Multiracial identity and racial complexity in sociolinguistic variation

Abstract

AbstractWhat is the relationship between ethnolinguistic communities and ways of speaking? Who is an authentic speaker of an ethnolinguistic variety? In a time where scholarly and public conceptualizations of race and ethnicity are variable and rapidly changing, potential effects on both self‐identification and ways of speaking present an area ripe for study. However, linguistics and allied fields have often overlooked individuals and communities that do not neatly conform to well‐defined racial categories. As multiracially identified individuals are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the United States, researchers will necessarily need to address the way that traditional methodologies have excluded individuals and groups who fall outside of these racial and ethnic categories. This presents a unique challenge for sociolinguistics in particular, since we are interested in how people draw on linguistic variation to perform aspects of their identities, including their races and ethnicities. This article examines the ways in which race and ethnicity have been traditionally conceptualized in linguistics and allied fields and draws on research from other social sciences to see how they have begun to study individuals who fall outside of traditionally preexisting social categories. The article also briefly discusses the results of one of the first major sociolinguistic studies on multiracially identified participants, which found substantial effects of self‐conceptualization and self‐identification on linguistic behavior of these participants, a result which informs how future work should consider individuals who identify as two or more races. Finally, it will address future directions for research at the intersection of personal identity, race, and language.