Blackwell Reference Online

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Social identity theory ( Tajfel & Turner 1979 ) was originally developed to explain prejudice and discrimination, and the circumstances under which societies would move from relatively cooperative and harmonious arrangements to overt conflict. The theory has since expanded enormously, and has become the basis for a general social identity approach to social psychological and communicative phenomena. This includes, but is not limited to, ethnolinguistic identity theory ( Giles & Johnson 1981 ), →  communication accommodation theory ( Giles & Coupland 1991 ), and self-categorization theory ( Turner 1987 ). This expansion has occurred through empirical and theoretical advances that have elaborated the core idea of the theory to explain a wide range of other phenomena. Notable examples include the use of the social identity approach as a basis for understanding language expansion and language death, bilingualism and multilingualism, communicative shifts in accent and language along micro- and macro-social dimensions, language attitudes, social influence and →  Persuasion , stereotyping, and most recently, media selection and perception. It is rare for a social scientific theory to become so developed. In the case of social identity theory, Tajfel's critical insight followed from a critique of early approaches to understanding prejudice and discrimination (→  Prejudiced ... log in or subscribe to read full text