Language∙n∙Justice

In this Language•n•Justice conversation, I chat with Symone Varnado, founder and CEO of Merp, a cannabis company with a social justice mission. We talk about the framing of cannabis over its history in the U.S.,  the significant and lasting effects of the War on Drugs, and how negative associations carry over from marginalized groups to the things they are associated with—like dialects, and also like cannabis. Learn more at merp.page and stay tuned for their official launch on 4/20!REFERENCESFrontline. (1998). Busted — America’s war on marijuana. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron.htmlHuman Rights Watch. (2000). Punishment and prejudice: Racial disparities in the War on Drugs. Human Rights Watch 12(2). https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2000/usa/index.htm#TopOfPageLopez, G. (2016, March 23). Nixon official: Real reason for the drug war was to criminalize black people and hippies. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixonOlimat, S. N. (2020). Powerful weapons: Dysphemism in Trump’s Covid-19 speeches. The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies 26(3), p. 17–29.Thompson, M. (2013, July 22). Code Switch: The mysterious history of ‘marijuana.’ NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/14/201981025/the-mysterious-history-of-marijuanaVagins, D. J. & McCurdy, J. (2006). Cracks in the system: 20 years of the unjust federal crack cocaine law. American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.aclu.org/other/cracks-system-20-years-unjust-federal-crack-cocaine-law

In this episode, we talk about Indigenous languages, language endangerment and extinction, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has made a precarious situation even worse.REFERENCESArchambault, J. (2021, Jan. 24). How Covid-19 threatens native languages. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/opinion/covid-lakota-language.htmlArrazola, J., et al. (2020). COVID-19 mortality among American Indian and Alaska Native persons—14 states, January—June 2020. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Center for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 69(49), 1853–1856. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6949a3-H.pdfBear, C. (2008, May 12). American Indian boarding schools haunt many. NPR. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865Betancourt, J. R. (2020, October 22). Communities of color devastated by COVID-19: Shifting the narrative. Harvard Health Publishing. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/communities-of-color-devastated-by-covid-19-shifting-the-narrative-2020102221201Census shows native languages count. Language Magazine. https://www.languagemagazine.com/census-shows-native-languages-count/Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Beacon Press.Eberhard, D. M., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (eds.). (2021). Ethnologue: Languages of the world. Twenty-fourth edition. http://www.ethnologue.comHallen, C. L. (1999). The history of the Latin language. Brigham Young University Department of Linguistics. https://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/Ling450ch/reports/latin.htmlHealy, J. (2021, Jan. 12). Tribal elders are dying from the pandemic, causing a cultural crisis for American Indians. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/tribal-elders-native-americans-coronavirus.htmlIndian country demographics. (2020, June 1). National Congress of American Indians. https://www.ncai.org/about-tribes/demographicsLittle, B. (2018, Nov. 1). How boarding schools tried to ‘Kill the Indian’ through assimilation. History. https://www.history.com/news/how-boarding-schools-tried-to-kill-the-indian-through-assimilationMoseley, C. (ed.). (2010). Atlas of the world’s languages in danger, 3rd edition. UNESCO Publishing. http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/en/statistics.htmlPember, M. A. (2019, March 8). Death by civilization. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/traumatic-legacy-indian-boarding-schools/584293/The 6 coolest dead languages. (2018, July 15). Bilingua. https://bilingua.io/the-6-coolest-dead-languages

This is an episode about the education system, and the many linguistic injustices that exist within it. We talk about how students are often at a disadvantage if they don't come into the classroom with a pre-existing fluency in the dominant language, and also how educators can face discrimination based on their accents, before diving into specific examples of times the school system has made an effort to create a better learning environment for students in multicultural contexts.REFERENCES AP Archive. (2015, July 21). USA: Washington: Senate debate over Black American dialect Ebonics [Video]. YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUT5E6JXwyc&t=41s Bon, S. C. (2020, January 14). Lau v. Nichols. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. www.britannica.com/topic/Lau-v-Nichols Bonilla-Silva, E. (2018). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America (5th ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. Freeman, E. B. (1982). The Ann Arbor decision: The importance of teachers’ attitudes toward language. The Elementary School Journal 83(1), 41–47. Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural Communication: A Critical Approach (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. Rickford, J. R. (2002). The Ebonics controversy in my backyard: A sociolinguist’s experiences and reflections. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3(2), 267–275. Rosenthal, R. & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupil’s intellectual development. Crown House. Scollon, R., Scollon, S. W., & Jones, R. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach (3rd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.Yellin, D. (1980). The Black English controversy: Implications from the Ann Arbor case. Journal of Reading 24(2), 150–154.

This is an episode about linguistic injustice in the healthcare industry. We talk about how hard it can be for people to listen when they don't understand and how this can create urgent oversights, and we list some (disturbing) cases of intercultural communication in the medical setting that have led to devastating losses.REFERENCES Boochani, B. (2016, December 29). Faysal Ishak Ahmed’s life was full of pain. Australia had a duty to protect him. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/30/faysal-ishak-ahmeds-life-was-full-of-pain-australia-had-a-duty-to-protect-him Cecco, L. (2020, September 30). Canada: Outcry after video shows hospital staff taunting dying Indigenous woman. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/30/joyce-echaquan-canada-indigenous-woman-hospital Davy, C., Harfield, S., McArthur, A., Munn, Z., & Brown, A. (2016). Access to primary health care services for Indigenous peoples: A framework analysis. International Journal for Equity in Health 15, 163. Godin, M. (2020, October 9). She was racially abused by hospital staff as she lay dying. Now a Canadian Indigenous woman’s death is forcing a reckoning on racism. Time. time.com/5898422/joyce-echaquan-indigenous-protests-canada/ Indian Health Service. (2019, October). Disparities. Indian Health Service: The federal health program for American Indians and Alaska Natives. www.ihs.gov/newsroom/factsheets/disparities/ Kenison, T. C., Madu, A., Krupat, E., Ticona, L., Vargas, I. M. & Green, A. R. (2016). Through the Veil of Language: Exploring the Hidden Curriculum for the Care of Patients with Limited English Proficiency. Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges 92(1), 92–100. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000001211. Montreal Gazette. (2020, October 3). Justice for Joyce Echaquan demonstration in Montreal [Video]. Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMFoiQaiFss Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural Communication: A Critical Approach (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. Puxley, C. (2013, August 29). Brian Sinclair: Man who died after 34-hour Winnipeg hospital wait was assumed to be ‘sleeping it off’ after vomiting. The Star. www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/08/29/brian_sinclair_man_who_died_after_34hour_winnipeg_hospital_wait_was_assumed_to_be_sleeping_it_off_after_vomiting.html Rees, M. (2020, September 16). Racism in healthcare: What you need to know. Medical News Today. www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/racism-in-healthcare Scollon, R., Scollon, S. W., & Jones, R. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach (3rd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

This is an episode about linguistic injustice in the legal system. We talk about the many ways that language intersects with the law, cases where linguists have helped justice be served, and cases where the lack of linguistic intervention caused major problems.REFERENCES CBS News. (2013, July 30). Protesters across U.S. turn out in support of Trayvon Martin [Video]. Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7D6HuQIIkM Davies, D. (2017, August 22). FBI profiler says linguistic work was pivotal in capture of Unabomber. NPR. www.npr.org/2017/08/22/545122205/fbi-profiler-says-linguistic-work-was-pivotal-in-capture-of-unabomber Eades, D. (2005). Beyond Difference and Domination? Intercultural Communication in Legal Contexts. Intercultural discourse and communication. The essential readings. Oxford: Blackwell, 304-316.Eades, D. & Pavlenko, A. (2015). Guidelines for communicating rights to non-native speakers of English in Australia, England and Wales, and the USA. www.une.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/114873/Communication-of-rights.pdf Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media Staff. (2012, March 30). How blogs, Twitter and mainstream media have handled the Trayvon Martin case. Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media. www.journalism.org/2012/03/30/special-report-how-blogs-twitter-and-mainstream-media-have-handled-trayvon-m/ Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural Communication: A Critical Approach (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. Scollon, R., Scollon, S. W., & Jones, R. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach (3rd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

This is an episode about language and the judgments about it we all make. We talk about fundamental concepts in sociolinguistics and intercultural communication, and ask how on earth people get through an interaction without misunderstanding one another.REFERENCESBaugh, J. (2003). Linguistic profiling. In S. Makoni, G. SMitherman, A.F. Ball, & A. K. Spears (Eds.), Black linguistics: Language, society, and politics in Africa and the Americas (pp. 155–163). Routledge.Foley, W. (1997). Anthropological Linguistics: An Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.Gumperz, J. & Cook-Gumperz, J. (2012). Interactional Sociolinguistics: Perspectives on Intercultural Communication. In C. B. Paulston, S. F. Kiesling, & E. S. Rangel (Eds.), The handbook of intercultural discourse and communication (pp. 63–76). Wiley-Blackwell. doi.org/10.1002/9781118247273.ch4Ramjattan, V. A. (2019). Racist nativist microaggressions and the professional resistance of racialized English language teachers in Toronto. Race Ethnicity and Education 22(3), 374–390. doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2017.1377171Santos, F. & Hauser, C. (2015, September 3). Arizona news anchor is drawn into debate on her accent and the use of Spanish. New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/us/latina-arizona-news-anchor-vanessa-ruiz-spanish-pronunciation.htmlScollon, R., Scollon, S. W., & Jones, R. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach (3rd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural Communication: A Critical Approach (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press.