TheChattery.org
Radicalized Linguistics
This session examines the relationship between language and social constructs such as race and ethnicity, with particular emphasis on race relations in the United States. It is concerned with the ways in which language serves as a basis for inter-ethnic conflict, discrimination and lack of social opportunity. The main focus of the course will be the varieties of English used, written and understood by members of minority ethnic and racial groups in the United States, and the general relationship between their languages and their place in American society. We will explore issues relating to processes of language standardization and their consequence for the status of non-standard varieties. We will examine ideologies of language and their interaction with group identity at both local and national community levels. We will discuss the ways in which ideology creates grounds for negative stereotypes of others’. We will see how language is used to construct and evaluate social identities and group boundaries, setting the stage for language to be used as a tool for division and conflict.
About the instructor:
Lakweshia Ewing lives and breathes education and learning. As professional business and educational consultant she holds multiple degrees in Applied Science, Psychology, Education, Organizational Leadership. Africana Studies and Sociology. Ewing has more than 18 years in crisis management, racial equity, diversity and inclusion, program design, organizational strategy, project management and evaluation, group dynamics, teambuilding and community coalition building, she has become a notable force in the realms of the government, education, philanthropic, faith based, business start-up and nonprofit sectors helping to procure over 20 million dollars in local, state, federal and private donor grants for educational programs and organizational development projects. She currently is the CEO for Unlearn Everything and Live, LLC , a consulting firm with a niche focus on providing racial equity, inclusion and organizational teambuilding strategies. Ewing also serves a trainer for the nationally renowned Racial Equity Institute, based in North Carolina.
She is married and resides in Chattanooga, TN with her loving husband, Mr. Julian Ewing. The happy couple have no children of their own but became the proud guardians of her younger brothers, Fredrick and Emerson upon the death of the boy’s mother in 2010.