Raciolinguistic socialization and subversion at a predominantly white institution
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2021
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Educational Studies
Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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en
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
By interviewing current Swarthmore students on their linguistic experiences at
Swarthmore College, I investigated how students with diverse linguistic practices interact with
the raciolinguistic ideology of academic language at a predominantly white institution.
Ultimately, I argue that Swarthmore’s linguistic climate perpetuates the academic language
raciolinguistic ideology by equating academic language with academic performance. In response
to this linguistic climate, students whose linguistic diversity is not appreciated by the institution
either conform to or subvert the expectations for academic language in the classroom in order to
survive and succeed. Students expressed four main approaches to responding to the linguistic
climate: 1) conforming by performing sociolinguistic labor (Holliday and Squires, 2020), 2)
finding and creating participation spaces outside of the main classroom discourse, 3) identifying
safe participation spaces created by figures of authority, and 4) subverting the academic language
ideology in the main classroom, despite the institution’s linguistic expectations.