Language Science Talks: Dr. Mary Bucholtz, 'A Roadmap for Racial Justice in Linguistics and the Language Sciences

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Join us for this Language Science Talk by Professor Mary Bucholtz (University of California Santa Barbara), on behalf of Professor Anne H. Charity Hudley (Stanford University), and with the collaboration of Lal Zimman (UCSB), Tracy Conner (Northwestern), Kendra Calhoun (UCLA), Jamaal Muwwakkil (UCSB), deandre miles-hercules (UCSB), Aris Keshav (UCSB), and Joyhanna Garza (Harvard).

This talk will be hosted by member and UBC Department of Linguistics Lecturer Amanda Cardoso.

Abstract
This presentation draws on collaborative research, teaching, and advocacy to offer a roadmap for how to dismantle anti-Blackness and advance racial justice in the language sciences. The discussion focuses primarily on linguistics, which has shown a very limited commitment to racial justice throughout its history, but the key points of this presentation are relevant across the language disciplines. The racist structures and processes of the field are due less to malice than to ignorance and an investment in disciplinary tradition, which function as gatekeeping norms. Challenging these norms is therefore essential to creating racial justice in our field(s). This work must be accompanied by proactive efforts to create inclusive and just disciplinary spaces. In this presentation, on behalf of my collaborators I will discuss the norm-breaking and community-building efforts that are necessary in order to achieve these goals. 

Speaker Bio
Mary Bucholtz is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is also Director of the Center for California Languages and Cultures and Associate Director and Founding Director of the School Kids Investigating Language in Life and Society educational justice program. In addition, she is affiliated with the departments of Anthropology, Education, Feminist Studies, and Spanish and Portuguese as well as the programs in Comparative Literature and in Latin American and Iberian Studies. She specializes in language, race, gender, youth, power, and agency, with a focus on African American English, Chicanx/Latinx/Latine linguistic practices, and Mexican Indígena language ecologies in diaspora. Bucholtz is the author of White Kids: Language, Race, and Styles of Youth Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and the editor or coeditor of numerous volumes, including most recently Feeling It: Language, Race, and Affect in Latinx Youth Learning (Routledge, 2018). Her current research focuses on using collaborative and community-centered research to challenge white supremacy and to advance racial and linguistic justice in the academy and society.

If you require an accessibility-related measure (e.g.: sign language interpretation, captioning, or any other accessibility-related measure), please contact Ella Fund-Reznicek at language.sciences@ubc.ca or 604-822-7435.