The Cognitive Science of Language lecture series first talk of 2023–2024 is taking place on Tuesday September 26, 2:30-4:20pm, location TBD. The lecture will be delivered in person by Dr. Janny Leung. Dr. Leung obtained her MPhil and PhD in English and Applied Linguistics from the University of Cambridge, an LLB from the University of London, and an LLM from Yale Law School. Prior to joining Laurier in 2022, she was the Head of the School of English at the University of Hong Kong, where she also previously served as the Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Arts. Her teaching and research span the disciplines of law and linguistics. Dr. Leung is Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Please email lingdept@mcmaster.ca if you are interested to attend.

Title: Linguistic Justice in Digital Governance

Abstract: Research in linguistic justice is dominated by work on language rights, which are contingent on the legal and political power of the state. Taking a different perspective, some sociolinguists dismiss group rights as essentialist and posit linguistic citizenship as an alternative approach, which encourages the imagination of speaker agency beyond the bounds of existing power structures. Neither the language rights advocates nor the linguistic citizenship proponents give sufficient consideration as to what impact digitalization has on linguistic injustices and how their proposal tackles the rise of private powers in mediating public discourse. Based on a new book that will be published by Cambridge University Press, this talk explores ways in which linguistic injustices are experienced as a result of the digital revolution, teases out the increasingly important role private actors play in alleviating and aggravating linguistic inequalities, and contemplates implications for linguistic justice as the digital medium encroaches our daily life.