People often talk about language as "a window" into many things. Language can teach us about the mind, the brain, history, etc. But language is also a medium for discrimination, ridicule, oppression, unequal labor, and various other insidious practices. Linguistic oppression, as Kelly Elizabeth Wright tells us, isn't really about language, it's about how practices of oppression exploit language in their conquests.

Kelly E. Wright uses language to study and address forms of oppression, labor, racism, sexism, ableism, and the ideologies of what makes something "standard." This episode will address the question of sociolinguistic labor: why it exists, why it persists, and how to address it. We discuss how language is used as a barrier, a tool for discrimination and inclusion, a proxy for race and gender and class, among other things. If nothing else, this episode will show how studying language empowers you to make a difference in the world and highlight systemic issues.

For the full, unedited version of this episode, head to youtube.

Kelly E. Wright Website

Dr. Wright's Public Scholarship

Housing Policy and Linguistic Profiling

Hearing Rachel Jeantel

You Met My Ambassador

Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America

Sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology of US Latinos