Section 3.4 Language and Social Power
Language variation is never just about language. It’s always about power: who has it, who doesn’t, and how language is used to maintain or challenge those arrangements.
Prestige Dialects and Linguistic Discrimination.
Some dialects carry social prestige; others are stigmatized. Typically, the prestige varieties are those spoken by socially dominant groups—the wealthy, the educated, the politically powerful. These varieties become the "standard," taught in schools, used in media, and expected in professional contexts.
Speakers of stigmatized varieties face linguistic discrimination (also called linguicism). They may be judged as unintelligent, uneducated, or incompetent based purely on how they speak—not on what they say or how well they reason.
Research consistently documents this discrimination:
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In matched-guise experiments, the same speaker using different accents is rated differently on traits like intelligence and trustworthiness
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Job applicants with non-standard accents receive fewer callbacks
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Students who speak stigmatized varieties may be tracked into lower academic paths
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Speakers of non-standard varieties often experience linguistic insecurity and may be reluctant to participate in formal contexts
This discrimination is particularly insidious because it often goes unrecognized. People believe they’re making objective judgments about quality when they’re really responding to social associations. And because language is learned in early childhood and tied to identity, asking people to change how they speak means asking them to distance themselves from their community.
Language and Institutional Power.
Language discrimination operates through institutions as well as individual attitudes.
Education: Schools typically privilege Standard English and may actively discourage or correct other varieties. Students who arrive speaking non-standard dialects face a hidden curriculum: they must learn not just content but a new way of speaking. This disadvantages children from non-standard-speaking communities while children from standard-speaking families arrive "already knowing" what school expects.
Employment: Many workplaces have explicit or implicit language requirements that exclude non-standard speakers. Judgments about "professional communication" often encode preferences for prestige varieties. An accent or dialect can affect hiring, promotion, and advancement.
Legal system: Court proceedings expect Standard English. Speakers of other varieties may be misunderstood, may have their speech transcribed incorrectly, and may be judged less credible.
Media: News broadcasts, formal publications, and prestigious outlets typically use prestige varieties. Other varieties are relegated to entertainment, comedy, or stereotyped representation.
Colonial and Historical Influences.
Many prestige judgments have roots in colonialism and historical oppression.
Standard American English reflects the language of British colonizers and their descendants. The stigmatization of AAVE reflects the history of slavery and racial discrimination. The privileging of European languages over indigenous ones reflects colonial conquest. English itself became a global language not because of inherent superiority but because of British colonial power and later American economic dominance.
These historical processes are important for understanding why certain varieties are stigmatized today. The judgments feel natural and inevitable, but they’re the product of particular histories of power and domination.
Linguistic imperialism refers to the dominance of certain languages (especially English) in international contexts, which can marginalize speakers of other languages and drive language shift or death.
Moving Toward Linguistic Justice.
Recognizing the relationship between language and power doesn’t mean abandoning standards or pretending that all varieties will be received equally in all contexts. It means being honest about how linguistic judgments work and being thoughtful about how we respond.
Inclusive approaches to language diversity involve several principles:
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Respect the varieties that speakers bring with them. Don’t treat children’s home languages as problems to be fixed. Acknowledge the grammatical sophistication of all varieties.
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Teach standard varieties as additions rather than replacements. Students can expand their repertoires without abandoning their home languages. The goal is bidialectalism, not replacement.
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Make standard varieties accessible to all students. Don’t assume that students already know what’s expected in formal contexts. Make implicit norms explicit.
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Be explicit about when and why particular varieties are expected. Help students understand the social dynamics of language rather than just enforcing rules.
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Challenge discrimination based on language. Notice when judgments about competence or intelligence are really responses to accent or dialect. Push back against linguistic bias in hiring, education, and public discourse.
For writers and speakers, this understanding enables more critical engagement with grammatical advice. You can follow conventions when they serve your purposes, while recognizing that the conventions are social constructions, not natural laws. You can make informed choices about how to present yourself linguistically, rather than assuming that there’s only one right way to write or speak.
