{"title":"Accenting racism in labour migration","authors":"Vijay A. Ramjattan","doi":"10.1017/S0267190521000143","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper concerns how speech accent accents or reinforces racism in the context of labour migration to the English-speaking Global North. It specifically outlines three functions of accent in racial capitalist systems that require the labour of migrants and their acceptance of their “linguistic deficiencies.” First, accent functions as a labour control mechanism that pushes racially minoritised migrants into low-paying work. Second, as evidenced by the language training of transnational call centre workers, accent also reinforces colonial relations between migrant workers and customers. Last, by acting as a credential that can be purchased for professional success, accent distracts from the institutional racism that truly hinders migrants’ employment opportunities. The piece concludes with some thoughts on how combatting racism in labour migration requires another type of accenting.","PeriodicalId":47490,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Applied Linguistics","volume":"42 1","pages":"87 - 92"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Annual Review of Applied Linguistics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190521000143","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
Abstract This paper concerns how speech accent accents or reinforces racism in the context of labour migration to the English-speaking Global North. It specifically outlines three functions of accent in racial capitalist systems that require the labour of migrants and their acceptance of their “linguistic deficiencies.” First, accent functions as a labour control mechanism that pushes racially minoritised migrants into low-paying work. Second, as evidenced by the language training of transnational call centre workers, accent also reinforces colonial relations between migrant workers and customers. Last, by acting as a credential that can be purchased for professional success, accent distracts from the institutional racism that truly hinders migrants’ employment opportunities. The piece concludes with some thoughts on how combatting racism in labour migration requires another type of accenting.
期刊介绍:
The Annual Review of Applied Linguistics publishes research on key topics in the broad field of applied linguistics. Each issue is thematic, providing a variety of perspectives on the topic through research summaries, critical overviews, position papers and empirical studies. Being responsive to the field, some issues are tied to the theme of that year''s annual conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Also, at regular intervals an issue will take the approach of covering applied linguistics as a field more broadly, including coverage of critical or controversial topics. ARAL provides cutting-edge and timely articles on a wide number of areas, including language learning and pedagogy, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, language policy and planning, language assessment, and research design and methodology, to name just a few.