A raciolinguistic perspective from the UK

Cushing, Ian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1752-1411 (2023) A raciolinguistic perspective from the UK. Journal of Sociolinguistics. ISSN 1360-6441 (In Press)

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Abstract

In this commentary on Flores and Rosa’s leading piece, I reflect on the recent emergence of a raciolinguistic perspective from the UK. This reflection argues that UK sociolinguists have failed to pay adequate attention to race, and that issues of colonialism, white supremacy and anti-Blackness have been pushed to the disciplinary margins despite the colonial power of Britain and its role in the early articulations of raciolinguistic ideologies which framed Black and Indigenous populations as linguistically and biologically deficient. This lack of adequate attention to race in academic knowledge production is contrasted with a long history of anti-racist community organising. I argue that UK sociolinguists have an important role to play in uncovering how perceptions of language are central to the specific articulations of racism in contemporary British society.