Abstract
This chapter introduces and discusses language as a concern for social justice. It starts by outlining different approaches to social justice, and how these approaches inform language education in different and contradictory ways. After that, it addresses the inseparability of language from all the protected characteristics in the UK anti-discrimination law (The Equality Act 2010), arguing for the need to protect language from oppressive and discriminatory practices and ideologies. The chapter moves on to present a roadmap for language advocacy based on awareness, solidarity and activism before it ends with a problematisation of ‘grievable’ language and strategic essentialism.
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Chapter Summary
This chapter presents a critical discussion about language as a concern for social justice. I have explained how different approaches to social justice produce different, and sometimes conflicting, views on what is moral, ethical or socially just in relation to language education. I presented these different views while highlighting the importance of delving into onto-epistemological questions about language and language hierarchy in education. The chapter also addresses the link between language and the protected characteristics in the UK anti-discrimination law, arguing that language is inseparable from these characteristics and therefore, it requires protection. The chapter provides a flexible roadmap for language-based advocacy that entails awareness, solidarity and activism. Ultimately, language-based advocacy seeks to problematise the hierarchy of what is perceived as a grievable language by highlighting how grievable language cannot be separated from grievable lives and grievable bodies. The chapter ends with a section on strategic essentialism as a reproduction of the coloniality of language and the tyranny of the moored language. It concludes with a hopeful note on re-imagining communication by de-centering the focus on this thing normatively perceived as language.
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Badwan, K. (2021). Language and Social (In)Justice. In: Language in a Globalised World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77087-7_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77087-7_9
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