Sociolinguistic Frontiers

Monica Heller, curator of Items’ “Sociolinguistic Frontiers,” concludes the series with a reflection on the ways in which the field has both advanced and obscured understandings of how linguistic inequality is related to broader hierarchies of power. The great accomplishment of sociolinguistics—its liberal and scientific claims that all languages are equal in value—did little to engage how inequalities between different groups of speakers were reproduced. Heller argues that the scholarly techniques for measurement and commensuration that allowed the formal comparison of language has neglected to ask how language “continues to serve as a terrain for the making of social difference and social inequality.” She concludes with thoughts for how future sociolinguistics agendas might address this gap.

Alexander Duchêne’s contribution to the “Sociolinguistics Frontiers” series traces the ways in which multilingualism has been understood and valued by scholars and beyond. Duchêne shows how the work of sociolinguistics dramatically shifted the image of multilingual speakers and societies as a problem for nation-states to something to be celebrated, even as an indicator and contributor to social justice for minority language speakers. He then goes on to argue that this validation and recognition of multiple languages can divert attention away from broader inequalities, especially socioeconomic ones, that multilingualism is unable to address.

Wesley Leonard’s contribution to the “Sociolinguistics Frontiers” series argues that sociolinguistic approaches to Native American languages are best conducted as part of a project of “language reclamation.” Leonard discusses how past framings of Indigenous languages as “endangered,” while in some ways well-intentioned, replicated the distance of language communities from scholarly research. An emphasis on reclamation—“efforts by Indigenous communities to claim the right to speak their heritage languages”—highlights the role of the community members in the production of knowledge on and the revival of Native American languages.

In her contribution to the “Sociolinguistic Frontiers” series, Adrienne Lo reflects on how scholars of language use have engaged with issues of race and racialization in the United States since the 1970s. She traces how scholars’ emphases have shifted between a focus on the “real” and authentic productions of language varieties by racialized groups and the ways political, economic and cultural forces shape how that language use is represented and (de)legitimized. Lo concludes with a discussion of the stakes of sociolinguistic study of race given the contestations around “race” as a concept, and argues that research in this space should seek to engage broader publics.

In this new contribution to “Sociolinguistic Frontiers,” John Baugh provides an analytical overview of how the field has addressed issues of power and inequality. Baugh addresses how both social hierarchies and the legal system affect the standing of different languages and their users. He then especially focuses on language use in relation to racial and gender dynamics, highlighting influential work that revealed and analyzed how language is used to make and deepen inequality. He concludes with a call for the promotion of “linguistic human rights” that would protect minority language speakers.

José del Valle, in his contribution to our “Sociolinguistic Frontiers” series, looks at the intersection of the sociolinguistic study of Spanish in the US and the transformations of Spanish language departments in higher education. Del Valle traces the history of the institutionalization of Spanish teaching and study and its effects on linguistic research’s position within Spanish departments. Shifts in approaches to the use of language in social practice, and the growing demands on language units to act as service departments for language learners, has isolated scholars in those institutional homes from broader integration into sociolinguistic research.