This article aims to expand raciolinguistic theory to examine the issue of language oppression, i.e., enforced language loss. I used Foucauldian theories of race and racism to establish a link between lexical purism and language oppression, giving rise to a raciolinguistic theory of language oppression that I refer to as ‘lexical necropolitics.’ This issue is explored through a case study from northeast Tibet. I describe how state racism and the subordination of minority languages in the People's Republic of China has led to a grass-roots lexical purism campaign among Tibetans, and argue that since 2008, this purism has been linked to language oppression by the emergence of a new, biosovereign configuration of state power.
Funding
I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, as well as the editors of this special issue, for their thoughtful feedback on this article. Thanks also to Tonya Stebbins for reading and commenting on a draft. Any errors and shortcomings remain my own. The research for this article was supported by the Australian Research Council (DE150100388).
History
Publication Date
2021-01-01Journal
Language and CommunicationVolume
76Pagination
10p. (p. 111-120)Publisher
ElsevierISSN
0271-5309Rights Statement
The Author reserves all moral rights over the deposited text and must be credited if any re-use occurs. Documents deposited in OPAL are the Open Access versions of outputs published elsewhere. Changes resulting from the publishing process may therefore not be reflected in this document. The final published version may be obtained via the publisher’s DOI. Please note that additional copyright and access restrictions may apply to the published version.
