Language and Race

This chapter offers an in-depth exploration of methodological and theoretical aspects of the study of language and race. We outline the field of language and race by consolidating various perspectives within language studies, providing an interdisciplinary space for interaction between sociolinguists, linguistic anthropologists, and applied linguists. The field has focused on the linguistic construction of ethnoracial identities, the role of language in processes of racialization and ethnicization, and the language ideological processes that drive the marginalization of racially minoritized populations in the context of historically rooted political and economic systems. In recent years, the study of language and race has been amplified by a set of approaches that seek to unite the study of language with critical inquiry into racialization processes. Raciolinguistics scholars view race through the lens of language and view language through the lens of race to better understand them as co-constitutive processes. The process of linguistic racialization - where race is an enduring yet evolving social process steeped in centuries of colonialism and capitalism - is central to these approaches. A growing number of language and race researchers are offering translanguaging, intersectional, and queer perspectives in line with the field’s critical, antiracist, anticolonial approach.