Language Discrimination Research Articles

The literal meaning of Slur

This research explores the complex and multifaceted nature of slurs within modern sociolinguistic contexts. The study aims to dissect the power dynamics embedded in these terms, examining how slurs function as instruments of social control, perpetuating stereotypes and reinforcing social hierarchies. Through a combination of qualitative analysis and case studies, this research investigates the historical origins, evolution, and contemporary usage of slurs across different cultures and communities. The findings reveal that slurs are not merely offensive words but are laden with historical and cultural significance, often reflecting broader societal attitudes towards race, gender, sexuality, and other identity markers. The study also considers the psychological impact of slurs on individuals and groups, demonstrating how these terms can inflict lasting emotional harm and contribute to a hostile social environment. In addition, the research addresses the phenomenon of reappropriation, where marginalized groups reclaim slurs as a form of empowerment and resistance. This process is analyzed to understand its potential in challenging and subverting the oppressive connotations traditionally associated with these terms. Ultimately, this paper underscores the importance of recognizing the deep-seated implications of slurs in everyday language and advocates for a more nuanced approach to addressing linguistic discrimination. The research concludes with recommendations for fostering more inclusive and respectful communication practices in diverse social settings.

On Professional Values Under a State of War: Exile Journalists From Ukraine in Russia

This paper discusses the case of exile journalists from Ukraine who moved to Russia between 2014 and 2022. What, in terms of journalistic norms, was unacceptable to them in the Ukrainian journalistic field? What did they find problematic in this respect in Russia? These were the basic questions driving the research, in the course of which 15 exile journalists were interviewed; their answers were analysed using Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis. The findings presented in the paper show that, despite all the difficulties of their personal situations, exile journalist still consider professional values such as independence and truth-telling to be important, continuing to use these normative yardsticks to measure the quality of the journalistic condition. The biggest concern that most of the informants shared was that journalists in both Russia and Ukraine used the language of hatred and discrimination toward political and cultural others, that is so-called antagonistic discourse that only contribute to the spiralling of violence and can never help in reaching peace. These findings allow the suggestion that by occupying a unique position from which to witness the contingency of hegemonic orders exile journalists advocating for peace may re-affirm the values of human dignity and peaceful coexistence, two basic principles of the journalistic profession, as identified by UNESCO.

Linguistic discrimination and diversity: the pivotal role of linguistics in the University of Pennsylvania’s writing program

Abstract This paper outlines a unit on linguistics in the curriculum of the writing seminar taken by all undergraduate students at the University of Pennsylvania. The linguistic unit introduces undergraduates to key concepts from linguistic scholarship, and compels students to engage with these language issues in order to advance their consciousness of linguistic inequity and their appreciation of linguistic diversity. Taking our cue from linguists, the unit focuses on the descriptive and contrasts it with the prescriptive approach with which they are typically accustomed. It introduces foundational ideas about language, languaging, and linguistic discrimination through readings and videos. Students write guided reflections in response to the readings and screenings, culminating in a personal narrative and questions they share with their peers on an online discussion board, exploring their own and others’ language use or language attitudes. Upon completion of this unit, many students confirm one of the unit’s learning outcomes by expressing a new awareness of a linguistic climate that they had previously assumed was neutral. Our goal, in part, is to render the campus’s linguistic climate more equitable by advancing students’ consciousness of linguistic inequity and appreciation of the rich diversity of their voices.

Prompt tuning discriminative language models for hierarchical text classification

Prompt tuning discriminative language models for hierarchical text classification

Associations Between Acculturation, Discrimination, and Adolescent Relationship Abuse: A Matched Parent-Adolescent Study of Latine Families.

Adolescent relationship abuse (ARA) is prevalent among adolescents, including those who identify as Latine. However, there is limited research that has considered the cultural and structural mechanisms that may impact ARA experiences among Latine youth. Further, although parents play a crucial role in ARA prevention, few studies have investigated how adolescent-parent differences in acculturation and discrimination are associated with ARA. The objective of this exploratory study of Latine families was to examine how acculturation, discrimination, and adolescent-parent acculturation/discrimination differences relate to ARA victimization and perpetration. Parent-adolescent dyads recruited from clinic and community-based settings in Pittsburgh and Kansas City completed matched surveys. Parent-adolescent acculturation and discrimination differences were calculated using multilevel linear models. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine associations among ARA victimization and perpetration and adolescent-reported acculturation, adolescent-reported discrimination, and adolescent-parent acculturation and discrimination differences. One hundred eighty-two adolescents and their parent/caregiver (n = 364) completed a matched survey in English or Spanish from March 2020 to March 2021. Forty-three percent of adolescents reported that they had started dating; of these 35% and 24% reported ARA victimization and perpetration, respectively. Higher levels of adolescent-reported acculturation conflict were associated with lower ARA victimization (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 0.24; 95% confidence interval, CI [0.08, 0.75]); conversely, higher adolescent-reported discrimination was associated with ARA victimization (aOR: 2.50 [1.30, 4.60]) and perpetration (aOR: 2.10 [1.10, 3.90]). Wider adolescent-parent acculturation differences in Spanish language (aOR: 3.40 [1.04, 11.30]) and interpersonal discrimination (aOR: 2.40 [1.10, 5.20]) were associated with increased ARA victimization. Results underscore the importance of discrimination in understanding ARA experiences among Latine youth. Future work should consider developing culturally and linguistically affirming ARA prevention programs for Latine adolescents and parents.

Visual-guided hierarchical iterative fusion for multi-modal video action recognition

Vision-Language models(VLMs) have shown promising improvements on various visual tasks. Most existing VLMs employ two separate transformer-based encoders, each dedicated to modeling visual and language features independently. Because the visual features and language features are unaligned in the feature space, it is challenging for the multi-modal encoder to learn vision-language interactions. In this paper, we propose a V,isual-guided Hierarchical Iterative Fusion (VgHIF) method for VLMs in video action recognition, which acquires more discriminative vision and language representation. VgHIF leverages visual features from different levels in visual encoder to interact with language representation. The interaction is processed by the attention mechanism to calculate the correlation between visual features and language representation. VgHIF learns grounded video-text representation and supports many different pre-trained VLMs in a flexible and efficient manner with a tiny computational cost. We conducted experiments on the Kinetics-400 Mini Kinetics 200 HMDB51, and UCF101 using VLMs: CLIP, X-CLIP, and ViFi-CLIP. The experiments were conducted under full supervision and few shot settings, and compared with the baseline multi-modal model without VgHIF, the Top-1 accuracy of the proposed method has been improved to varying degrees, and several groups of results have achieved comparable results with state-of-the-art performance, which strongly verified the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Mixed Methods Study Protocol: Language Identity, Discrimination, and Mental Health among Multilingual 1.5 Generation Asian/Asian American Immigrant Young Adults.

Language identity, an understudied factor, can influence isolation and discrimination, leading to disparities in well-being and mental health among immigrants. This study aims to investigate the role of language identity on structural racism and discrimination among 1.5 generation Asian/Asian American immigrants in a diverse U.S. state. We developed a three-step sequential approach: Stage 1-qualitative analysis (1A, focus group discussion; 1B, in-depth interviews); Stage 2-quantitative analysis (2A, language identity measurement scale; 2B, cross-sectional online survey; 2C, multivariate multiple linear regression); Stage 3-another round of qualitative analysis (3A, follow-up in-depth chronological interviews). Therefore, this study will contribute to the field by introducing a novel three-step mixed methods approach, marking a notable improvement over conventional explanatory or exploratory sequential designs.

Generative language models on nucleotide sequences of human genes.

Language models, especially transformer-based ones, have achieved colossal success in natural language processing. To be precise, studies like BERT for natural language understanding and works like GPT-3 for natural language generation are very important. If we consider DNA sequences as a text written with an alphabet of four letters representing the nucleotides, they are similar in structure to natural languages. This similarity has led to the development of discriminative language models such as DNABERT in the field of DNA-related bioinformatics. To our knowledge, however, the generative side of the coin is still largely unexplored. Therefore, we have focused on the development of an autoregressive generative language model such as GPT-3 for DNA sequences. Since working with whole DNA sequences is challenging without extensive computational resources, we decided to conduct our study on a smaller scale and focus on nucleotide sequences of human genes, i.e. unique parts of DNA with specific functions, rather than the whole DNA. This decision has not significantly changed the structure of the problem, as both DNA and genes can be considered as 1D sequences consisting of four different nucleotides without losing much information and without oversimplification. First of all, we systematically studied an almost entirely unexplored problem and observed that recurrent neural networks (RNNs) perform best, while simple techniques such as N-grams are also promising. Another beneficial point was learning how to work with generative models on languages we do not understand, unlike natural languages. The importance of using real-world tasks beyond classical metrics such as perplexity was noted. In addition, we examined whether the data-hungry nature of these models can be altered by selecting a language with minimal vocabulary size, four due to four different types of nucleotides. The reason for reviewing this was that choosing such a language might make the problem easier. However, in this study, we found that this did not change the amount of data required very much.

Association between interpreter use and small for gestational age infants

BackgroundLimited English proficiency is associated with worse health outcomes regardless of health literacy. Prior research suggests that using interpreter services for low English proficiency helps mitigate the language barrier, is associated with improved health outcomes, and patient satisfaction; however, obstetric and neonatal outcomes and pregnancy risks in this population are not well studied. ObjectivesThe primary purpose of this study was to determine if low English proficiency is an independent risk factor for small for gestational age infants by utilizing interpreter use as a proxy for low English proficiency. Due to the known challenges in communication with a language barrier and discrimination against people whose first language is not English, we hypothesized that this could result in an increase in high risk conditions in pregnancy such as SGA. Our hypothesis was that the need for an interpreter would be associated with having small for gestational age infants. Study DesignWe performed a retrospective cohort study at a single center using data between 1/1/2016 and 12/31/2021; we included singleton, live births ≥ 21 weeks gestation. We excluded multiple gestations, intrauterine fetal demise, and delivery < 21 weeks. The primary outcome was rate of small for gestational age. Small for gestational age was defined as birthweight < 10th percentile for gestational age using the 2018 Fenton newborn growth curve. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to control for confounding variables. ResultsOf the 26,260 patients included in the study, 71.3% were non-Hispanic White, 9.5% were Hispanic/Latino, and 7.9% were non-Hispanic Black. Overall, 1,662 (6.3%) patients utilized an interpreter. Over half (58.0%) of patients requesting interpreter services were Hispanic. In unadjusted analyses, the rate of small for gestational age was not different between patients who used interpreter services (n=106, 6.4%) and those who did not (n=1612, 6.6 %), P=.779. After adjusting for race/ethnicity, gravidity, gestational age, private insurance, diabetes, hypertension, and prepregnancy body mass index, the use of interpreter services was associated with decreased odds of small for gestational age (aOR 0.67, 95% CI 0.53–0.84). ConclusionsOur findings suggest that use of an interpreter is associated with a lower incidence of small for gestational age when controlling for patient characteristics and social determinants of health. Additional research is required to explore this association, but our results indicate that recognizing demographic risk factors and providing patients with social resources such as access to interpreter services may positively impact obstetric and neonatal outcomes.

Nadie Me Ve Como Latinx

Abstract Studies on how observers’ perceptions affect youth Ethnic-Racial Identity (ERI) formation focus on adolescents, and typically fail to consider non-English language use as a salient ERI marker. The current research examines two novel dimensions by examining employing Spanish-language mixed methods to study Midwestern heritage Spanish-speaking Latinx children, ages 7–13. Study outcomes correlate skin tone to ERI such that children identified by observers as ‘phenotypically’ Latinx reported higher levels of ethnic exploration compared to peers identified as ‘phenotypically’ non-Latinx. Children’s phenotypic self-identification and ERI exploration correlated highly with level of understanding of their ethnic group, and in turn with reported higher linguistic discrimination. Qualitative results further highlight that “white-presenting” Latinx children more strongly affirm their Latinx identity through high Spanish language competence. Findings suggest that healthy ERI development in Latinx children may be uniquely aided by bilingualism and biliteracy.

A Study of Selected Racialised Linguistic Experience among International Students in the United Kingdom

The presence of linguistic diversity in many societies is widely acknowledged, yet it is often linked to various social challenges that must be addressed. These challenges are increasingly causing concern, particularly based on the experiences of immigrants from linguistically diverse backgrounds in western societies. Given the noticeable lack of discussions on the experiences of linguistic diverse groups, this study aims to investigate the experiences of linguistic diverse immigrants in Scotland. The study utilises interviews to extract responses from three immigrant international students. The interview consisted of 6 carefully crafted open-ended questions, employing a qualitative analytical approach. In the data analysis, Piller's (2016) theory of linguistic diversity was utilised. The research findings indicate that all three participants have experienced instances of linguistic discrimination due to their diverse backgrounds. Although linguistic diversity is acknowledged globally, it often leads to inequality rather than equality, as demonstrated in this study. This is because language is always assessed in relation to the speaker's skin colour and idea that only the western society has a standard mastery of English language.

‘Is he a barrister or not?’

Barristers present formalised legal arguments before courts and tribunals. As a result, considerable focus is placed on their oral skills. However, people are frequently judged by the accent they use. Those with a more standard accent – ‘Received Pronunciation’ (RP) in the UK – can be perceived as more intelligent and eloquent. This creates a barrier to social mobility because accent-based bias can discriminate against those with non-standard accents. This article examines how the public perceives barristers in England and Wales with different accents and investigates experiences of barristers to establish whether accent discrimination disadvantages certain speakers. It includes an online survey of the general public which found that RP and South-East English accents are still seen as more prestigious. In addition, interviews with barristers illustrate how accent discrimination is widespread and affects career progression.

"I felt so small": A qualitative study of migrant nursing assistants' experiences in Norway.

In the wake of an increasingly ageing population, Norway has a growing need for healthcare workers, especially in nursing homes. This study explored the employment experiences of migrant nursing assistants working in elderly care in Norway. A qualitative interview-based study was carried out between March and August 2020. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were performed with 13 purposively selected immigrant nursing assistants working in a nursing home within Western Norway. Data were thematically analysed. Migrant nursing assistants working in Norwegian elderly care faced mixed experiences. On the one hand, study participants experienced several barriers in their workplace, resulting from insufficient command of the Norwegian language, heavy workload and mistreatment and discrimination by both patients and colleagues. On the other hand, participants cited the financial compensation from work, the meaningfulness derived from helping others and the flexible day-off requests as workplace facilitators. Participants also made continuous efforts to learn the Norwegian language and to build good relations with their co-workers. There is a need to enhance migrant nursing assistants' positive experiences in the Norwegian eldercare sector by making targeted workplace reforms and fostering a supportive and inclusive environment.

Glottopolitics of Prophecy

Abstract This article examines the secular use of prophecy and its appearances in Spain during the 2020 pandemic. It argues that prophecy functions as a cultural and political gesture with prescriptive potential over the future. As a glottopolitical tool (i.e., one that imbricates language and politics), it is contested between elites and subalterns articulating class warfare. Here, prophecy from above is analyzed through the concept of the “new normal,” which allowed Spanish politicians to predefine immediate future and safeguard the integrity of the capitalist system. As an example of prophecy from below, the article analyzes Lengua o muerte, a poetic text by Dani Zelko and the Movimiento por la lengua, which denounces the death of Mohammed Hossein during the pandemic as a case of linguistic discrimination. The author concludes that the discursive undertaking deployed in the book involves prophecy as a strategy of resistance against dispossession and projects a future of inclusion and emancipation.

Infants' reliance on rhythm to distinguish languages: A critical review.

This article reviews empirical methods and findings on early language discrimination, questioning rhythm-class based hypotheses on language discrimination in infancy, as well as the assumption that early language discrimination is driven primarily (or solely) by temporal prosodic cues. The present work argues that within-rhythm class discrimination which - according to the rhythmic hypothesis - is not applicable very early in life, has not been sufficiently tested with infants under 4months of age, that familiarity with a language is not a prerequisite for its discrimination from another rhythmically similar language, and that the temporal rhythm properties may not universally be the primary cues to language discrimination. Although rhythm taxonomy is now by many understood as outdated, some developmental literature still draws on the assumption that rhythm classification determines infants' language discrimination; other studies consider rhythm along a continuous scale and only a few account for cues to language discrimination other than temporal ones. It is proposed that studies on early language discrimination systematically test the contribution of other than temporal rhythm cues, similarly to recent work on multidimensional psychoacoustic salience in the acquisition of segmental categories.

Continuities and discontinuities in pharmaceutical treatment and medication use among older chronically ill patients of Turkish descent in Germany: a qualitative structuring content analysis.

Polypharmacy occurs frequently among older adults and is associated with an increased risk of falls and medication-related adverse events. In particular, people with a history of migration may receive inappropriate medication due to language barriers or discrimination in healthcare. This study aims to assess the continuities, discontinuities and barriers to drug therapy in older migrants of Turkish descent in Berlin, Germany. Eleven problem-centered qualitative interviews with chronically ill older persons of Turkish descent and family caregivers were conducted and analyzed qualitatively by means of structuring content analysis. The chronically ill participants of Turkish descent predominantly take more than 5 types of medication per day and aim to take them regularly. Discontinuities emerge when medication is forgotten or intentionally omitted due to side effects. Frequent changes in medication and physicians' lack of time are relevant barriers to drug treatment plans. To avoid language barriers and disinterest on the part of professionals, respondents prefer Turkish-speaking physicians.

A RACIO-LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE OF LANGUAGE DISCRIMINATORY INSTANCES IN SCOTLAND

Racism has evolved to include not only skin colour but also linguistic discrimination, specifically targeting the use of the English language. Hence, educators and scholars have started acknowledging the language encounters of immigrants in Western society. This study intends to broaden the understanding of language discrimination experienced by immigrants in Scotland by examining the concepts of 'Linguistic strategy of resistance', 'ethnic accent bullying', and 'linguistic stereotyping'. The study uses questionnaires to elicit responses from 40 respondents and adopts a quantitative analytical approach for its analysis. Findings reveal that a significant proportion of migrants have encountered linguistic racism in many forms, including both explicit and implicit instances and in both formal and informal contexts. Some individuals can devise strategies to fight being abused or discriminated against linguistically, while others admit to allowing it to go unchallenged, resulting in psychological consequences. In conclusion, the study postulates that racism has indeed extended to the use of language, and despite the Western world's assertion of being post-racial, migrants in Scotland still face language-related discriminatory experiences daily.&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; Article visualizations:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="/-counters-/soc/0770/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Generative attention based framework for implicit language change detection

Spoken language change detection (LCD) refers to detecting language switching points in a multilingual speech signal. Most approaches in literature use the explicit framework that requires the modeling of intermediate phonemes and Senones to distinguish language. However, such techniques are limited when used with resource scare/ zero resource languages. Hence as an alternative, this study explores implicit frameworks to perform LCD. The focus of this work is to detect language change when a single speaker is speaking two languages. In this direction, a subjective study is performed to analyze the method humans adapt to discriminate languages. The outcome of the subjective study suggests humans require more neighborhood duration to detect language change. The initial observation suggests, that detecting language change is challenging using the baseline implicit unsupervised distance-based approach. Inspired by human cognition, prior language knowledge is integrated into the computational framework through the Gaussian mixture model and universal background model (GMM-UBM), temporal information via attention, and pattern storage using the Generative adversarial network (GAN) to enhance language discrimination. The experimental results on the Microsoft code-switched (MSCS) dataset show, compared to the unsupervised distance-based approach, the performance of the proposed LCD relatively improved by 19.3%, 47.3%, and 50.7% using the GMM-UBM, attention, and GAN-attention based framework, respectively.

Language Ideologies and Identity Construction in Immigrant Communities

Purpose: This study sought to explore language ideologies and identity construction in immigrant communities. Methodology: The study adopted a desktop research methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library. Findings: The findings reveal that there exists a contextual and methodological gap relating to language ideologies and identity construction in immigrant communities. Preliminary empirical review revealed that dominant language beliefs significantly impacted how immigrants navigated their identities, often pressuring them to assimilate linguistically at the expense of their native languages and cultures. Immigrants employed various strategies, such as forming ethnic enclaves and participating in cultural events, to maintain their linguistic heritage. The study highlighted the crucial role of educational institutions and inclusive policies in supporting bilingualism and multiculturalism, which were essential for the social integration and identity preservation of immigrants. Ultimately, it emphasized the need for concerted efforts from policymakers, educators, and community organizations to promote linguistic diversity and cultural heritage to enhance the well-being and cohesion of immigrant communities. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The Social Identity Theory, Bourdieu's Theory of Habitus and Cultural Capital and Critical Race Theory may be used to anchor future studies on language ideologies and identity construction in immigrant communities. The study recommended incorporating intersectional approaches into theoretical frameworks to better capture the dynamic nature of identity formation. It advised educators to adopt inclusive pedagogical strategies that value linguistic diversity and suggested training programs to enhance cultural competence. Policy recommendations included implementing bilingual and multilingual education programs, combating linguistic discrimination, and promoting linguistic diversity in public spaces. The study contributed to theory by integrating concepts of linguistic capital into social identity theories, offered practical guidance for supporting immigrant populations, and advocated for systemic policy changes to create a more equitable and inclusive society.

Intercultural interaction willingness: a PLS-PM approach to influencing factors and its mediation effect

For international students, interaction with host nationals greatly influences their adjustment to the host country. Their willingness to interact is subject to the influence of multiple factors. Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) was employed in this study to explore three key research questions. Firstly, we sought to determine whether language proficiency, culture, racism and discrimination, and environment could affect international students’ willingness to interact with their Chinese peers. Secondly, we investigated whether interaction willingness was positively correlated with social connection. Thirdly, we examined whether interaction willingness had a mediation effect on intercultural communication. The measurement models and structural models were assessed using consistent PLS-SEM algorithm (PLSc) and consistent PLS-SEM bootstrapping. The assessment results indicated that the models exhibited a satisfactory goodness of fit. Path analysis results showed that (1) language proficiency, culture, and environment exhibited a positive correlation with interaction willingness, while racism and discrimination exerted a negative correlation; (2) interaction willingness was positively correlated with social connection and (3) the variable of interaction willingness was identified as a mediating variable in the correlation between independent variables (i.e. language proficiency, culture, racism and discrimination, and environment) and the dependent variable (i.e. social connection). The findings indicate that multilingualism, length of stay, and empathy from host nationals may contribute to willingness of international students to interact with Chinese students by reducing barriers of language, culture, and discrimination. It is therefore evident that a supportive environment is crucial for interaction and the development of social connection.