Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a snapshot of some of the key discursive strategies used in the speeches and public statements of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (2017–2020), as she called up underserved communities in service of a neoliberal educational agenda. Using discourse analysis, I explore social and economic justice as a linguistic phenomenon and highlight the role words play in shaping political and cultural outcomes. Although the paper offers only a snapshot of her framing strategies, we learn that marginalized children and communities are linguistically and rhetorically positioned to legitimate increased private intervention in public schools. Through careful lexical choices and naming practices, DeVos builds a worldview to shape the minds of her primary and secondary audiences. I detail how certain micro-level linguistic features impact individual and societal conceptualizations of education, which, in turn, inform macro-level educational narratives, policies, and practices. The findings presented are grounded in sociocognitive and cognitive linguistics approaches that emphasize the ways that discourse is cognitively mediated in our culture.
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