Linguistic Lives as Working Lives

Conducting Lingual Life Histories for the Labor Movement

Bibliographic Data

ID2228099
AuthorsRao (0000-0003-4687-9690, University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author), Sonya Rao
Year2021
Volume77
Issue1
Pages52-66
Publication date2021-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Anthropological Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-7710 • E-ISSN: 2153-3806
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/712281
OpenAlexW3128179424
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited33

In labor studies, working-class life histories have been an important tool in revealing the value of work that is culturally framed as “unskilled,” providing a platform for the disempowered. In this paper, I discuss how linguistic anthropology can similarly leverage a type of linguistic biography, “lingual life histories,” to validate another historically invisible form of work—communication-based labor. I explore lingual life histories of legal interpreters to argue the method has unique advantages: to denaturalize communication-based labor, particularly as it arises and is exploited across the life course, and to show how workers employ their own linguistic life histories to recruit one another into organizing for better working conditions. The interpreters use the lingual life history to counter-narrate the neoliberal notion of disposable worker, and attest to their irreplaceability and the value of their work

Interpreter · Leverage (statistics) · Life history · Linguistics · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Work (physics) · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Interpreting and Communication in Healthcare · Multilingual Education and Policy · Translation Studies and Practices