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]

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] Because language and race have been deeply intertwined historically, race remains a crucial concept in understanding how languages are defined and how the study of language developed.[4]: 382 Languages coincide with classifying and reinforces racial groups and the social associations with those groups, which relates to racialization. Racialization is the process of imposing and prescribing a racial category to a person or group, often by associating certain racialized traits such as cultural history, skin color, and physical features.[4]: 382

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.[5]

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.

Origins and Development of Linguistic Racism[edit]

How race is defined and described is implicated within dynamics of power and the violence of colonialism.[6]: 312 Difference has been recorded and actualized prior to the emergence as race as a category. Christopher Columbus' mistaken belief that the inhabitants of the island Canibales engaged in the consumption of human flesh popularized the term "cannibal."[6]: 311 This term not only supplanted "anthropophagy" in reference to consuming human flesh, but embodied the construct of the other and become the ultimate personification of an antithetical to a "civilized," normative existence.[6]: 311[7]: 19 Race as a social category that defines physical characteristics in connection to ancestry was formed in the late eighteenth century.[6]: 312 The emergence of race included the social creation of hierarchies that positioned white Europeans at its top, with other racialized groups such as Black Africans and Australian Aborigenés at the bottom.[6]: 312 Within these linguistic traditions of conceptualizing race, color terms such as black or white became a topology associated with racialization regardless of its visual reality.[6]: 312 Within the Western imagination, color typologies reinforced the binarisms of race, especially between white and black, which became codified signifiers of social, racialized hierarchies.[6]:313

Forms of Linguistic Racism[edit]

Overt and Covert Linguistic Racism[edit]

Overt linguistic racism may be expressed in the form of mocking, teasing, laughing, joking, ridiculing, and interrupting.[8][9][10] Covert linguistic racism, on the other hand, is expressed through indirect and passive-aggressive acts of social exclusion.[8] 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. [11] 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.[12]

Personally Mediated Racism and Microaggressions[edit]

Personally mediated racism is defined as the interpersonal interactions between individuals or groups that may marginalize or discriminate against one party. Personally mediated racism may take the form of microaggressions, which often manifest negative connotations regarding an individuals' or group's speech patterns or linguistic expressions in a demeaning manner.[13]: 383 The everyday biases that define microaggressions are exemplified in statements that claim someone talks like or sounds like a specific cultural or racial group (Indian, Black, White, Mexican, etc.)[13]: 383 Examples of microaggressions also include derogatory remarks about someone's intelligence based on their manner of speaking, suggesting unwarranted assumptions about someone's cultural identity and linguistic homogeneity within racial or ethnic groups.[13]: 383 These statements imply members of a certain group are expected to talk and linguistically express themselves in the same manner, may insinuate that deviations from presumed cultural norms as abnormal, and can falsely imply a one's linguistic characteristics as dissociated from their culture.[13]: 383

Naming[edit]

Names are tied to social meanings that may index and convey one's gender, ethnicity, class, religion and other positionalities.[14]: 274 Another form of linguistic racism is the process of ethnoracialized groups being misnamed or denamed, which can be a process of public shaming that others and linguistically marginalizes people.[14]: 274 Many marginalized groups such as immigrants, indigenous people, and African Americans endure the experience of their names being mispronounced, anglicized, or even replaced, which represents how certain names undergo a process of becoming deracialized and normative.[14]: 285 An example of this includes the social phenomenon, most common in educational institutions and classrooms, where students have their names mispronounced or their given name displaced due to the assumption their names are foreign or hard to pronounce.[14]: 276 Many marginalized groups, however, do claim the right to name themselves such as choosing a new name, maintaining multiple pronunciations, and having different naming practices.[14]: 285

Linguistic Appropriation and Mock Language[edit]

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.[15]: 169 However, these appropriations index dangerous and negative stereotypes attributed to African Americans, including hyper-masculinity, higher rates of violence, and promiscuity.[15]: 169 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.[15]: 169 [16]: 218-222

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.[15]: 162 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."[15]:162-3 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.[17]: 370

Mock language is defined as the action of imitating and mimicking another language, incorporating grammatical structures, expressions, and terminology that is not native to the speaker. Speakers of mock Spanish reasoned their usage of it as a signifier of being exposed to Spanish, to incite amusement, or to claim regional authenticity to primarily the Southwest, California, or Floria.[18]: 683 To understand the logics and semiotics of mock Spanish as humorous or even intelligible, it requires access and understanding of negative stereotypes of Latinos and Chicanos.[18]: 683 The works of Jane H. Hill on "mock Spanish",[19] of Barbara A. Meek on "Hollywood Injun English",[20] of Ronkin and Kan on parodies of Ebonics,[21] 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[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Paul V. Kroskrity, "Theorizing Linguistic Racisms from a Language Ideological Perspective", In: The Oxford Handbook of Language and Race
  2. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Hudley, Anne H. Charity (2016). "Language and Racialization". In García, Ofelia; Flores, Nelson; Spotti, Massimiliano (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society. Oxford University Press. pp. 381–402.
  5. ^ Moro, Andrea (2019). La razza e la lingua. La Nave di Teseo. ISBN 978-8834600238.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Ashcroft, Bill (2001). "Language and Race". Social Identities. 7 (3): 311–28.
  7. ^ Hulme, Peter (1986). Colonial Encounters: Europe and the Native Caribbean 1492-1797. New York and London: Routledge.
  8. ^ a b 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.
  9. ^ "Ask the expert: Linguistic Racism". MSUToday | Michigan State University. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  10. ^ Ro, Christine. "The pervasive problem of 'linguistic racism'". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ a b c d Hudley, Anne H. Charity (2016). "Language and Racialization". In García, Ofelia; Flores, Nelson; Spotti, Massimiliano (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society. Oxford University Press. pp. 381–402.
  14. ^ a b c d e Bucholtz, Mary (2016). "On Being Called Out of One's Name: Indexical Bleaching as a Technique of Deracialization". In Alim, H. Samy; Rickford, John R.; Ball, Arnetha F. (eds.). Raciolinguistics: How Language Shapes Our Ideas About Race. Oxford University Press.
  15. ^ a b c d e Hill, Jane H. (2008). The Everyday Language of White Racism. Routledge.
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ Bright, William O. (2004). Native American Placenames of the United States. University of Oklahoma Press.
  18. ^ a b Hill, Jane H. (1998). "Language, race, and white public space". American Anthropologist. 100 (3): 680–689.
  19. ^ "Review of Jane H. Hill's "Mock Spanish: A Site for the Indexical Reproduction of Racism in American English"".
  20. ^ 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.
  21. ^ 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

Further reading[edit]

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