Linguistic racism

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In the terminology of linguistic anthropology, linguistic racism, both spoken and written, is a mechanism that perpetuates discrimination, marginalization, and prejudice customarily based on an individual or community's linguistic background. The most evident manifestation of this kind of racism are racial slurs, however there are covert forms of it. [1] Linguistic racism also relates to the concept of "racializing discourses," which is defined as the ways race is discussed without being explicit but still manages to represent and reproduce race. [2] This form of racism acts to classify people, places, and cultures into social categories while simultaneously maintaining this social inequality under a veneer of indirectness and deniability. [2]

Contents

Different forms of linguistic racism include covert and overt linguistic racism, linguistic appropriation, linguistic profiling, linguistic erasure, standard language ideology, pejorative naming, and accent discrimination. Relevantly, linguistic purism is a foundational factor in many forms of linguistic racism, as it is a practice of defining a language as purer or of higher quality relationally to other languages. Therefore, linguistic purism is also motivated by protecting the perceived purity of certain language from "corruption" or degradation, further defining and classifying languages and cultures hierarchically based on a perceived difference of quality or historical authenticity. [3]

Andrea Moro in his essay "La Razza e la lingua" ("Race and Language") shows that there are two ideas which look innocuous if considered as separated but which are extremely dangerous if combined: first, that there are languages which are better than others; second, that reality is perceived and elaborated differently, according to the language one speaks. He highlights that this linguistic racism was at the origin of the myth of Aryan race and the devastating results it had on civilization. [4]

Scholars known for their work on linguistic racism and related concepts such as linguicism and linguistic imperialism include Jane H. Hill, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Suresh Canagarajah, Geneva Smitherman, and Teun A. van Dijk. Linguistic racism is studied in multiple disciplines, which include communication studies, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, education, and psychology.

Forms of Linguistic Racism

Overt and Covert Linguistic Racism

Overt linguistic racism may be expressed in the form of mocking, teasing, laughing, joking, ridiculing, and interrupting. [5] [6] [7] Covert linguistic racism, on the other hand, is expressed through indirect and passive-aggressive acts of social exclusion. [5] In the U.S., covert linguistic racism plays a role in a lack of diverse participation in large studies or political participation as sufficient access to translations is often excluded. [8] Counties with higher than average minority population percentages and counties with lower percentages in English-speaking residents have lower participation rates in survey participation due to lack of accommodation or outreach. [9]

Linguistic Appropriation and Mock Language

Linguistic appropriation is the act of adopting linguistic patterns and elements of a language or dialect other than one’s own, typically without a cultural understanding or acknowledgment of said language and its social nuances. Linguistic appropriation typically affects languages or linguistic backgrounds that are historically marginalized. It can occur in everyday conversation but also in the media and advertisements, in which certain dialects and their associated stereotypes are utilized to represent socially desirable qualities attributed to that language. Therefore, this appropriation contributes to the erasure, marginalization, and trivialization of the targeted language or dialect. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) has been the target of linguistic appropriation for white audiences to make them appear knowledgeable about pop culture and have a “cool” persona that is adopted through the use of AAVE. [10] However, these appropriations index dangerous and negative stereotypes attributed to African Americans, including hyper-masculinity, higher rates of violence, and promiscuity. [10] Donor groups, who are the communities that the language is appropriated from, express linguistic appropriation as a form of theft in which those who utilize it reap the benefits of its associations while not acknowledging its origins. [10] [11]

Another example of linguistic appropriation began as early as the seventeenth century in the incorporation of loanwords from indigenous languages into the English language, including place names. [10] As an example, White Americans have historically appropriated indigenous place names to construct the idea of an "American" landscape, which includes locations such as "Massachusetts," "Chattahoochee," and "Tucson." [10] William O. Bright's research on indigenous place names defines the concept of "transfers," which refers to place names from indigenous languages that are used in locations disconnected from those languages, reflecting an assimilation of these names into White narratives and an alienation and alteration from its indigenous origins. [12]

The works of Jane H. Hill on "mock Spanish", [13] of Barbara A. Meek on "Hollywood Injun English", [14] of Ronkin and Kan on parodies of Ebonics, [15] of Elaine Chun "Ideologies of Legitimate Mockery" on "mock Asian", etc., demonstrate how parodying or re-appropriating non-English languages contributes to presenting certain cultures as inferior to European Americans by disparaging their languages. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linguistic prescription</span> Prescriptive rules of grammar and usage

Linguistic prescription, also called prescriptivism or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes informed by linguistic purism, such normative practices often suggest that some usages are incorrect, inconsistent, illogical, lack communicative effect, or are of low aesthetic value, even in cases where such usage is more common than the prescribed usage. They may also include judgments on socially proper and politically correct language use.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Speech community</span> Group of people who share expectations regarding linguistic usage

A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. It is a concept mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">John R. Rickford</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mock Spanish</span>

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Mock language is a way of using a language not spoken by or native to a speaker.

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References

  1. 1 2 Paul V. Kroskrity, "Theorizing Linguistic Racisms from a Language Ideological Perspective", In: The Oxford Handbook of Language and Race
  2. 1 2 Dick, Hilary Parsons; Wirtz, Kristina (2011). "Racializing Discourses". Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 21 (s1).
  3. ↑ Langer, Nils; Nesse, Agnete (2012). "Linguistic Purism". In Hernández-Campoy, Juan Manuel; Conde-Silvestre, Juan Camilo (eds.). The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics. Wiley-Blackwell.
  4. ↑ Moro, Andrea (2019). La razza e la lingua. La Nave di Teseo. ISBN   978-8834600238.
  5. 1 2 Tankosić, Ana; Dovchin, Sender (7 April 2021). "(C)overt linguistic racism: Eastern-European background immigrant women in the Australian workplace". Ethnicities. 23 (5): 1–32. doi:10.1177/14687968211005104. eISSN   1741-2706. hdl: 20.500.11937/91494 . ISSN   1468-7968. S2CID   233600585.
  6. ↑ "Ask the expert: Linguistic Racism". MSUToday | Michigan State University. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  7. ↑ Ro, Christine. "The pervasive problem of 'linguistic racism'". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  8. ↑ Link, Michael W; Mokdad, Ali H; Stackhouse, Herbert F; Flowers, Nicole T (2005-12-15). "Race, Ethnicity, and Linguistic Isolation as Determinants of Participation in Public Health Surveillance Surveys". Preventing Chronic Disease. 3 (1): A09. ISSN   1545-1151. PMC   1500943 . PMID   16356362.
  9. ↑ Link, Michael W; Mokdad, Ali H; Stackhouse, Herbert F; Flowers, Nicole T (2005-12-15). "Race, Ethnicity, and Linguistic Isolation as Determinants of Participation in Public Health Surveillance Surveys". Preventing Chronic Disease. 3 (1): A09. ISSN   1545-1151. PMC   1500943 . PMID   16356362.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Hill, Jane H. (2008). The Everyday Language of White Racism. Routledge.
  11. ↑ Smitherman, Geneva (1998). "Word from the hood: The lexicon of African-American Vernacular English". In Bailey, Guy; Baugh, John; Mufwene, Salikoko S.; Rickford, John R. (eds.). African-American English: Structure, History, and Use. Routledge.
  12. ↑ Bright, William O. (2004). Native American Placenames of the United States. University of Oklahoma Press.
  13. ↑ "Review of Jane H. Hill's "Mock Spanish: A Site for the Indexical Reproduction of Racism in American English"".
  14. ↑ Barbara A. Meek, "And the Injun goes “How!”: Representations of American Indian English in white public space", Language in Society, 35 (1), pp 93-128, JSTOR   4169479
    • Abstract: This article describes linguistic features used to depict fictional American Indian speech, a style referred to as “Hollywood Injun English,” found in movies, on television, and in some literature (the focus is on the film and television varieties). Grammatically, it draws on a range of nonstandard features similar to those found in “foreigner talk” and “baby talk,” as well a formalized, ornate variety of English; all these features are used to project or evoke certain characteristics historically associated with "the White Man's Indian". The article also exemplifies some ways in which these linguistic features are deployed in relation to particular characteristics stereotypically associated with American Indians, and shows how the correspondence between nonstandard, dysfluent speech forms and particular pejorative aspects of the fictional Indian characters subtly reproduce Native American otherness in contemporary popular American culture.
  15. ↑ Ronkin, Maggie; Karn, Helen E. (1999), "Mock Ebonics: Linguistic racism in parodies of Ebonics on the Internet", Journal of Sociolinguistics, 3 (3): 360–380, doi:10.1111/1467-9481.00083

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