Negotiating religious identity categories in non-professional interviews using English as a lingua franca

Abstract

This paper analyzes the construction and negotiation of religious identity categories in non-professional interviews using English as a lingua franca conducted by Polish students of foreign languages with foreigners staying in Poland. I use membership categorization analysis to show how the talk participants present themselves as members of a particular religious collectivity and how they ascribe membership in a religious collectivity to other speakers. I focus both on explicit and implicit categorization.