Words matter.

This meme came across my Facebook feed. It's the kind of social justice thinking that sparks my interest and fuels many of my passions. However, the last sentence really struck me. 

Words matter.

I've always known and understood that words matter. However, now that I'm in Introduction to Language Studies, I find myself thinking about words even more than I did before. This meme led me to do a search within the field of linguistics to learn more about the connections between language and social behavior. The first Google search I did took me to the Linguistic Society of America (LSA). I continue to be intrigued about linguistics as a profession. I've already explored the use of linguistics in the field of artificial intelligence. Click here to go to that blog post. On the LSA web page, I was able to learn more about the field of sociolinguistics.

Walt Wolfram wrote a very interesting article. He says:

Language is one of the most powerful emblems of social behavior. In the normal transfer of information through language, we use language to send vital social messages about who we are, where we come from, and who we associate with. It is often shocking to realize how extensively we may judge a person's background, character, and intentions based simply upon the person's language, dialect, or, in some instances, even the choice of a single word.

Examining the role of a sociolinguistics expert, it seems that many different parts of language and culture are studied. There are broad implications when considering international relations and there are more narrowly defined interpersonal relationships (like the meme above).

I conducted another Google search looking specifically for sociolinguistic jobs. At the top of my search bar was a position available at New York University for a Social Impact Researcher on www.indeed.com. The particular research being done tied back into our class conversations about being a Spanish / English bilingual speaker. The project description is as follows:

Háblame Bebé is the first mobile phone application to provide low-income Hispanic caregivers with evidence-based information about bilingual language development and promote sociolinguistic pride and advocate for speaking Spanish within the home. We are implementing Háblame Bebé into the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), a non-profit organization which arranges home visits from registered nurses to low-income first-time mothers. Access to Háblame Bebé has been linked with improved parent-child language interactions and increased Hispanic sociolinguistic pride, but has not been tested for use in home visiting programs. We hypothesize that layering this innovative Spanish-language intervention into NFP standards of care will improve language interactions between caregivers and their children.

The emphasis on the hypothesis is mine. I am incredibly intrigued with the actual scientific processes of studying language and the benefits behind creating a greater understanding of language in our world.

In the article by Wolfram on the LSA website, he says this about the scientific studies being done:

It is also possible to examine how people manage their language in relation to their cultural backgrounds and their goals of interaction. Sociolinguists might investigate questions such as how mixed-gender conversations differ from single-gender conversations, how differential power relations manifest themselves in language forms, how caregivers let children know the ways in which language should be used, or how language change occurs and spreads to communities. To answer these questions related to language as social activity, sociolinguists often use ethnographic methods. That is, they attempt to gain an understanding of the values and viewpoints of a community in order to explain the behaviors and attitudes of its members.

Language is such a key to understanding the behaviors and attitudes of the people using it. Understanding that the building (in the meme above) is the one with the barrier and not the person is important when it comes to understanding where the change needs to happen. The building needs to change. The person in the wheelchair needs to be accepted as is.

Words matter.

Works cited:

Wolfram, Walt. “Sociolinguistics.” Linguistic Society of America, https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/sociolinguistics. Accessed 12 Oct 2022.