Liberatory Linguistics

Abstract

Abstract While the college population in the United States is becoming increasingly diverse, few studies focus on the goal of linguistic justice in higher education teaching and learning-a critical factor in achieving all forms of social equity. I offer liberatory linguistics as a productive, unifying framework for the scholarship that will advance strategies for attaining linguistic justice. Emerging from the synthesis of various lived experiences, academic traditions, and methodological approaches, I illustrate how a structural ignorance of language justice affects the lived experiences of people across the world. I present findings from my work with Black undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty members as they endeavor to embed a justice framework throughout the study of language broadly conceived. I conclude by highlighting promising strategies that can improve current approaches to engaging with structural realities that impede linguistic justice.