Rejecting Competence: Essentialist constructs reproduce ableism and white supremacy in linguistic theory.

Namboodiripad, Savithry; Henner, Jon

doi:10.31234/osf.io/fc8sv

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…These logics constitute much of the foundation of present-day linguistics (Hackert, 2012). Some of the logics that perpetuate sign linguistics are grounded in the concepts of essentialized competence, boundedness, and homogeneity (Namboodiripad & Henner, 2022;. The inheritance and adaptation of the logics -and ideologies -have fundamentally shaped sign language linguistics in which certain languaging practices are valued and others are racialized, devalued, marginalized, and pathologized.…”

Section: Colonialism White Supremacy and Ableism Underpin Harmful Lan...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Manifesting a Crip Linguistic Theory through a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic Perspective

Hou,

Namboodiripad

2024

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The language practices and experiences of ethnically and racially minoritized users of signed languages have been ignored and marginalized within sign language linguistics. We try to explain why, giving some historical grounding and locating the issue in the theoretical assumptions from socially dominant approaches to linguistics in North America. We bring a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic perspective (Cioè-Peña 2021) to Crip Linguistics (Henner & Robinson 2023), and show how this approach undoes the harmful logics inherited from hegemonic spoken language linguistic theories. We then consider some assumptions which would need to be rejected and embraced in order to work toward a Crip Linguistic Theory. We conclude that a linguistic theory which enacts Jon Henner’s ethos towards language is one that we can and must try to manifest.

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Section: Colonialism White Supremacy and Ableism Underpin Harmful Lan...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Manifesting a Crip Linguistic Theory through a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic Perspective

Hou,

Namboodiripad

2024

Preprint

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“…Savithry studies language contact and syntactic typology, and her research is informed by psycholinguistics and language evolution, disciplines which are underpinned by many unor under-interrogated colonialist constructs. Relatedly, she has worked on collaborative projects investigating the role of "native speaker" in (psycho)linguistic methods and theory (Cheng et al 2021, Cheng et al 2022, Birkeland et al 2022, and she has personal and scholarly commitments to developing and advocating for approaches which address historical (epistemological) harms in (psycho)linguistics in order to improve both the process and outcomes of language research (Namboodiripad andSedarous 2020, Namboodiripad andHenner 2022). Along with her interactions with family and research participants in diasporic and decolonial contexts, her collaborative work on experiences of harassment and bias among linguists and language researchers (Namboodiripad, et al 2019) and the ensuing discussions have informed her efforts in this area.…”

Section: About Our Team and Our Foci In This Chaptermentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a decolonial syntax: Research, teaching, publishing

Gibson¹,

Jerro²,

Namboodiripad³

et al. 2023

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In this chapter we argue that syntacticians and the field of syntax have for too long avoided engaging with the colonial legacies and the implicit racist assumptions that have shaped our discipline. We take three key areas which relate to syntax – teaching, research, and citation practices – and explore the ways in which these have been intricately tied up with, or curtailed as a result of, dominant narratives about language, global hierarchies, the idealised ‘native-speaker’ and language as a disembodied object. We present a case study of citation practices in Bantu linguistics where there is an underrepresentation of African scholars in the literature. Beyond the critiques that can be directed at the discipline, as scholars who work in this field, we argue that there can and must be a decolonial syntax. We provide practical steps for action in the form of provocations which we urge scholars to engage with, reflect on, and implement within their praxis.

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“…some version of Universal Grammar) that takes the structural form of the environmental input around them -the learner's local community. Chomsky (1966, et alia) proposes that under the course of "typical" development (that is, development consistent with Bloomfield's quote in Section 3.1; see Namboodiripad & Henner 2022 for critique), a learner will use this capacity to acquire the language of their surrounding community without explicit instruction.…”

Section: Nativeness and Idealizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, in privileging "native speakers," this ableist analytic overlooks other critical forms and modalities of language use (Henner & Robinson 2021, Namboodiripad & Henner 2022. For example, by emphasizing the oral production of language, native speakerism ignores -and devalues -receptive knowledge.…”

Section: Centering Nativeness Harms Participants By Promoting Deficit...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rejecting “nativeness” to produce a more accurate and just Linguistics

Birkeland¹,

Block²,

Craft³

et al. 2022

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Both the concept of a “native speaker/signer” and the term itself have been critiqued and problematized across fields such as linguistic anthropology, second language acquisition, and English language teaching. However, within less peripheralized disciplines of linguistics, this term is often used uncritically, with some disciplines centering the behavior and knowledge of “native speakers” as the main object of inquiry. We argue that the term “native speaker/signer” is a colonial analytic that reifies the connection between named languages and nation-states, essentializes language in identity formation, and produces harmful consequences. Given that previous work has problematized the notion of a “native speaker” and enumerated its pitfalls (e.g., Holliday 2006, Love & Ansaldo 2010), we seek to understand how the term became and continues to be naturalized and why it is still used today; a historical approach is crucial to understanding both the colonial roots and the transformation of the term. We track the evolution and proliferation of “native speaker” from its inception, trace its role in linguistic theory, and note how it has been critiqued in linguistic anthropology. Looking forward, we emphatically do not propose substituting the term “native speaker” with other discrete labels that have similar colonial ideological underpinnings such as “L1 speaker." Rather, we argue that linguists must interrogate the role of this concept and its associated theoretical baggage. We anticipate that moving away from this term and the ideas surrounding it will (a) lead to more specified hypotheses about how particular types of language experience might affect linguistic knowledge/behavior, (b) encourage analyses which take into account the diverse linguistic repertoires held by all language users, (c) force our theoretical approaches to center non-normative language use, and (d) be one step towards a more inclusive discipline.

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Rejecting Competence: Essentialist constructs reproduce ableism and white supremacy in linguistic theory.

Abstract: This paper is a slightly longer version of an invited peer commentary by the same name to be published in "Language Learning." Because it does not have to conform to publisher guidelines, this version also includes more citations than the published version.

Cited by 5 publications

References 11 publications

Manifesting a Crip Linguistic Theory through a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic Perspective

Manifesting a Crip Linguistic Theory through a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic Perspective

Towards a decolonial syntax: Research, teaching, publishing

Rejecting “nativeness” to produce a more accurate and just Linguistics

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