It is natural for people to make the distinction between in-group (Us) and out-group members (Others). What is it that brings people together, or keeps them apart? Ethnicity, nationality, professional expertise or life style? And, above all, what is the role of language in communicating solidarity and detachment?The papers in this volume look at the various cognitive, social, and linguistic aspects of how social identities are constructed, foregrounded and redefined in interaction. Concepts and methodologies are taken from studies in language variation and change, multilingualism, conversation analysis, genre analyisis, sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, as well as translation studies and applied linguistics. A wide range of languages is brough into focus in a variety of situational, social and discursive environments. The book is addressed to scholars and students of linguistics and related areas of social communication studies.Table of ContentsUs and Others: An introduction Anna DuszakPart I. Discourses in space Grammar and function of we Johannes HelmbrechtUS and THEM in Chinese: Use of lai (come) and qu (go) in the construction of social identities Minglang ZhouViewpoint and in/out-group membership in Japanese Soichi Kozai The space of identity: A cognitivist approach to ‘outsider’ discourses Melinda Yuen-ching Chen Constructing identities in language learning MOOs --- A conversational perspective Birgit ApfelbaumPart II. Discourses in polyphony Ethnolects as in-group varieties Michael G. Clyne, Edina Eisikovits and Laura TollfreeThe construction of identity and group boundaries in Catalan Spanish Carsten SinnerCode-switching, code-crossing and identity construction in a society in transition, South Africa Nkonko Kamwangamalu Part III. Discourses of transition Words and social identities Anna DuszakWho is ‘we’ in Russian political discourse Riitta Pyykkö WE and THEY in Polish political discourse: A psychological approach Krystyna SkarzynskaThe communicative construction of group identities: A basic mechanism of social categorization Heiko Hausendorf and Wolfgang KesselheimPart IV.Discourses of fear Identity by way of demarcation --- the discourse on the expansion of the European Union in Austria’s leading daily papers Angelika BrechelmacherDiscourse about them: Construction of ethnic identities in Thai print media Krisadawan HongladaromPersecution and identity conflicts --- the case of German Jews Monika S. SchmidStrategic alignment in the discourse of Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo Lisa WagnerPart V. Discourses of challenge Humour as a discursive boundary marker in social interaction Janet Holmes and Meredith MarraComplimenting women in Turkish: Gender identity and otherness Sükriye RuhiIdentity in service interactions: The situated affiliation to social groupings Liliana Cabral BastosPart VI. Discourses through suppression The regime of the Other: ‘us’ and ‘them’ in translation Elzbieta TabakowskaIdeological binarism in the identities of native and non-native English speakers Bhaskaran NayarThe collapse of the us/them structure in persons with brain dysfunctions: a neuropsychological and neurolinguistic perspective Maria Pachalska and Bruce D. MacueenList of contributors Index