Webinar: Language prejudice and the documentation of minoritized varieties of English by OUP Academic Marketing

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Language prejudice and the documentation of minoritized varieties of English

About

The Oxford English Dictionary has always included words from across the English-speaking world, and in the past few years we have been undertaking a series of projects to improve our coverage of several varieties of English.

We are now making a significant part of this content freely available to the public, including lexical and other content from minoritized varieties of English in the recently launched Varieties of English section of the OED site.

Many still consider some varieties of English to be inferior to others. Such language prejudice has a clear social and economic impact on certain language communities, whose members are frequently marginalized because of their accents or their choice of words.

To mark the launch of the OED’s Varieties of English page, we invite you to join the OED team, Dr Danica Salazar, World English Editor, and Dr Catherine Sangster, OED Executive Editor for an overview of the OED’s coverage of varieties of English and the resources that are now freely available. They will also be joined in a panel discussion by our guest speakers:

• Dr Jeannette Allsopp, retired Senior Research Fellow in Lexicography and founder and former Director of the Richard and Jeannette Allsopp Centre for Caribbean Lexicography at the University of the West Indies
• Dr Rosemary Hall, Research Assistant, The Dialect and Heritage Project, University of Leeds
• Dr Kingsley Ugwuanyi, English Lecturer and Researcher, University of Nigeria
• Kelly Elizabeth Wright, PhD Candidate in Experimental Sociolinguistics, University of Michigan

The members of the panel will address the following topics and questions, offering insights from their particular geographical and sociolinguistic contexts:

• Attitudes towards language variation
• Why are particular varieties valued over others?
• How does the perception of a language variety impact communication?
• Why is it important to document minoritized varieties of English?
• Code switching
• Dialect parody

Who is this for?
• Linguists and lexicographers
• Those with a particular interest in minoritized varieties of English
• Anyone interested in attitudes and perceptions around language
• All users of the English language

Please note that this event will be recorded, and all registrants will be notified once the recording is available for viewing.

WEBINAR ENDED

Presenters

Dr Danica Salazar

Oxford Languages World English Editor

Dr Danica Salazar is World English Editor for Oxford Languages, where she leads editorial projects for world varieties of English, as well as researches and writes World English entries for the Oxford English Dictionary. She publishes and lectures regularly on lexicography, phraseology, World Englishes and Spanish- and English-language teaching. Dr Salazar is the author of Lexical Bundles in Native and Non-native Scientific Writing (2014), co-editor of Biomedical English: A Corpus-based Approach (2013), and co-author of several language textbooks for learners of Spanish.

Dr Catherine Sangster

Oxford Languages Executive Editor: Pronunciations

Dr Catherine Sangster is Executive Editor: Pronunciations at Oxford Languages. Before moving into lexicography, she headed the BBC Pronunciation Unit, and completed a D.Phil. in Sociophonetics.

Dr Jeannette Allsopp

Retired Senior Research Fellow in Lexicography and founder and former Director of the Richard and Jeannette Allsopp Centre for Caribbean Lexicography at the University of the West Indies

Jeannette Allsopp is the Consultant for Caribbean English to the 3rd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Dr. Allsopp is the holder of the 1991 EURALEX Verbatim Award and pioneered the teaching of Lexicography at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus. She has authored over 70 publications, including the first and only Caribbean Multilingual Dictionary of Flora, Fauna and Foods in English, French, French Creole and Spanish.

Dr Rosemary Hall

Research Assistant, The Dialect and Heritage Project, University of Leeds

Dr Rosemary Hall is a sociolinguist specializing in varieties of English and attitudes towards them. She has taught courses in sociolinguistics and world Englishes in Oxford and Norway. Previously her research has focused on language and identity in Bermuda, and she recently acted as a consultant for the OED's first batch of Bermudian English words. Rosemary currently works for the Dialect and Heritage Project at the University of Leeds.

Dr Kingsley Ugwuanyi

English Lecturer and Researcher

Kingsley Ugwuanyi teaches English linguistics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. His main research interests include sociolinguistics, Nigerian English, world Englishes and applied linguistics. He recently completed his doctoral research on Nigerian English at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and has been consulting for Oxford Dictionaries on Nigerian English.

Kelly Elizabeth Wright

PhD Candidate in Experimental Sociolinguistics

Kelly Elizabeth Wright (She/Her) is an experimental sociolinguist and lexicographer specializing in linguistic discrimination and its institutional outcomes. She identifies as a working class Black Biracial cis woman, an Afrolachian raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. Currently, she is researching perceptions of Black professionalism; her research also includes a machine learning study of lexical racialization in sports journalism and a sociophonetic study of linguistic profiling in the housing market.

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