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SIG Event: Beyond Linguistics Sympathy, Access to Justice for Minoritized Language Speakers in Mainstream Court Settings
February 9 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Discussion Featuring Dr. Jessica Lopez, UC Santa Barbara
This talk draws on ethnographic research conducted in a California child welfare court with Spanish-dominant Latinx speakers navigating English-dominate court proceedings. I discuss a range of issues that reproduce what I call experiences of linguistic marginalization, where language and practices operate in relationship to relative inclusion and marginalization depending on the context and particularities of the experience. I argue that providing well-trained, well-compensated, and certified interpreters is but one of many important interventions that need to be made to increase access to justice for minoritized language speakers in legal settings. Additionally, I show how discussions focusing on sympathetic concerns with linguistic marginalization and interpreting as an antidote are insufficient strategies for contending with the systematic reproduction of linguistic marginalization.
Sponsored by CLA Scholarly Intersections and the Department of Linguistics