Race Talk and Common Sense: Patterns in Pakeha Discourse on Maori/Pakeha Relations in New Zealand

Abstract

Discourse analysis of public submissions arising from an overt racial conflict in New Zealand in 1979 has yielded a number of patterns in the talk of Pakeha New Zealanders. An outline of two such patterns is presented and these are then drawn upon in the deconstruction of a piece of contemporary Pakeha discourse. This analysis is designed to shed some light on the significance of the patterns presented; their durability, their function, and their contribution to the apparent success of the sample discourse and their role in a broader Pakeha ideology of Maori/Pakeha relations in Aotearoa (New Zealand).