The study proceeds from an inquiry into the way in which affiliation to social groups is signalized communicatively. The question is examined on the basis of a large corpus of authentic verbal exchanges (conversations) recorded in the years following German reunification. 'East German' and 'West German' are the social categories forming the basis for the empirical elaboration of how individuals are allocated to group(ing)s and how - both on the basis of that allocation and beyond it - group-specific characteristics and behaviours are ascribed and evaluated. The main result of the study is the establishment of a descriptive linguistic framework for social categorizations in conversations and texts.