A critique of the principle of error correction as a theory of social change

Abstract

This article assesses the historical failures and limits of the dominant ‘error correction’ approach within sociolinguistics. The error correction approach supposes that social change can be achieved when knowledge is shared by researchers with the public or figures of institutional authority. This article reviews reflections on sociolinguists’ work toward social change, especially those of Labov, through scholarship in language ideologies and critical race theory. From a language ideological and critical race perspective, error correction is limited in its engagement with marginalizing representations of language because it does not jointly address material conditions and social positions supported by these representations. Exemplifying these limitations, sociolinguistic error-correction efforts that address the evaluation of language practices racialized as Black may have unfortunately distracted from social change agendas that confront material and institutionalized racism directly. To address these limitations, this article highlights existing critical reflexive scholarship that explicitly interrogates disciplinary assumptions. (Critical race theory, error correction, language ideologies, social change, critical reflexivity)*

Systems, features, figures: Approaches to language and class vs. language and race

“…The question of scale in research on language and race has in some ways swung back in recent years. Researchers have argued that an understanding of race as sustained through performance does not forgo a consideration of its historical production (Wirtz, 2014); that interactions are best considered across longer timescales (Wortham & Reyes, 2015; Wortham, 2005); and that efforts at revalorizing linguistic varieties and language users should perhaps be situated in the long history of developmental efforts (Heller & McElhinny, 2017; Rosa & Flores, 2017), most of which have not, indeed, produced lasting social change (Lewis, 2018). Indeed, the insistence upon highlighting resistance and dynamism in sociolinguistics draws upon neoliberal understandings of the self (Kubota, 2016).…”

“…How do differences on the linguistic plane and on other planes come to be co‐articulated (Rosa, 2019)? If any understanding of language is perspectival and political (Gal & Irvine, 2019), then we need to look at how these understandings get made and circulated, and the kinds of interests that are served by particular framings of language (Lewis, 2018; Rosa & Flores, 2017).…”

Folklinguistics and Social Meaning in Australian English

“…Awareness and understanding of folklinguistic views and language ideologies should be part of refl exive consideration of linguists' own discussions of language. This may also assist in better engagement in public debate (for a consideration of this, see Lewis, 2018 and responses in that same issue). Across this book, piece by piece, I have shown that there is more variation in AusE than is usually described and alongside this provided a consideration of how that variation is understood via my model of social meaning.…”

Linguistic Anthropology in 2018: Signifying Movement

“…Such work raises important questions about the role of academic researchers in social transformation, and this topic is taken up in several important works that have appeared in 2018. Lewis () offers a critical reflection on sociolinguist William Labov's () highly influential principle of error correction, which emphasizes the researcher's responsibility to respond to social problems by disseminating scientific knowledge that can rectify widespread beliefs or practices that lead to such problems. Lewis questions the principle's assumption that “consequential claims about language exist mainly as ideas possessed by individuals” (328) and suggests that language‐based activism requires a much more sophisticated theory of social change than one that centers on an objectivist trust in expert knowledge and awareness‐raising.…”