Language Beyond Labeling: Toward a Language Ideologies Analysis of Anti-Violence Interventions

Abstract

As scholars explore anti-carceral approaches to gender violence, they question how to structure interactive practices to transform, rather than reproduce, dynamics of inequality and harm. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with frontline workers in north India, this article argues that the concept of language ideologies can help analyze how interactive practices address gender violence. Language ideologies are shared representations of how interaction connects speaker, audience, and context. By tracking the language ideologies that inform anti-violence interventions, researchers can better analyze the extraordinarily complex semiotic labor required to address gender violence.