Sociolinguistic labor, linguistic climate, and race(ism) on campus: Black college students’ experiences with language at predominantly white institutions

Abstract

AbstractThis project explores the sociolinguistic experiences of black American students in predominantly/historically white higher education settings. Through interviews with 30 black undergraduates at two different types of institutions, we show how language is a salient factor in racialization and racism on American college campuses. Both sets of students discussed stereotype threat (being at risk of negative stereotyping based on their language), as well as bifurcated sociolinguistic identities (an outcome of managing their linguistic resources to avoid negative stereotyping). We also find that the nuances of students’ racialized experiences with language differ depending on other elements of campus climate: at the small private college, more students described tensions between black students, and stringent expectations for hyper‐‘academic’ language. Student accounts reveal the sociolinguistic labor they perform in navigating campus environments rife with linguistic racism, showing that campus climate includes linguistic climate, undergirded by raciolinguistic ideologies.