Sociolinguistic frontiers: Emancipation and equality

In her conclusion to this issue, Monica Heller reflects 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 lang...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of the sociology of language 2020-05, Vol.2020 (263), p.121-126
Main Author: Heller, Monica
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
(in)equality
Comparative linguistics
Emancipation
engagement
Equality
Inequality
Measurement
Social inequality
Sociolinguistics
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Summary:In her conclusion to this issue, Monica Heller reflects 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.
ISSN:0165-2516
1613-3668
DOI:10.1515/ijsl-2020-2090