Racialization and Language

Book excerpt: Drawing on frameworks from applied linguistics and critical discourse analysis, this volume employs a linguistics approach to understanding race and racism in Latin America, with a particular focus on Peru. Building on recent debates in Peru on cultural and biological definitions of race, the book seeks to re-examine the relationship between race and culture not as a dichotomy but as one rooted in and shaped by specific historical moments. Similarly, the volume uses this discussion as a jumping-off point from which to explore notions of identity informed by language as used in local context, rather than as a fixed social category. Offering new perspectives on discursive practices of race and racism in Peru and Latin America, this collection is key reading for students and researchers in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, anthropology, and Latin American studies.