Christine Shea, Spanish & Portuguese 

“Linguistic Prejudice: Let me tell you who you are based on how you sound” 

Linguistic prejudice is a form of prejudice that manifests through implicit biases held by individuals about others based upon the way they speak. Linguistic prejudices influence the way messages are perceived and have a severe impact on people throughout their lives, starting in kindergarten and reaching into searches for housing or employment and interactions with the justice system. Linguistic prejudice is one of the last widely socially acceptable ways to discriminate against certain racial or socio-economic groups, by using criticism of nonstandard dialects as a proxy for criticism of their speakers. Linguistic prejudice exists in all societies and across all languages. While we will focus primarily on the United States, it is important to keep in mind that it is by no means limited to the US (or English) context. 

American English exhibits substantial variation across regions, races, social classes and age groups and many people hold the belief that some forms of English are more ‘correct’ than others, a fact that has been disproven time and time again by linguists. Most linguistic prejudices are in fact implicit and subconscious, reinforced by an education system that operates in ‘standard English’, with the goal of preparing individuals for the workplace. Thus, right from our earliest educational experiences those who are native speakers of the standard variety enjoy benefits and privileges denied to those who speak nonstandard varieties. Nonstandard variety speakers are forced to acquire the ‘correct’ linguistic code or run the risk of being judged as uneducated or incompetent. 

In this presentation, we explain why no language or variety of a language is better than another – rather, notions such as ‘goodness’ and ‘correctness’ are subjective evaluations connected to speakers of the language or dialect. We will discuss ways of recognizing and overcoming our own linguistic prejudice in daily interactions and reflect upon the rich diversity that exists in American English. Confronting linguistic prejudices is not easy; the way we speak is intrinsic to our identities and perceptions of ourselves and others. However, being conscious of our attitudes about language is a major step forward if we hope to overcome our own language prejudices.

The Center for Diversity and Enrichment (CDE), in collaboration with the Office of Graduate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; the University Libraries; and the Office of the Provost is pleased to announce this semester’s Diversity Seminar. The Diversity Seminar is a series of presentations that provides a safe and supportive space in which scholars may present their research to colleagues and students on campus. As part of its mission to promote student success and enrichment, the CDE seeks to support and promote the scholarship of faculty, staff, and graduate students with historically underrepresented global majority and/or marginalized identities at the University of Iowa. Scholars whose research addresses populations with marginalized identities may also submit proposals. All sessions will held via Zoom.