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I am intrigued by the idea of applying politics of recognition and politics of redistribution in sociolinguistics, and I am eager to learn more about it. The establishment of sociolinguistics has historically been influenced by factors other than language and its users, such as politics, economics, and ideologies. There was a desire for multidisciplinary research to support liberal democracy and US dominance during the Cold War when sociolinguistics was first being developed, according to the reading. An additional problem with the early committee on sociolinguistics is that it was dominated by white males who had a neocolonial perspective on "social equality" and "Language diversity/multilingualism," which seems to be at odds with the emergence of sociolinguistics in the past. People of color and women's viewpoints were left out, despite the fact that these are critically crucial considerations for addressing issues of social equality and cultural diversity. These examples demonstrate to me the long-term influence of politics, power, ideology, and the like on the area of sociolinguistics. As a result, it is critical that the study of sociolinguistics consider broader political and economic issues.

Yusup Jamaludin

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The concept of politics of redistribution impresses me the most because it argues that the marginalized groups are victims of systematic problems embedded in society. Instead of attributing the problem to the marginalized groups, politics of distribution emphasized the broader systematic problems that contribute to the unbalanced power relations between the dominant and marginalized groups. Therefore, the systematic problem can only be solved by reallocating the resources more equitably. In my opinion, the fact that the politics of redistribution attributes the problem to the system instead of the marginalized groups is an important step to fight for linguistic, racial, and social justice.

Tianshi Zhao

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I started considering racial tension and factors that affected social equality after taking one sociology course in my undergraduate institute. However, our class discussion was the first time I realized the importance of language and linguistics when discussing social justice. For instance, we discussed how Chinglish, Spanglish, and Indiglish relate and represent people’s identity, race, and backgrounds. Moreover, I am interested in politics of recognition and politics of redistribution because I wish to know how our findings and research help distribute resources more equitably. In the following classes, I would like to discuss whether our current policies actually help distribute our resources more equitably. For instance, I question that college admission offices, which provide lower test scores requirements for certain types of applicants, provide college resources more equitably and equally.
Yuechen (Rita)

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Growing up in an environment where a lot of people are still struggling with learning English as a second language, I always admire people who can speak more languages regardless of which specific languages they can speak because I know how hard it is to master a new language. However, Duchene (2019) points out that multilingual repertoires are not equally valued since they are related to social status and race. In this case, multilingualism may not reduce social injustice but, on the contrary, produce more inequalities. When languages are being racialized, the solutions to solve the issue of inequality should go beyond language itself.

Feng Chen (Karen)

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One of the things that I gathered from the readings is that there is enormous challenge relating to the introduction of multilingualism into a monolingual societal structure. Which cultures and languages should be supported and how do we adequately support them, how do we value them? Where will qualified language teachers and curriculums comes from. How will this make both a positive and meaningful difference. I am curious what an example of good multilingual integration looks like in the world today.

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The idea brought up in our class discussion that language is racialized was memorable for me. Instead of focusing on the language per se, people’s perception of a language tends to be influenced by our impression of its speakers. This tendency helps to explain why linguistic justice is closely connected to social and racial justice. Therefore, I think it is necessary for sociolinguistic studies to look beyond the scope of language use within its corresponding social groups and consider issues related to social justice in society at large.
Shuya

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I have always been interested in the intersectionality between linguistics and justice. However, in order to understand how we could make any changes in society we must first take a step back to understand and recognize the history of certain power structures so that we fully grasp why things are the way they are today. In class, we discussed racial justice so that we can begin to understand linguistic justice because the two are interconnected and inseparable, not just in the context of the US but world wide. In the field of Linguistics, there has been this urge to talk about language without consideration for social, culture, racial issues (colormute) and this has been one the main critiques of the field argued by prominent scholars such as Dr. Ryuko Kubota and our very own head of department, Dr. Nelson Flores. I hope that in this class we can continue to explore the intersectionality between society, race, and language and be open to learning about the experiences and realities of others.

K. Grady

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I think one of the things that struck me about this week's discussion is the prevalence of language as a tool of colonization in the past and even today. In particular, as mentioned in the class, some countries send scholars to other countries to study their cultures and languages. These research results provide a lot of reference for the subsequent cultural invasion.
Tong Jiang

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I think the video about teaching standard American English to children who spoke Ebonics is very thought-provoking. For one thing, the teacher in the video did not treat Ebonics as inferior or deficit, which is very crucial and respectful. As multilingualism may imply racial differences and further lead to social hierarchy, it is of great importance to acknowledge the value of every language and culture behind it. For another, he incorporated games into learning grammar, such as third-person singular, past tense, and so on. These terms will help children to learn standard American English in a more clear and organized way. Therefore, this video provides essential insights for educators.
Mingyue Liu

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It is interesting to notice how strong the connection is between sociolinguistics and multilingualism. And I used to regard multilingualism education as a way to advocate equality in the field of linguistics and to counter the view that multilingualism is inferior compared to monolingualism. But according to Duchêne, A. (2019), promoting multilingualism also adds to inequality since it helps create social hierarchy and benefits certain groups of people. And in the class, I also learned that some multilingual schools are actually built for white monolingual children so that they can gain another language to be more competitive in the future, which adds to the inequality.
Yizhou

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In the class discussion, we talked about the "hierarchy" of languages, even though most people do not think languages have a hierarchy. For example, depending on speakers' backgrounds, we may have different perspectives on Spanish speakers from the border and those from European societies.Therefore, should language teachers create a small lecture or an activity on this content to let language learners better perceive their identities?
Chen

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It was a little depressing that class ended with the Vincent Chin case when we talked about Rachel justice; however, I would hear examples about linguistic justice.

I hope we can have some small group discussions moment for the next class to be more active.

Yining