Alejandria Stephen’s Profile

This course ex­plores his­tor­i­cal, cul­tural, and the­o­ret­i­cal per­spec­tives on the re­la­tion­ship be­tween lan­guage, race, and eth­nic­ity in the United States and its ter­ri­to­ries. It ex­am­ines how lan­guage is un­der­stood to re­flect, re­pro­duce, and/or chal­lenge and defy racial and eth­nic bound­aries, and how ideas about race and eth­nic­ity in­flu­ence the ways in which peo­ple use and con­strue lan­guage. It cov­ers top­ics such as racial­iza­tion and racism, eth­ni­ciza­tion, no­tions of au­then­tic­ity, reper­toire, codeswitch­ing and style shift­ing, lin­guis­tic mock­ing and lin­guis­tic racism, lan­guage ide­ol­ogy, and iden­tity for­ma­tion. This course will ex­am­ine lan­guage va­ri­eties such as Black Amer­i­can Eng­lish and its cross-racial uses by other groups, Chi­cano Eng­lish and Spang­lish, Asian Amer­i­can Eng­lish, Hawai­ian Eng­lish, and Amer­i­can In­dian Eng­lish.

This course explores historical, cultural, and theoretical perspectives on the relationship between language, race, and ethnicity in the United States and its territories. It examines how language is understood to reflect, reproduce, and/or challenge and defy racial and ethnic boundaries, and how ideas about race and ethnicity influence the ways in which people use and construe language. It covers topics such as racialization and racism, ethnicization, notions of authenticity, repertoire, codeswitching and style shifting, linguistic mocking and linguistic racism, language ideology, and identity formation. This course will examine language varieties such as Black American English and its cross-racial uses by other groups, Chicano English and Spanglish, Asian American English, Hawaiian English, and American Indian English.