Language, race and ethnicity

Cushing, Ian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1752-1411 (2025) Language, race and ethnicity. In: International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 3rd Edition. Elsevier. (In Press)

Accepted Version File not available for download. Available under License In Copyright. Download (219kB)

Abstract

Race has long played a central role in the production and maintenance of linguistic hierarchies, in which racially stigmatised populations are often framed as displaying linguistic deficiencies. These hierarchies are part of broader patterns of coloniality, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness. Whilst linguists have sought to challenge these ideologies, they are often also complicit in (re)producing them. A raciolinguistic perspective seeks to contest essentialist notions of race and language whilst pointing to the colonial histories of oppressive ideologies about language, and pushing for transformative theories of social change which put issues of linguistic justice into dialogue with racial justice struggles more broadly.