Correcting whose errors? The principle of error correction from an ethnographic lens

Abstract

Labovian sociolinguistics constitutes an important paradigm that brings to the forefront issues of social justice in linguistics and asks about the debt the scholar has towards the community once s/he gets information from it. Nevertheless, as many scholars have discussed, and even though this paradigm has focused on changing society for the better, it has serious limitations on how it conceptualizes the relationship between language and society. Based on critical race theory and language ideologies, Lewis powerfully contributes to this discussion by critiquing the principle of error correction (PEC) proposed by Labov as a particular way of conceptualizing social change. As Lewis points out at the end of the article, this principle reflects an ‘earlier era’ and needs to be reconsidered in light of the significant transformations not only in the study of language in society developed in recent decades but also in critical theory and humanities in general.