Ethnicity and race are important social constructs with significant political importance in the community. On most occasions, ethnicity is attributed to natural origin, language, religion, food, and cultural markers, while the race is marked with distinctions of eye shape, skin color, and hair texture. However, ethnicity can only be described as cultural identifiers that are assigned to persons of common descent. At the same time, ethnic groups can be referred to as human groups that share a common belief in their descent because of their similarities, such as physical appearance, migration, cultural values, communication, and interaction. On the other hand, race can be described as a large family of human beings with a common origin and language. This paper will discuss linguistic normalization and linguistic othering and their relation to indexing ethnicity and race.
Linguistic normalization generally entails a transformation of texts into a single canonical form that never existed before. It maps different but equivalent phrases to a single representative phase otherwise referred to as the phrase frame. It can be further divided into three forms, which are syntactical, morphological, and lexico-semantical normalization (Hill, 2009). In morphological normalization, verb forms are usually reduced to infinitives, while infective forms of nouns are reduced to nominative singular. Moreover, superlatives and comparatives are often reduced to absolute forms. Grammatical rules that form plurals are found to apply reverse while certain transformations such as verbs being turned into nouns are also used. In syntactical normalization, adverbs may be mapped onto adjectives to modify normalized verbs. The lexico-semantical normalizations stem synonyms that may have different meanings in other settings.
On the other hand, linguistic othering refers to how social group dichotomies are represented by language. It involves the subject of criticism and discrimination since it points out how some groups value themselves as the norm and discriminate against other groups that do not belong or meet their standards (Hill, 2009). It refers to how one group of individuals or ethnic groups associates the other group with negative characteristics that set them apart. This categorization refers to the concept of otherness.
Linguistic normalization and otherness, therefore, dictate the type of social relationships and interactions that take place. Linguistic otherness negatively affects social interaction due to the segregation it creates across different ethnic groups. The self-identification also creates a negative external perception of the group, thereby limiting their growth and racial mixing (Fought, 2006). On the other hand, linguistic normalization levels the ground for different ethnic groups and races, thereby creating better interaction and communication channels. Linguistic normalization usually eliminates ethical pride and brings about assimilation. The concept of otherness brings about stigmatization, which further separates people according to their ethnic groups and races. Therefore, linguistic otherness has a negative impact on the indexing of ethnicity by causing marginalization of people who are not part of the dominant social group. Its consequences include educational and health disparities, injustices, and economic problems. Names have been found to contribute to linguistic otherness by easily revealing race or ethnicity. Therefore, names have so much power in attributing to ethnic indexing.
Language plays a crucial role in communicating the value, customs, and beliefs of an ethnic group. Linguistic otherness of an ethnic group affects the external perception since it alienates non-members, while linguistic normalization advocates for a common ground regardless of the ethnic group or race. Therefore, linguistic normalization fosters feelings of group identity and solidarity. It also gives way to sharing values, traditions, and culture, which are essentially a way of the people. Normalization does not discriminate people along the linguistic lines since it puts words in a standard format.
References
Hill, J. H. (2009). The everyday language of white racism. John Wiley & Sons.
Fought, C. (2006). Language and ethnicity. Cambridge University Press.