Chapter 4

On the analysis of parliamentary debates on immigration Abstracts This paper addresses the problem which discourse categories are relevant in a study of parliamentary debates about ethnic affairs in general, and about immigration in particular. It is argued that a selection of analytical categories first of all needs to be based on a theory of racism and anti-racism, and on the role of discourse in the reproduction of racism. Secondly, such a choice needs to be made relative to the specific genre and context of parliamentary debates, involving settings, participants, political and other actions, as well as aims and beliefs of participants. In this framework the various semantic and formal levels of discourse are systematically examined for those structures or devices that specifically express or influence beliefs about minorities or immigrants, or that contribute to the various social and political acts involved in the reproduction of political racism. For each of these discourse categories it is established what practical consequences their study would have in analyzing a vast corpus of parliamentary debates. Der Artikel geht der Frage nach, welche Kategorien des Diskurses in einer Untersu-chung von parlamentarischen Debatten über ethnische Fragen im allgemeinen und über Einwanderung im besonderen relevant sind. Es wird dahingehend argurnen