Speakers Bureau: “Language, race, and identity in the Gulf South”

Thomas D. Lewis presents “Language, race, and identity in the Gulf South”

Ideas about language are ideas about people. This means that the ways we think about languages and dialects are necessarily connected to the ways we think about the people who use those dialects and languages. This presentation explores how this fact shapes the sociolinguistic context of two Gulf South communities: New Orleans, LA and Jackson, MS. In each city, I show how both language use and discourses about language in the community are shaped by beliefs about race and ethnicity. My analysis demonstrates that language use and ethnic, racial, and linguistic identity in these communities are shaped by ideas about race and language in interesting and surprising ways. This is particularly important in majority minority communities like Jackson and New Orleans because it illustrates the subtle ways in which language, race, privilege, and discrimination are connected.