were in this country LEGALLY […]
Example 13
(199) Let me start by saying I am Latino. So I totally empathize with the struggles and drive. I am also a natural born citizen. What is the problem with
coming to this country LEGALLY. Sure there was a time Ellis Island was open, but it has passed. Regardless of why someone WANTS to come here, you still
must respect the laws.
Theme 4, for its part, revealed very clearly the tension between the institutional, top down homogenizing of the Latino
identity versus Latinos' bottom-up, very heterogeneous views on what it means to be a Latino in all its rich geographical,
linguistic, cultural, and racial superdiversity and complexity. Examples 14e16 are good illustrations of the heterogeneity
claimed by Latinos:
Example 14
(250) As a second-generation American of Hispanic descent, I feel so let down. I tuned in despite how I feel about O'Brien and CNN … only to be proved
correct. Illegal alien sob stories aren't at all representative of Hispanics in America. You can't compare illegal aliens to immigrants who waited years upon
years to obtain a legal visa. Cubans who were granted visas because of communism is NOT the same as Mexicans and Central Americans who come here
illegally. (And my parents are from Central America!) Also, assimilation and learning English are part of the process, not “forgetting your roots.”
Example 15
(594) I think the young Dominicans had issues with what most people viewed them. Like most people, if their family is Latino, individual want to review
them as Mexican, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Cubans, Dominicans not African Americans. Latinos/Hispanics include individuals who are European, Aztec,
Mayan, Inca, Caribbean, African, Asian, Pacific Islander and or Native American racial/ethic origins. Even Mexico has a group of Afro-Mexicans located in
La Costa Chica, Mexicans of African desert.
Example 16
(508) what Soledad O'Brien's grave error in this entire reporting is that she chose to leave out that the only thing that makes us “Latino” or “Hispanic” is
that we speak Spanish So she never makes the distinction of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Cubans, Dominicans, Argentinians, Chileans,
Venezuelans, Peruvians etc …. I'm sure that not 50% of all Colombian-American girls are. The term “latina” or “hispanic” is misused or misinterpreted in
the United States to lump us all together ….and we are all not the same ….because our backgrounds and culture are all different ….and so the way we are
all raised is different.
These examples tie into two of the last themes, 7 and 8, that emerged in the corpus. Theme 8 relates to the paradoxical
status of Spanish within the Latino community, also found by Garce s-Conejos Blitvich et al. (2013) to be one of the six di-
mensions included in the matrix of thematic contents that make up the Latino identity. Comment 508 refers to the fact that
the only factor that all Latinos have in common is that they speak Spanish. While this is a common assumption, it is not
accurate. As it is the case with most languages in the context of the US, by the third generation most Latinos are monolingual
English speakers and, on occasion, heritage Spanish speakers (Alba and Nee, 2009; Pew Research Center, 2017). The difference
between Latinos and other ethnic and racial groups in the States is that even generational Latinos are expected to speak
Spanish. Often those who do not feel they have, somehow, failed their cultural heritage (Dicker, 2006; Velez-Rendon, 2007).
Comment 250 argues this should not be seen that way, however, as learning English is part of the (necessary) acculturation
process. On the other hand, Latinos have strong views regarding Spanish monolingualism, which they see as stigmatizing the
group and preventing social mobility (Davis and Moore, 2014). Bilingualism is seen as the most advantageous for Latinos, not
only for cultural reasons, but also because it gives them an edge in the professional world. Again, we see the neoliberal
ideology emerge, but related to linguistic matters in this case.
These issues were addressed in the comments below,
Example 17
(172) soledad o Brien you did a great job. I thought missing something a lot us latino community Don't speak Spanish we only speak English. and we love
the America culture. but we still find a way to connect.
Example 18
(488) unite, not divide, intergrate not segragate …
Latinos we can do so much gracias
a CNN y Soledad por su atencion
!Aprende
el Ingles y superate
!!!!
(Learn English and improve yourself!!!)
Example 19
(85) […]. I am 100% Latino woman, came to the United States seven years ago not knowing English, and today I work as an attorney. About the content of
the program, I applaud the efforts of the parents to teach their children Spanish. In the business world today, knowing Spanish is an undeniable
advantage, therefore, we teach our children to speak Spanish not only to keep our culture heritage (which is very important) but also to give them the
opportunity to thrive in a global economy.
One of the most salient issues regarding the Latino identity, also found to be included in the matrix of dimensions that
make up the Latino identity (Garce s-Conejos Blitvich et al., 2013), is that although it is properly an ethnic identity, it has been
racialized in the context of the US (Cobas et al., 2009). Therefore, Latino has become the third main racial group, in contrast
with Whites and Blacks. The problem, however, is that many Latinos are phenotypically black or white and that poses real
problems in terms of self and group identification. How can one self-position as Latino and Black? (Bailey, 2000; Garce s-
Conejos Blitvich and Bou-Franch, 2014). One of the problems that the Latino audience saw with CNN's documentary was
the fact that it had not been racially inclusive. More specifically, some posters argued that Black Latinos had not been focused
upon enough and that posed a problem in terms of audience identification.
Example 20
(505) […] I am a Black Latina in America. My parents are from Cuba and Costa Rica. My skin is definitely darker than the hues I saw in Latino in America. I
did not see myself represented and I so wanted too. I have found it somewhat difficult to be accepted among both groups. I don't feel I am the only one.
[…]
The results of the thematic analysis show recurrent themes on the bases of which intragroup differences are constructed.
These results confirm Vertovec's (2007: 1039) claim that “simple ethnicity-focused approaches to understanding and
engaging with various minority communities … as taken in many models and policies within conventional multiculturalism,
is inadequate and often inappropriate”. This is especially true for the US Latino group that encompasses all races and multiple
languages and cultural background embodied in not only immigrants with many different migration patterns and statuses,
paths to citizenship, as well as transnational engagements with their countries of origin, but also US born citizens who can
trace their roots in the US back to three or four generations.
Observing the processes that reflect and help construct superdiversity and complexity in this bottom-up way lends
credence to the vital role of conflictual interaction therein. All themes discussed are conflictual and can potentially trigger
conflict as they deal with core issues of positive/negative group presentation. In the discussion, there was palpable tension:
posters expressed their assessment of CNN's views on the Latino identity as they discursively struggled to position themselves
as a very heterogenous group against CNN's top-down, superimposed, homogenizing presentation of Latinos in America.
5.2. Conflictual strategies
The second part of the discussion section will focus on other processes, this time at the micro-level, that reflect and help
construct Latino superdiversity and complexity. The 171 comments in which selective dissociation occurred included 1800
conflictual strategies.
Within the strategies found, a four-part pattern of usage emerged (the order in which strategies were used may vary, i.e. it
may be linear, as in the examples below, or networked):
✓ Somebody/their actions/thoughts, etc. would be associated with a negative aspect (ANA)

✓ By pointing out this negative aspect, the poster would try to make that addressee feel uncomfortable (MOFU)
✓ By disagreeing with that person/action/thought, the poster would indicate a lack of common ground (SD)
✓ The poster would then finally dissociate themselves from that person or group. (DFO)
This pattern was found throughout the corpus and is the reason behind the high incidence of said strategies: ANA (472,
26%), MOFU (336, 19%), SD (446, 25%), and DFO (480, 27%).
Example 21
(48) This program seemed to perpetuate stereotypes more than anything ANA. The focus on not one, but TWO teen Latinas that got pregnant is rather
insulting ANA, MOFU. Why not focus on teen Latino/as that are successful, graduate on time, and continue to college? SD There's plenty of them out there
and I'm one of them DFO.
(560) Not impressed at all ANA, just read the headlines of each article, they are all negative in tone or stereotypical ANA MOFU. Why not talk about the
Latinos that immigrated to the US and did succeed to achieve the so-called “American Dream?” SD I know plenty of successful Latinos that have worked
hard in this country (legally) just like any other black/white/asian immigrant DFO. Why not bring to light people who have brought down the barriers
and continue to help their communities achieve the same if not better goals? DFO
Results of the analysis, i.e. the high incidence of SD and DFO strategies in the corpus, also support Blommaert and
Rampton's (2012: 15) claim to the effect that superdiversity leads to lack of common ground. Superdiversity “brings
together people with very different backgrounds, resources and communicative scripts, diversity is likely to pluralize
indexical interpretation”; therefore, it “throws up some sharp empirical challenges to traditional ideas about the achievability
of mutual understanding and the centrality of shared conventions”.
Example 22 and 23 expand clearly on this notion:
Example 22
(62) The documentary did not address all of the issues. We as the Latino community do not all agree on the issues because we do not all come from the
same background. For instance not every Latino agrees with amnesty for illegal immigrants. Especially those of us who were born here, went through the
process correctly and paid a lot of money, or those of us who have had our identities stolen. It's not right for someone to compromise an Latino
American's or American's financial capabilities to take care of their family so someone else could live the American dream and get a job, house, car, and
ruin someone's credit score. That part was not addressed in the documentary. I am a 21 year old Bolivian American attending Purdue University, so don't
think I hate Latinos cause I am ONE.
Example 23
(173) So far I do not feel that this documentary represents all Latino. I could not relate to a lot of the stories and I am a 21 year old Bolivian Puerto Rican
American born in this country. We DO NOT ALL AGREE on the same issues. Not all of us are for amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Posters of both examples want to make it clear that Latinos, despite media and institutional representations, are not a
homogenous community that thinks and feels along the same lines. On the contrary, they disagree on key issues. For Example,
Latinos are not necessarily all aligned on the issue of immigration. Especially, generational and US born Latinos may have
similar views to those of other ethnic groups within the US regarding illegal immigration.
Worthy of mention is that most of the criticism in the corpus was leveled against how CNN portrayed Latinos, rather than
against other Latinos themselves. Van Dijk (1998) proposed the ideological square in order to analyze processes of intergroup
disaffiliation or othering. He argued that the general strategies for the expression of shared, group-based attitudes and
ideologies, and therefore for affiliation to and disaffiliation from social groups, comprise both positive representation of the
in-group and negative representation of the out-group.
✓ Emphasize our good properties/actions

✓ Emphasize their bad properties/actions
✓ Mitigate our bad properties/actions
✓ Mitigate their good properties/actions
Results of the analysis unveiled that intragroup disaffiliation processes of selective dissociation comprise fundamentally
strategies one and (to a lesser degree) three: there is a focus on emphasizing and mitigating our good/bad properties/actions
respectively rather than on emphasizing and mitigating their bad/good properties and actions. As shown above, Latinos
selectively dissociate themselves from what they perceive are the stereotypical/negative representations conveyed by CNN's
documentary by emphasizing their good properties and dissociating themselves from that negative representations of in-
ternal others on the bases of their many educational, financial, accomplishments or their law-abiding qualities, among others.
They do this without expounding on the bad properties of other Latinos. Crucially, emphasizing their good properties and
actions coincides in the corpus with their repositioning themselves as neo-liberal subjects. The young Latina in Example 24
expresses her disagreement with CNN's representation of Latinos and distances herself from it by emphasizing the good
properties of the group of Latinos who, like her, are educated, good, law-abiding, bilingual American citizens who can make a
difference. She mitigates the fact that her father was an illegal immigrant by arguing his motives were lofty and how
hardworking he is. She does not explicitly address any negative traits or mitigate any positive traits of the group of Latinos she
is selectively dissociating from:
Example 24
(227) I am a 19 year old female Mexican American who attends the University of Texas at Austin. I'm proud of my heritage and I aim to advance it. My
father risked his life crossing the border (he was legalized sometime after) to give my brothers and I an opportunity at life rather than staying in his home
country of Mexico, that has a corrupted government that holds everyone in poverty. Look at his hands and they are more hardworking than most
Americans period, and I inherited this trait. All my life I have been a straight A student. I study for hours a day, from early in the morning to late at night.
My brother who also attends UT at Austin is even more so determined to keep his 4.0 gpa. My oldest brother graduated from Loyola in Chicago under
business management- computer science. I aim to enter the medical industry …I don't take for granted what my parents have given me. I've kept my
virginity to prevent my life from being a statistic. I have progressed my family so I can look racists straight in their eyes and reply to their stereotypes … I
am a straight A student. I never have done drugs, smoked, or consumed alcohol. I am hardworking and determined. I am a virgin. I hold my family,
education, and morals at the top of my priorities … I speak Spanish and English. I am Mexican and American … I love both sides of me, and through that,
the world is so much bigger to me than to those who close their minds.
Importantly, results show that selective dissociation processes here were more agonistic than antagonistic. Pluralistic
agonism acknowledges the right of others to speak where antagonism seeks to silence others (Van Zoonen et al., 2011: 1296).
As it can be gleaned from the results, strategies such as Use taboo words, Call the other names, Block the other, or Con-
descended, scorn, ridicule (often used in antagonistic exchanges, see among others Garce s-Conejos Blitvich, 2010b; Lorenzo-
Dus et al., 2011) either did not appear or had a very low incidence in the corpus. The fact that the forum was moderated may
have also influenced the results as well as the fact that the posters' main goal was to dissociate themselves from CNN's
stereotype.
6. Conclusions
The main goal of the analysis was to respond to the research questions that guided it:
(1) How is intragroup differentiation realized discursively?

(2) What role, if any, does conflict talk play in the construction of a complex identity?
Regarding question (1), and in light of the results, intragroup differentiation is achieved discursively through processes of
selective dissociation whereby participants strive to reposition themselves from what they perceive to be CNN's malignant
positioning of Latinos. They do so by constructing themselves as neo-liberal subjects. Paradoxically, in this way, they appear to
be actually buying into the hegemonic ideology of the system/status quo that they seem to reject. Neoliberalism is the
ideology most commonly associated with globalization. It is then not coincidental that Latinos, a transnational identity closely
connected to globalization, should strive to construct themselves along these ideological lines that become hegemonic in
those narratives of success which are prevalent in the corpus.
The analysis unveiled that selective dissociation processes are inherently conflictual. Therefore, the answer to
question (2) would be that conflict talk plays a major role in the construction of complexity. In the data, there is a
palpable tension between the top-down homogenizing presentation of CNN's documentary and the bottom-up differ-
entiation in language practices, language ideologies, and identities. Observing the processes that reflect and help
construct superdiversity and complexity in this bottom-up way lends credence to the vital role of conflictual interaction
therein. First, the bases on which selective dissociation occurs are conflictual and can potentially trigger open conflict as
they deal with core issues of positive/negative group presentation. Furthermore, at the microlevel, selective dissociation
processes are realized by conflictual discourse; more specifically, they are realized by agonistic strategies that address
disagreement, lack of common ground, carry out negative evaluations, and aim at making others feel not at ease.
However, because the others are internal and still part of who “we” are, intragroup disaffiliation relies more on
emphasizing the positive/mitigating the negative characteristics of those who selectively dissociate themselves from the
in-group than on emphasizing the negative/mitigating the positive characteristics of those they selectively disassociate
from.
More analyses are needed of the micro-processes that construct othering and selective-dissociation, superdiversity,
complexity, and the fundamental role that conflict talk plays in them. Also, future studies need to focus on low key conflict, its
intricacy and functionality, as well as on the porousness of on/off line social processes (Blommaert, 2017).
Appendix 1
s-Conejos Blitvich, 2010; Lorenzo-Dus et al., 2011).

Taxonomy of impoliteness strategies (Culpeper, 2005; Garce
On record impoliteness (ON-IMP) Off record impoliteness Withhold

(OR-IMP) politeness
Positive impoliteness (PIMP): ignore/snub the other (ISO); exclude other from activity (EOA), Implicated
dissociate from other (DFO); be disinterested, unconcerned, unsympathetic (DUU); use impoliteness (IP)
inappropriate identity markers (IIM); use obscure secretive language (OSL); make the other feel
uncomfortable (MOFU); seek disagreement (SD); use taboo words (TW); call the other names
(CON)
Negative impoliteness (NIMP): frighten (FR); condescend, scorn, ridicule (CSR); invade the other's Sarcasm (SRC)
space (IOS); explicitly associate other with a negative aspect (ANA); put the other indebtedness
on record (PIR); hinder or block the other, either linguistically or physically (BO).
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s-Conejos Blitvich is Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is interested in im/politeness models, genre theory,
Pilar Garce
identity construction, and traditional and digital media on which she has published and lectured extensively. She is co-editor in chief of the Journal of
Language of Aggression and Conflict (John Benjamins).

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Journal of Pragmatics xxx (2018) 1e14

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Globalization, transnational identities, and conﬂict talk: The

E-mail address: pgblitvi@uncc.edu.

2.1. Issues of nomenclature: why conﬂict talk rather than impoliteness?

2.2. Globalization and identity

2.3. The transnational Latino identity and conﬂict

1. How is intragroup differentiation realized discursively?

3.2. Procedure and framework

1st Stage of coding/analysis

4.1. 1st part e thematic analysis

Theme #Occurrences Description

4.2. 2nd part e the role of conﬂictual strategies

Conﬂictual strategies # Occurrences %

5.1. Thematic analysis

5.2. Conﬂictual strategies

✓ Somebody/their actions/thoughts, etc. would be associated with a negative aspect (ANA)

✓ Emphasize our good properties/actions

(1) How is intragroup differentiation realized discursively?

s-Conejos Blitvich, 2010; Lorenzo-Dus et al., 2011).

On record impoliteness (ON-IMP) Off record impoliteness Withhold

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