Linguistic discrimination

Part of a series on
Discrimination
Forms Institutional Structural Statistical Taste-based
Attributes Age Caste Class Dialect Disability Genetic Hair texture Height Language Looks Mental disorder Race / Ethnicity Skin color Scientific racism Rank Sex Sexual orientation Species Size Viewpoint
Social Arophobia Acephobia Adultism Anti-albinism Anti-autism Anti-homelessness Anti-drug addicts Anti-intellectualism Anti-intersex Anti-left handedness Anti-Masonry Aporophobia Audism Biphobia Clannism Elitism Ephebiphobia Social determinants of health Social determinants of health in poverty Social determinants of mental health Fatphobia Gayphobia Gerontophobia Heterosexism HIV/AIDS stigma Homophobia Leprosy stigma Lesbophobia Discrimination against men Misandry Misogyny Nepotism Pedophobia Perpetual foreigner Pregnancy Sectarianism Supremacism White Male Transphobia 21st-century anti-trans movement in the United Kingdom Non-binary Transmisogyny Trans men Vegaphobia Xenophobia
Religious Atheism Exclusivism Baháʼí Faith Buddhism Christianity Persecution Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy Jehovah's Witnesses LDS or Mormon post–Cold War era Falun Gong Hinduism Persecution Untouchability Islam Persecution Ahmadiyya Shi'ism Sufism Sunnism minority Muslim Judaism Persecution Neopaganism Protestantism Rastafari Sikhism Yazidism Zoroastrianism
Ethnic/national Afghan African Albanian Arab Armenian Asian France South Africa United States Assyrian Azerbaijani Black people African Americans China South Africa Bengali Bulgarian Catalan Chechen Chinese Colombian Croat Filipino Fulani Finnish Georgian Greek Haitian Hazara Hungarian Igbo Indian Indigenous people Australia Canada United States Irish Italian Japanese Jewish Antisemitism New Korean Kurdish Lithuanian Malay Māori Mexican Middle Eastern Mongolian Nigerian Pakistani Palestinians Pashtun Polish Quebec Romani Romanian Scottish Serb Slavic Somali Tatar Thai Turkish Ukrainian Uyghur Venezuelan Vietnamese Welsh
Manifestations Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric SPLC-designated list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups Anti-LGBTQ movemenet in the US Anti-trans movement in the UK Anti-Zionism Blood libel Bullying Cancel culture Capital punishment for homosexuality Compulsory sterilization Corrective rape Counter-jihad Cultural genocide Defamation Democide Disability hate crime Dog whistle Domicide Economic Education Employment Eliminationism Enemy of the people Ethnic cleansing Ethnic conflict Ethnic hatred Ethnic joke Ethnocide Excellence Gender-based dress codes Cosmetics policy High heel policy Forced conversion Freak show Gay bashing Gendercide Genital modification and mutilation Genocide examples Glass ceiling Hate crime LGBTQ Hate group Hate speech Homeless dumping Housing Indian rolling Kill Haole Day Lavender scare LGBTQ grooming conspiracy theory List of people killed for being transgender Lynching Mortgage Murder music Native American mascots Occupational segregation Opposition to immigration Paper genocide Persecution Pogrom Political repression Purge Racialization Religious persecution Religious terrorism Religious violence Religious war Scapegoating Segregation academy Sexual harassment Sex-selective abortion Slut-shaming Trans bashing Victimisation Violence against women White flight White genocide conspiracy theory Wife selling Witch hunt
Policies Age of candidacy Blood purity Blood quantum Crime of apartheid Disabilities Catholic Jewish Gender pay gap Gender roles Gerontocracy Gerrymandering Ghetto benches Internment Jewish quota Law for Protection of the Nation MSM blood donation restrictions No kid zone Numerus clausus (as religious or racial quota) One-drop rule Racial quota Racial segregation Jim Crow laws Nuremberg Laws Racial steering Redlining Same-sex marriage (laws and issues prohibiting) Segregation age racial religious sexual Social exclusion Sodomy law State atheism State religion Ugly law Voter suppression
Countermeasures Affirmative action Anti-discrimination law Anti-racism Constitutional colorblindness Cultural assimilation Cultural pluralism Diversity, equity, and inclusion Diversity training Empowerment Fat acceptance movement Feminism Fighting Discrimination Hate speech laws by country Human rights Intersex human rights LGBT rights Nonviolence Racial integration Reappropriation Self-determination Social integration Toleration
Related topics Allophilia Amatonormativity Bias Cisnormativity Civil liberties Dehumanization Diversity Multiculturalism Neurodiversity Ethnic penalty Figleaf Gender-blind Heteronormativity Historical eugenics Internalized oppression Intersectionality Masculism Medical model of disability autism Net bias Oikophobia Oppression Police brutality Political correctness Polyculturalism Power distance Prejudice Prisoner abuse Racial bias in criminal news in the United States Racism by country Racial color blindness Religious intolerance Reverse discrimination Reverse racism Second-generation gender bias Snobbery Social exclusion Social identity threat Social model of disability Social privilege Christian male white Social stigma Speciesism Stereotype threat The talk
v t e

Linguistic discrimination (also called glottophobia, linguicism and languagism) is unfair treatment of people based upon their use of language and the characteristics of their speech, such as their first language, their accent, the perceived size of their vocabulary (whether or not the speaker uses complex and varied words), their modality, and their syntax.^[1] For example, an Occitan speaker in France will probably be treated differently from a French speaker.^[2] Based on a difference in use of language, a person may automatically form judgments about another person's wealth, education, social status, character or other traits, which may lead to discrimination. This has led to public debate surrounding localisation theories, likewise with overall diversity prevalence in numerous nations across the West.

Linguistic discrimination was at first considered an act of racism. In the mid-1980s, linguist Tove Skutnabb-Kangas captured the idea of language-based discrimination as linguicism, which was defined as "ideologies and structures which are used to legitimize, effectuate, and reproduce unequal divisions of power and resources (both material and non-material) between groups which are defined on the basis of language".^[3] Although different names have been given to this form of discrimination, they all hold the same definition. Linguistic discrimination is culturally and socially determined due to preference for one use of language over others.

Scholars have analyzed the role of linguistic imperialism in linguicism, with some asserting that speakers of dominant languages gravitate towards discrimination against speakers of other, less dominant languages, while disadvantaging themselves linguistically by remaining monolingual.^[4] According to scholar Carolyn McKinley, this phenomenon is most present in Africa, where the majority of the population speaks European languages introduced during the colonial era; African states are also noted as instituting European languages as the main medium of instruction, instead of indigenous languages.^[4] UNESCO reports have noted that this has historically benefitted only the African upper class, conversely disadvantaging the majority of Africa's population who hold varying level of fluency in the European languages spoken across the continent.^[4] Scholars have also noted impact of the linguistic dominance of English on academic discipline; scholar Anna Wierzbicka has described disciplines such as social science and humanities being "locked in a conceptual framework grounded in English" which prevents academia as a whole from reaching a "more universal, culture-independent perspective".^[5]