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From Theory to Action: Working Collectively Toward a More Antiracist Linguistics (Response to Commentators)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Anne H. Charity Hudley ,
Christine Mallinson  and
Mary Bucholtz
Anne H. Charity Hudley*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
Christine Mallinson*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Mary Bucholtz*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
*
University of California, Santa Barbara 3432 South Hall Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3100, [acharityhudley@ucsb.edu]
[mallinson@umbc.edu]
[bucholtz@ucsb.edu]
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Extract

The conscience of the world has shifted greatly since we started this direct engagement with the linguistics community on issues of race, racism, and social justice. The COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread protests in response to statesanctioned police violence toward Black and African-American people have renewed and intensified conversations about racial justice and equity. Many linguists and linguistics departments are now actively grappling with what race and racism mean as theoretical concepts, how we can both address the study of race and act against racist practices in our discipline, and how to work on being not just ‘less racist’ but indeed antiracist in every aspect of our intellectual, professional, and personal lives. We are challenged to think about how we can center the lives and experiences of people of various racial backgrounds, rather than primarily centering whiteness, in linguistics departments. In doing so, we must more directly ask the question: how would linguistics have to change in order for more people from various racial groups to actively want to study, teach, and learn linguistics? We also need to emphasize that these are necessarily intersectional issues and that racialization is intimately tied to inequities on the basis of gender identity, socioeconomic status, disability, citizenship, and other parameters of social difference.

Information

Type
Perspectives
Information
Language , Volume 96 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. e307 - e319
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Linguistic Society of America

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