![“Language Policing” and the Fight Against Social Inequality in an Anti-Capitalist Organization](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_2015_33269.jpg)
“Language Policing” and the Fight Against Social Inequality in an Anti-Capitalist Organization
In this paper, I focus on the sociolinguistic aspects of membership in a "Food Not Bombs" group in Athens, Georgia. I analyze the members’ metapragmatic discourse in the instances of “language policing” to describe the language ideology I refer to as situated personalism, a register that was crucial in the performance of membership, and how the members were trying to create an inclusive frame of interaction free of discrimi-nation. I discuss the paradoxical consequences of the members’ reflexive language use, due to which a cer-tain way of speaking effectively became a crucial prerequisite for group membership, contrary to the com-mitment to inclusion the members espoused.
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