1633L - Moving Beyond Linguistic Racism: 'Quality' Linguistic Input Does Not Exist

This session is developed by, and presenters invited by, Speech and Language Science. The descriptions of linguistic input in the literature are skewed toward and favor middle- and upper-class white linguistic practices by portraying non-white linguistic practices as deficient and even pathological. This is an example of linguistic racism because these descriptions legitimize a social hierarchy that privileges white people and white linguistic hegemony. At the same time, the racist societal relationships embedded in our institutions that have pathologized the linguistic experiences of racialized children, families, and communities are rendered invisible. I explore how we can and must approach linguistic input in a way that does not pathologize linguistic variability across children, families, and communities.