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<h1 class="gmail-title">The Link Between Race and Language: Looking Like a Language, Sounding Like a Race</h1>
<p class="gmail-postmetadata">By <a href="http://thewestgeorgian.com/author/h-sigler/" title="Posts by Sierra Lemelle" rel="author">Sierra Lemelle</a> in <span class="gmail-category"><a href="http://thewestgeorgian.com/category/living-west/" rel="category tag">Living West</a>, <a href="http://thewestgeorgian.com/category/news/" rel="category tag">News</a></span> on March 30, 2018 / <a href="http://thewestgeorgian.com/the-link-between-race-and-language-looking-like-a-language-sounding-like-a-race/#commentspost" title="Jump to the comments">no comments</a></p>
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<div id="gmail-attachment_8757" style="max-width:310px" class="gmail-wp-caption gmail-alignleft"><img class="gmail-size-medium gmail-wp-image-8757" src="https://i0.wp.com/thewestgeorgian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Edit-IMG_4645_preview.jpeg?resize=300%2C200" alt="" width="300" height="200"><p class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Photo Credit Sierra Lemelle</p></div>
<p>Beyond a method of communication, language is a cultural aspect that
shapes identity. The Department of Anthropology hosted Dr. Jonathan
Rosa, assistant professor of Anthropology and Linguistics, to discuss
his new book <i>Looking Like a Language, Sounding Like a Race</i>. He
reveals the central role that language has in shaping ideas about race
as a social construct and an important social reality. This relationship
between race, language and racism is a part of the foundation for
reflecting and defining the way human societies are structured.<span> </span></p>
<p> Rosa challenges distinctions between race and ethnicity in
Latinx, a gender non-binary way of referring to ‘Latina/o’, culture and
argues that the racialization of Latinx language requires consideration
of race. He coined the term “languagelessness” to define linguistic
competence and legitimate personhood to examine the association it has
with the ideology of language
standardization. Languagelessness stigmatizes specific linguistic
practices that differs from the established norm. <span> </span></p>
<p> Rosa explains the relationship between race, language and
racism as a term called “raciolinguistics”.
Rosa’s raciolinguistics perspective examines the categories of race,
ethnicity and language as products of colonial distinctions. Rosa
analyzes the U.S. as a fundamentally racist society built on colonialism
and slavery that has led to the continuation of white supremacy in
institutions such as public schools being reproduced. He explores this
structural inequality in urban contexts by collaborating with local
communities.<span> </span></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_8758" style="max-width:310px" class="gmail-wp-caption gmail-alignleft"><img class="gmail-size-medium gmail-wp-image-8758" src="https://i2.wp.com/thewestgeorgian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Edit-IMG_4650_preview.jpeg?resize=300%2C200" alt="" width="300" height="200"><p class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Photo Credit: Sierra Lemelle</p></div>
<p> “In a post 1965 moment in the United States the Civil Rights
Act and various other forms of legislation have guaranteed equal rights
yet we see profound disparities, racial disparities among other forms of
disparity that persist despite the legal changes that have taken
place,” said Rosa. “Ideas about language come from profound sites of
reproduction of inequality.”<span> </span></p>
<p> Rosa drew on ethnographic data collected within a
predominantly Latinx high school, institutional policies and scholarly
conceptions of language. These sources point out the racialized ways
that ideologies of language standardization and languagelessness relate
in theory, policy and everyday interactions. Bilingualism is shown as a
handicap in public schools and multilingual communities as
linguistically isolated in the U.S. Census. <span> </span></p>
<p> Any racialized group can be linguistically stigmatized with
ideologies of language standardization and languagelessness. Even if a
group is not yet racialized, it could become racialized through these
ideological and institutional processes. <span> </span></p>
<p> “In order to disrupt the linguistic reproduction of
radicalization and socioeconomic stratification, we must move beyond
asserting the legitimacy of stigmatized language practices,” said Rosa.
“Focusing instead on interrogating the societal reproduction of
listening subject positions that continually perceive deficiency. By
changing our analytical strategy in this way, we can gain new insights
into how the joint ideological construction of race, class and language
perpetuates inequality.”<span> </span></p></div></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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