Raciolinguistics examines how

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

is used to construct

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

and how ideas of race influence language and language use. Although sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists have previously studied the intersections of language, race, and culture, raciolinguistics is a relatively new focus for scholars trying to theorize race throughout language studies.

Geneva Smitherman Geneva Smitherman is a University Distinguished Professor Emerita of English and co-founder of the African American and African Studies doctoral program at Michigan State University. Smitherman co-founded the first public African-centered eleme ...

credits H. Samy Alim for the coinage of the new term, discussed at length in the 2016 book by Alim,

John R. Rickford John Russell Rickford (born September 16, 1949) is a Guyanese–American academic and author. Rickford is the J. E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Linguistics and the Humanities at Stanford University's Department of Linguistics and the Stanford ...

and Arnetha F. Ball which compiled raciolinguistic research. In their work, raciolinguists incorporate

intersectionality Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adva ...

in theorizing how various identities (e.g. gender, ethnicity, nationality) within a group and/or an individual influence lived experiences of race. Nelson Flores and Jonathan Rosa also used the term in their discussion of "appropriateness" in American language and education. Drawing from

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...

and

linguistic anthropology Linguistic anthropology is the Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past cen ...

, raciolinguistics focuses on race and its relation to language. A central concern of raciolinguistics is to understand the complex meanings and implications of speech coming from a

racialized In sociology, racialization or ethnicization is a political process of ascribing ethnic or racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such. Racialization or ethnicization often arises out of th ...

subject. The field also explores how the relationship between race and language impacts domains like

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

and

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

In education

Appropriateness

In their critique of American language education, Nelson Flores and Jonathan Rosa argued that the standardization of "appropriate" language in American schooling creates different experiences for racialized students. "Appropriate" language, defined by the language of the dominant culture, is a construction of raciolinguistic ideologies that uphold certain linguistic practices as normative and others as deficient. These ideologies are defined by the white listening or speaking subject in that " language-minoritized students re expectedto mimic the white speaking subject while ignoring the raciolinguistic ideologies that the white listening subject uses to position them as racial Others". In her LangCrit framework, Alison Crump also explored whiteness within the construction and education of a standard English and how language scholars may further address language, race, and identity in language education.

Anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

Samy Alim explains in his book that American society is ''hyperracial'' or ''hyperracializing'', meaning that when speaking, people are orienting to race while also denying the evidence that shows how society is essentially structured and influenced by it.

Race and language

Languaging race

''Languaging race'' focuses on how race can be constructed or deconstructed "through the lens of language". Through and by language, one can take on, discard, or impose affiliations made with a certain race; such as education level, economic status, etc. For example, standardized language is linked with the idea of whiteness; this can be observed when black public figures such as

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

are labeled as "articulate" because of their ability to speak standard English, while white public figures' use of standard language is not deemed worthy of comment. Similarly, racialized individuals may be expected to speak languages other than English—for example, Latinxs expected to be fluent in Spanish—and judged harshly for not being bilingual. In some cases, people may be labeled as unable to speak any language well at all: "Her English is horrible, and from what I hear, her Spanish isn't that good either." In the context of Native English speaking, ''languaging race'' relates to the connection of native English speaking to whiteness, which is rooted in

colonization Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...

. More specifically, perpetuated colonial distinctions between European and non-European reinforce distinctions between whiteness and nonwhiteness, reproducing perceptions of race and language. Accordingly, people of racialized groups may be perceived as not being able to speak a language despite their fluency. For instance, the employment experience of African immigrants suggests that the evaluation of their accents when speaking English is rooted in the racist association of Black bodies with unintelligible speech. ''Languaging race'' also encompasses the theory of transracialization, made popular in the United States by the case of

Rachel Dolezal Nkechi Amare Diallo (; born Rachel Anne Dolezal, November 12, 1977) () is an American former college instructor and activist known for identifying as a transracial black woman. In addition to claiming black ancestry, she also claimed Native Ame ...

. However, within raciolinguistics, the emphasis of transracialization is put on how individuals both resist racial categorization and use such categorization in order to achieve racial justice, as in the case of

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police bruta ...

Racing language

''Racing language'' uses race theory to understand how sociolinguistic variation relates to social and political processes. This includes the development of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the United States, the generational linguistic shifts of Punjabi communities in London, and the significance of pharyngeal versus depharyngealized Hebrew in Israel. Association with a racial group may be related to the use of

ethnolect An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that mark speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, diale ...

s or

ethnolinguistic Ethnolinguistics (sometimes called cultural linguistics) is an area of anthropological linguistics that studies the relationship between a language and the nonlinguistic cultural behavior of the people who speak that language. __NOTOC__ Examples ...

repertoires, influencing the language used among a racial group and/or an individual seeking to identify with the group. This area explores the historic and systematic reasons linguistic features are associated with certain racial groups.

References