Language, Identity, and Racism in Postsecondary Classrooms

Introduction

Language, identity, and racism are three concepts that define a person’s attitude in different facets of their relationship. This relationship can be that of the intra-space of one’s makeup. At other times, it is with other people in the physical environment. Over time, language has served as a medium through which people communicate what they consider to be their identities. It is also used to express racial prejudices which earmark the identity of the Other. Just as a mirror reflects images, language reflects who we are and how we see others. It helps us to create distinction for self as well as establishing desired distance for othering (Charles & Bellinger, 2020). Racism is thus established through othering. The system of interrelatedness which exists among the three concepts of language, identity, and racism can therefore be said to be reflective (Brenda et al., 2005). It is in this wise that manifestation of identity and racism are said to be discursive. Language is thus deployed as a tool for discriminatory discourse.

The study is projected as being one of the timely interventions of academic scholarship and research in sensitizing all stakeholders of education and diverse races on the global space of the need for a discrimination free learning environment. The study focuses on knowledge of use of language as a tool for promoting racism. It will serve as an insight into measures of linguistic and racial exclusivism among learners in multi-racial postsecondary classroom settings. It is believed that this will evoke a sense of linguistic empathy, mutual responsibility, and conscious resort to deploy a more inclusive language usage among multiracial learners. The study will also help policy makers tagged with the duty of catering for students from diverse racial backgrounds to formulate policies that will help preserve learners’ racial diversity without the resultant effect of marginalization of any of the groups. This is integral to the futurity and achievement of sustainability of each race’s uniqueness.

Theoretical Frameworks

Challenges posed by racism in relation to language use and identity formation is open to studies backed up by theories which give room to a sociolinguistic interrogation of human relationship in a biased system. Raciolinguistics and intersectionality are two of such theories which help in promoting the argument raised in this study. The study deploys raciolinguistic model of language theory with partial dependence on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectional theory (Crenshaw, 2017; Flores, 2019). The two theories become eminent in this work based on their abilities in theorizing the historical and contemporary co-naturalization of language and race. The theories also give the much-needed avenue to interrogate overlapping or intersecting social identities, particularly minority identities, related to systems and structures of domination and discrimination respectively.