Gaijin performing gaijin (‘A foreigner performing a foreigner’): Co-construction of foreigner stereotypes in a Japanese talk show as a multimodal phenomenon

Abstract

Utilizing Conversation Analysis (CA) and Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA), this study explores the co-construction of foreigner stereotypes in a Japanese TV show. Foreigner stereotypes in Japan have been criticized in theoretical and empirical studies for their essentialist nature. Previous empirical studies focus on the verbal construction of foreigner stereotypes, directing little attention to embodied aspects. The present study examines the construction of foreigner stereotypes as a multimodal phenomenon constituted of both verbal and embodied features, paying particular attention to the latter. The verbal construction includes both explicit and implicit categorizations. In explicit categorization, participants use categorial terms (e.g. ‘foreigner’), and they verbalize category-bound activities and predicates in their utterances. On the other hand, in implicit categorization, foreigner stereotypes are constructed through ‘next turn proof procedures’ – social interaction unfolding in sequences of turns in conversation that display how participants treat foreigner stereotypes, in questioning, answering, assessing, and so forth. In this process, embodied features (e.g. bodily actions, facial expressions, laughter, and so forth) also serve as indices of foreigner stereotypes or contextualization cues to orient audiences to such stereotypes. The study also suggests the crucial role of post-production techniques, a resource available only to the broadcasters.