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Introducing LangCrit: Critical

Language and Race Theory
a
Alison Crump
a
McGill University, Canada
Published online: 22 Aug 2014.

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 Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 11(3):207224, 2014
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ISSN: 1542-7587 print/1542-7595 online
DOI: 10.1080/15427587.2014.936243

INTRODUCING LANGCRIT: CRITICAL LANGUAGE AND

RACE THEORY

ALISON CRUMP
McGill University, Canada
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Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) scholars have recently

drawn on critical race theory (CRT) to critique and understand the propagation of
Whiteness as a norm associated with native English speakers. However, the area of
language studies, more broadly defined, has yet to develop the same link with CRT.
To this end, this article proposes and introduces an emerging theoretical and
analytical framework called LangCrit, or Critical Language and Race Theory.
LangCrit puts the intersection of the subject-as-heard and the subject-as-seen at the
forefront of interpretation and analysis. This article urges language studies
scholars, both within the field of English language teaching and beyond, to continue
to look for ways in which race, racism, and racialization intersect with issues of
language, belonging, and identity.

Introduction

This article responds to and builds on the growing scholarship in

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) that
draws on critical race theory (CRT) to critique and understand the
propagation of Whiteness as a norm associated with native English
speakers (e.g., Curtis & Romney, 2006; Kubota & Lin, 2006, 2009;
Motha, 2006; Ruecker, 2011). The same movement to develop a
critical race informed scholarship does not, however, appear to
have taken hold in language studies beyond the context of TESOL.
To this end, I propose an emerging theoretical and analytical
framework that I call LangCrit, or Critical Language and Race
Theory. I urge language studies scholars, both within the field of
English language teaching and beyond, to look for ways in which
race, racism, and racialization intersect with issues of language,

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Alison Crump,

Faculty of Education, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University,
3700 McTavish Street, Room 244, Education Building, Montreal, Quebec H3C 1Y2,
Canada. E-mail: alison.crump@mcgill.ca

207
 208 A. Crump

belonging, and identity. The article begins by defining constructs

in LangCrit: identity, language, and race. It then provides an
overview of CRT and its offshoots, tracing the movement of CRT
into educational studies, and then into TESOL. I then propose
LangCrit as a necessary offshoot of CRT for critical inquiries in
language studies. The article closes with some questions that could
be explored using LangCrit.

Identity
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Recent language scholarship, informed by sociocultural and

poststructuralist lenses, has highlighted that identities are hybrid
and multiple and that they are performed, enacted, and contested
differently depending on the context (e.g., Blackledge & Creese,
2010; Byrd Clark, 2010; Canagarajah, 2007; Kubota, 2010; Lamarre
& Dagenais, 2004; Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004; Rampton, 1995;
Sarkar, Low, & Winer, 2007). However, Otsuji and Pennycook
(2010) pointed out that by emphasizing the multiplicity and
hybridity of identities, and looking only at the socioculturally and
poststructurally informed end of the identity spectrum, we have
overlooked that individuals enact and negotiate both fixed and
fluid identities. That is, although we can theoretically deconstruct
the existence of fixed notions of identity, they nevertheless make
up a very real and material part of the identity possibilities that
individuals are negotiating. Essentializing national or provincial
identity categories that are imposed on individuals are reflections
of national identity politics (May, 2001), and they bound the
meaning of identity within the individual; that is, identity is
something someone has, and it is static, uniform, and countable.
This enables sweeping much diversity into discrete, countable
categories, which renders that heterogeneity invisible.
This labeling of individuals according to discrete categories
denies the influence of the other in shaping the self, and does not
account for an individuals investment in their own language
learning (Norton Pierce, 1995). Fixed identity categories do not
recognize the acts of identity (LePage & Tabouret-Keller, 1985) that
individuals perform through language. In fact, essentializing
perspectives of identity discount the performative aspect of identity
altogether (Butler, 1990; Kubota, 2010; Pennycook, 2004).
 Introducing LangCrit 209

Inherent in the notion of performativity is a dialogic self (Bakhtin,

1981) that is constituted through language in an ongoing process
of becoming (Hall, 1996). In order to understand how individuals
negotiate their identities, we cannot ignore that fixed categories do
exist, problematic as they are. In fact, it is because they are
problematic that they need to be accounted for: they are powerful
in shaping (allowing and constricting) an individuals possibilities
for becoming. LangCrit captures a full spectrum of identity
possibilities (imposed, assumed, and negotiated).
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Language and Languaging

Drawing on poststructuralist and sociocultural theories, critical

language scholars have argued that there is no such thing as a
fixed, stable entity in linguistic terms, and that the practice of
defining languages has had more to do with defining people and
creating boundaries and hierarchies than the definition of
linguistic facts (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007). Lemke (2002)
tapped into the socially and politically constructed nature of
language nicely: It is not at all obvious that if they were not
politically prevented from doing so, languages would not mix
and dissolve into one another (p. 85). As Bakhtin (1981) wrote in
the 1930s and 1940s, well before the poststructural turn,
languages do not exclude each other, but rather intersect with
each other in many different ways . . . . It might even seem that the
word language loses all meaning in this process (p. 291). In
short, we are now interested in examining how boundaries
around languages have been socially produced and maintained.
This involves looking at how power has come to be clustered
around certain linguistic resources in certain spaces and
exploring how this shapes what individuals can and cannot do
in their everyday lives, what values are attached to how they use
language, and what identities are possible as a result.
With this poststructuralist deconstruction, or disinvention
(Makoni & Pennycook, 2007) of language, we now speak of
language practices and languaging rather than languages as
countable entities; we focus on what people are doing with
language and not on languages as finite linguistic systems
(Blackledge & Creese, 2010; Garca, 2009a, 2009b; Pennycook,
 210 A. Crump

2010). Challenging a fixed notion of language calls into question

other language-related terminology. If language is an invention,
so too are structuralist concepts like bilingualism and code-
switching, which involve distinguishing between separate entities.
Whereas code-switching research focuses on what languages are
doing (Are they switching in mid-sentence or across sentences?
How often?), translanguaging, for example, shifts the focus to
what languagers (people) are doing, and tries to understand these
practices from the speakers perspective (Blackledge & Creese,
2010; Garca, 2009b). Translanguaging recognizes tensions
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between socially constructed boundaries around languages,

which are constantly shifting and having to be (re)negotiated.
This focus on language practices moves us away from the
attempts to capture language as a system, and instead to investigate
the doing of language as social activity, regulated as much by social
contexts as by underlying systems (Pennycook, 2010, p. 9). The
doing of language is intricately intertwined with the performativity
of identity. A poststructurally informed interpretation of language
as fluid is useful for understanding how boundaries have been
socially constructed; however, it is also important to recognize that
the ideology of languages as distinct entities is extremely powerful
in nation-state identity and language politics (May, 2001), and thus
for individuals. Even though languages are social constructions,
the ideology of languages as fixed entities still carries a powerful
social force. As with identity, we need to be able to account for a
range of conceptions of language. In my work with multilingual
preschool aged children in Montreal (Crump, 2014), I found that
they see language as something they can own, count, and rank in
order of their competencies (e.g., I speak Japanese, then English,
then French Elizabeth, age 4), yet they are also highly attuned to
their abilities to play with their linguistic resources differently as
they navigate different social contexts. LangCrit acknowledges that
the ideology of language as an entity is tightly intertwined with the
doing of language.

Race

As with identity and language, there are two main, but opposing
ways of understanding race. First, there is the biological view. This
 Introducing LangCrit 211

was used to justify slavery through the argument that Blacks are
biologically inferior to Whites. Haney Lopez (2000) showed how
this biological view worked in the early 1800s in the United States: a
person was deemed Black if that person had one African
predecessor, or a flat nose, or woolly hair. Ancestry and appearance
judgments still persist, yet we now know that race, as a biological
characteristic, is a fallacy. That is, only roughly 0.1% of genes are
responsible for racial differences (Kubota & Lin, 2009a). Clearly,
skin color differences do exist, and people have different physiques
and hair types, but the meanings associated with those traits are
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socially and historically constructed, not biological facts.

This leads to the second view of race, as a social construct. This
perspective allows for an interpretation of how socially, historically,
and politically constructed meanings have become associated with
particular physical traits, or racial categories. Omi and Winant
(1994) emphasized the social construction of race in their theory
of racial formation, which focuses on the sociohistorical processes
by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and
destroyed (p. 55). However, as Crenshaw (1991) reminded us:

to say that a category such as race or gender is socially constructed is not to

say that that category has no significance in our world. On the contrary,
a large and continuing project for subordinated peopleand indeed, one
of the projects for which postmodern theories have been very helpfulis
thinking about the ways power has clustered around certain categories
and is exercised against others. (pp. 1296 1297)

The shift from the biological to a social view of race does not
lessen the significance of race as a construct that has significant
material and social consequences for individuals and groups of
people. LangCrit is firmly opposed to the biological view of race,
and is interested in examining what role languaging plays in racial
formation.
I now introduce CRT and the tenets of CRT that inform
LangCrit.

Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory originated in the 1970s in the United States in

response to the failure of the civil rights legal debates to produce
 212 A. Crump

meaningful racial reform. Early CRT scholars (e.g., Derrick Bell,

Kimberle Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, and Richard Delgado)
challenged the objectivity of legal discourse and argued that the
liberalist discourse of individual rights and freedoms promoted
color blindness. In other words, this idea that its whats inside
that counts suppresses discussions of how race shapes social
relationships, and as a result, makes social justice for people
of color unattainable (Bell, 1979). As Omi and Winant (1994)
argued, American history has long been conscious of color, so to
promote the idea of color blindness is to silence and repress
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historical and contemporary processes that sustain racism. Critical

race theorists have argued that racism should not be interpreted
as individual acts of prejudice and injustice, as this makes them
easy to brush aside, but rather as indicative of historical, societal,
institutional, and legal structures that have become deeply
engrained in society.
There are several main tenets of critical race theory (Delgado
& Stefancic, 1993) that resonate particularly well for language
studies. First, and this is central to CRT, is the argument that
racism is so enmeshed in society that it seems ordinary and goes
unchallenged (Delgado, 2000). This is seen, for example, when
the university undergraduates in race educator Tema Okuns
(2010) classrooms stated that since they have no racist intent,
racism is no longer happening and has no current relevance.
To counter this position, critical race scholarship emphasizes
examining how racial and racialized categories have been socially
constructed and have become deeply embedded in institutional
and social practices. In order to examine how power clusters
around categories, CRT avoids using politically correct code words
for race, such as ethnicity, culture, and language. This is a key
insight for language studies as it can help bring issues of race out
of the shadows in our scholarship.
Another key principle of CRT is intersectionality, which
Kimberle Crenshaw (1991) developed to capture the many fluid
dimensions of an individuals identity. For example, she argued
that when the domination of women of color is treated as
monocausalthat is, on the basis of either their gender or their
racerather than as a result of the intersection of sexism and
racism, womens power to resist or subvert dominant structures is
limited. Crenshaw highlighted the need to account for multiple
 Introducing LangCrit 213

dimensions of identity when trying to understand the social

construction of individual realities. Although Crenshaw focused
on the intersections of race and gender in her work, she also
acknowledged that intersectionality could be extended to include
other dimensions, such as class and age. Language, I am arguing,
is another dimension that can be addressed through
intersectionality.
A third principle of CRT, which resonates particularly well
with the emphasis in language studies on individual experiences
and practices, is that society justifies its position through stock
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stories (Delgado, 1989). To challenge and expose the myths

contained in these dominant narratives, CRT emphasizes paying
attention to individual experiences and counterstories. Since
reality is socially constructed, personal stories can help crack open
dominant narratives. Counterstorytelling (Delgado, 1989) is the
central method of CRT in challenging the objectivity of legal
discourse. Although Delgado and Stefancic (1993) admitted that
dominant narratives change very slowly because new stories are
always based on old ones, counterstories can nevertheless
provide insight into the political, structural, and represen-
tational dimensions of the legal system (Tate, 1997, p. 235).
Thus, counterstorytelling is a powerful means of exposing how
lived experiences are shaped by, but also challenge and resist
authoritative discourses.

Offshoots of CRT

As the CRT movement began to gain momentum in the United

States, some scholars started to point out that the Black-White
binary of CRT work overshadowed processes and experiences
of racism and racialization of other minority and marginalized
people. However, those who voiced this critique also recognized
that CRT was based on principles that could be expanded to
address experiences of racism and racialization that affect other
individuals and groups of individuals. This has led to the
emergence of several offshoots of CRT: LatCrit (e.g., Delgado
Bernal, 2001, 2002; Solorzano, 1998; Solorzano & Delgado
Bernal, 2001), AsianCrit (e.g., Chang, 1993; Teranishi, 2002),
Queer-Crit (e.g., Arriola, 1994; Hutchinson, 1999), Critical Race
 214 A. Crump

Feminism (e.g., Matsuda, 1989; Wing & Weselmann, 1999), and

TribalCrit (Brayboy, 2006; Haynes Writer, 2008). LatCrit and
AsianCrit have focused primarily on immigration policy, language
rights, the discursive construction of minorities, and accent-based
discrimination for Latino/as and Asian Americans, respectively,
often in the context of education. LatCrit in particular, with its
focus on storytelling, or testimonios (Delgado Bernal, 2002), is
thriving in the United States as a response to the failure of
Latino/Latina educational studies of the past few decades to
include the voices of Latino/Latina students (Fernandez, 2002).
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As is clear from the numerous offshoots of CRT, the tenets of

CRT have provided important insights in fields outside legal
studies to shed light on how policies and laws that claim to be
neutral and objective in fact perpetuate racial subordination
(Delgado Bernal, 2002).

Critical Race Theory in Education

Almost two decades ago, Ladson-Billings and Tates (1995)

seminal article, Toward a critical race theory of education,
marked a first and critical step for educational studies. Drawing
on critical race theory, the authors criticized traditional forms of
multicultural education, which reduce cultures to artifacts and
culinary habits, and argued that CRT could illuminate new
understandings of systemic inequalities in the educational system
in the United States. Ladson-Billings (1998) later suggested that
the field of education was still nice; that is, it had not grappled with
or come to terms with what enables racial and structural
inequalities to proliferate in assessment, school funding,
curriculum, and instruction. She critiqued the liberalist discourse
that underlies multicultural education as promoting an ideology
of unity of difference (p. 62), which leaves very little space to
discuss or acknowledge of racism or racist structures. These
articles have had an important impact on educational studies, and
others have followed suit by drawing on tenets of CRT to examine
various educational contexts (e.g., critical pedagogy, Parker &
Stovall, 2004; higher education, Solorzano & Yosso, 2001; literacy
studies, Rogers & Mosley, 2006; TESOL, Curtis & Romney, 2006;
Kubota & Lin, 2006, 2009b; Ruecker, 2011; and teacher
 Introducing LangCrit 215

education, Subedi, 2007). Overall, Critical Race Educational

studies, or CRE (Tate, 1997), challenges dominant discourses by
examining how educational theories, policies, and practices
subordinate different racial and racialized groups.
Scholars more recently noted, however, a general silence on
issues of race and racism in particular fields of education. For
example, Kubota and Lin (2006, 2009a) argued that TESOL was
relatively void of research that has used CRT as an analytic lens,
even though the field is concerned with interactions between
native speakers of English who have been socially constructed as
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White, and non-native speakers of English, who have been socially

constructed as non-White. This represents a significant blind spot
for the field, one that propagates a (White) native-speaker fallacy,
which runs throughout ELT hiring practices, for example
(Ruecker, 2011). In the past decade, however, there have been
some significant critiques of this association between Whiteness
and the ownership of English. Curtis and Romneys (2006)
collection of counterstory essays by racialized ESL teachers is an
important contribution that challenges the dominant social
constructs of who is and who is not a native speaker of English.
Motha (2006) drew attention to problematic racialized assump-
tions in TESOL and remarked, I consider linguistic identities to
be inextricable from racial identities because I believe Whiteness
to be an intrinsic but veiled element of the construct of
mainstream English (p. 497). Ruecker (2011) also used race
theories to articulate how Whiteness is constructed as the
property of English native speakers in the field of ELT.
These are all encouraging strides forward for the field of
English language education, and scholars are increasingly
drawing on CRT to understand intersections of race, culture,
and identities in second (English) language education (Norton &
Toohey, 2011). Language studies, however, spans not only English
language teaching and learning but also fields such as, but not
limited to, language policy and planning, sociolinguistics,
multilingualism, anthropology, identity theory, and cultural
studies. Yet for the most part, a similar movement has not been
made in language studies beyond the context of TESOL/ ELT,
even though issues of language (not always English), identity,
race, and belonging are relevant outside the English language
 216 A. Crump

classroom. Perhaps we have been overlooking an important piece

of the theoretical and analytical puzzle, perhaps being too nice.
The hesitation among language researchers to theorize
about race likely stems from the historical, political, and social
stigma attached to the word. As race educator, Tema Okun
(2010), wrote, it is a term we have been taught well to either
ignore or fear (p. xxii). As a result, bringing up the R-word can
invoke accusations of being racist. Indeed, as Kubota (in Kubota
& Lin, 2009a) shared, she was called racist just for suggesting that
issues of race and racism should be included in more discussions
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of first and second language teaching and learning. Due to this

stigma around race, racism, and racialization (any R-word
derivatives), cultural and linguistic differences often end up
being use as a proxy for racial difference (Kubota, 2010; Matsuda,
1996; Okun, 2010). This masking of issues of race behind more
neutral terms makes it difficult to theorize, for example, how
racialized positionings may bear on an individuals investment in
(Norton Pierce, 1995) or affiliation to (Rampton, 1990) a
language.
While language studies scholars now highlight the social
construction of language and identity, we still overwhelmingly
lack an overarching framework for understanding how linguistic
identities intersect with racial(ized) identities and what this might
mean for how individuals negotiate and perform their identities.
I believe that it is high time to make a connection to critical race
theories in our critical inquiries in language studies. I believe this
calls for another offshoot of CRT, another Crit. Sarkar, Low, and
Winers (2007) theoretical construct of intersecting axes of the
subject-as-heard and the subject-as-seen is a step in the right
direction.

Intersecting Axes of Heard and Seen

In their work with Montreal hip-hop youth, Sarkar, Low, and

Winer (2007) challenged the popular idea in Quebec, Canada,
that membership is based solely on language, that is, whether
one speaks French, the official language of the province, or not.
In Quebec political discourse and policy, people are defined
along linguistic lines as Francophones, Anglophones, or
 Introducing LangCrit 217

Allophones (speakers of languages other than French or

English). However, these linguistic categories are insufficient for
naming the identity experiences and possibilities of visible, non-
White minorities, as well as the increasing number of individuals
who speak more than one language. This is significant as
Montreal is the city in North America with the highest number of
trilinguals (Lamarre & Dagenais, 2004). As Sarkar, Low, and
Winer pointed out, focusing on language as the only determining
factor of membership does not capture, and cannot account for,
the full extent of identity experiences and politics in Quebec.
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They proposed that membership in Quebec mainstream

community is constructed on a sliding scale of belonging that is
determined on the grounds of visible and audible sameness and
difference (p. 351), in other words, by the intersection of two
axes: the subject-as-seen and the subject-as-heard.
Another framework that shows how seen and heard intersect
in tangible ways to shape identity possibilities for individuals is
Hills (2008, 2010) linguistic anthropological analysis of Puerto
Ricans in New York as they navigate White public space. Hill
showed how language boundaries between English and Spanish
are differently constructed depending on what sphere Puerto
Ricans are in. In the inner sphere, at home and in the
neighborhood, there are no boundaries between languages, and
flexible bilingualism is the norm. However, the outer sphere,
which is White public space, is characterized by boundaries and
order. In the outer sphere, the pressure . . . to keep the two
languages in order is so severe that people who function as
fluent bilinguals in the inner sphere become so anxious about
their competence that sometimes they cannot speak at all (Hill,
2010, p. 396). The outer sphere thus represents a site of
racialization, where people are judged against White norms and
marginalized based on judgments made not first on their
language, but on the way they look. Indeed, Hill argued that
Whites will hear accent . . . if they can detect any other signs of a
racialized identity (p. 397; also Lippi-Green, 1997). Hills work
clearly shows the interplay between the axes of seen and heard
and highlights the role that different spheres and racialized
discourses can have in shaping language practices and identity
possibilities.
 218 A. Crump

Mari Matsuda, who is not a language scholar but one of the

founders of critical race theory and the mother of critical race
feminism, has provided some important insights into the
intersections of language and race. In a 1991 paper, she exposed
legal cases of accent-based discrimination in the United States,
which involved, for example, employers refusing applicants on
the grounds of their accents. As she poignantly stated, your
accent carries the story of who you are (p. 1329). Since it is taboo
to refuse individuals on the basis of race or gender, accent easily
becomes the grounds for discrimination. In 1996, Matsuda wrote
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an essay on language, race, and power in public space in the

context of the English Only movement in the 1990s in California,
a time when there was rising concern among lawmakers about the
number of Asian signs in public space. She reported that people
wanted signs that look like were in America (p. 88). Many
excuses were made as to why signs should be in English, such as
ambulances not being able to find businesses, but Matsuda
argued that the real reason for the sign ordinances is that taking
up linguistic space with writing that looks Asian is deeply offensive
to non-Asians (p. 89). As a California politician said when I drive
downtown, in my little town . . . the signs are all in Chinese . . . .
Then you feel like youre not really quite home. You feel like an
alien, or that youre in a foreign country (p. 89; emphasis
added). To this Matsuda responded: What is America supposed
to look like? (p. 89)the Chinese have been in California since
the days when Spanish was the main language. She proposed that:

sign ordinances are about who controls linguistic space: who says what,
where, and when . . . . Linguistic anxiety is the new proxy for racial anxiety.
Jim Crow, restrictive covenants, and burning crosses are now considered
socially inappropriate. So the new language of exclusion becomes Those
signs make me feel like its not America, like Im excluded. I have nothing
against them, but why cant they use English? (p. 90, emphasis added)

Matsuda showed that the subject-as-seen can involve not only the
body physical, but also the linguistic landscape as a representation
of racialized bodies. Policies that aim to control linguistic space,
according to Matsuda, need to be understood as intertwined with
desires to maintain certain socially constructed racial hierarchies.
What the work of Sarkar, Low, and Winer (2007), Hill (2010),
and Matsuda (1991, 1996) indicate is that understandings of
 Introducing LangCrit 219

language, identity, and belonging need to be informed by a

theoretical lens that resists masking issues of race behind issues
of language. Clearly, there is more at work in shaping and
constituting multilingual identities and multilingual landscapes
than the subject-as-heard. The subject-as-seen, however, remains
in the shadows in language studies, where discussions of
difference are often couched in terms of language or culture.
LangCrit brings the subject-as-seen onto its own terrain where
it becomes possible to theorize the intersections of seen and
heard.
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LangCrit: Critical Language and Race Theory

LangCrit is a critical framework for language studies that

recognizes intersections of audible and visible identity in shaping
possibilities for being and becoming. It is a lens that allows for an
examination of how individual social practices and identity
performances are connected to a larger ecosocial system of
discourses, policies, and practices. As discussed earlier, the key
constructs of LangCrit (identity, language, and race) can be
defined in multiple and contradictory ways. Though some of the
definitions are problematic, this does not mean they can be
ignored, since they still carry significant social force in
determining possibilities for individuals. In order to capture the
complex intersections among social categories, LangCrit is
informed by Lemkes (1995) ecosocial systems perspective. This
perspective shows us that we are primitively enmeshed in and
depend for our origins and continuing existence on a hierarchy
of levels of interaction and transaction with multiple environ-
ments (p. 81). Each interaction is a patch, a mini-ecosystem
containing human organisms in interaction with their social and
material environments (p. 79). These hierarchies of patches all
have traces or elements of one another and interact to create a
larger ecosocial system. Some will be higher-impact patches than
others, but they are all interconnected through webs of social
relations (p. 30). An ecosocial perspective challenges the
Cartesian notion of either/or and instead allows for both/and
(Aoki, 1994). This provides a rich possibility for understanding
individuals experiences and perspectives and how they are
 220 A. Crump

related to broader (but still local) practices, ideologies, and

beliefs.
LangCrit, or Critical Language and Race Theory, is a critical
theory of language and race that challenges fixed assumptions
related to categories such as language, identity, and race and
argues that these categories are socially and locally constructed.
However, LangCrit acknowledges that fixity plays a role in shaping
identity possibilities, in setting the tone for becoming. Rather
than taking an either/or approach to this, LangCrit acknowledges
both/and, and in so doing, it accounts for a continuum of
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possibilities for understanding language, race, and identity.

Overall, LangCrit is an ecosocial lens that: 1) acknowledges that
racism is a real part of everyday society; 2) accounts for socially
constructed and negotiated hierarchies and boundaries among
social categories, such as language, identity, and race, which
constitute a continuum of possibilities from fixed to fluid; 3)
embraces and seeks out the intersectionality of different
dimensions of identity; and 4) emphasizes how local language
practices and individual stories are connected to broader social,
political, and historical practices and discourses through nested
relationships that are woven together through webs of social
relations. In short, LangCrit is a framework for theorizing how the
axes of seen and heard intersect to shape individual possibilities
for becoming.

Moving Forward

LangCrit is an emerging theory, and as such, I conclude with some

questions that tap into issues that could be explored using this
theoretical lens. For example, how might language policies
(national policies, language-in-education policies, or family
language policies) reinforce, produce, or resist racial hierarchies
(see, e.g., Haque, 2012)? How do individuals perceptions of their
own and others visible identities intersect with how they language
in different social interactions (see Crump, 2014)? How do the
subject-as-seen and the subject-as-heard intersect as multilingual
individuals navigate different (racialized) social spaces? How do
racialized positionings or racialized spaces intersect with an
individuals investment in or affiliation to a language?
 Introducing LangCrit 221

In this article, I have proposed LangCrit as a framework for

language studies, broadly defined, that acknowledges and makes
explicit the intersections of the subject-as-seen and subject-as-
heard. What I have offered in this article is one way of working
with CRT in language studies, but it is certainly not the only one. I
hope that this article will inspire more work that will continue to
develop LangCrit, work that tries to understand, theorize, and
account for the complex and intricate intersections of seen and
heard.
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