The psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in Australia

Drawing on ethnographic interview data informed by international students in Australia, this study aims to expand the notion of ‘linguistic racism’ through two main traits–‘ethnic accent bullying’ and ‘linguistic stereotyping.’ ‘Ethnic accent bullying’ refers to bullying in the forms of ‘laughing’ a...

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Main Author: Dovchin, Sender
Format: Journal Article
Published: 2020
Online Access:http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE180100118
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/92026
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author Dovchin, Sender
author_facet Dovchin, Sender
author_sort Dovchin, Sender
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Drawing on ethnographic interview data informed by international students in Australia, this study aims to expand the notion of ‘linguistic racism’ through two main traits–‘ethnic accent bullying’ and ‘linguistic stereotyping.’ ‘Ethnic accent bullying’ refers to bullying in the forms of ‘laughing’ and ‘joking’ towards ethnically and linguistically different background speakers’ biographical English accent. ‘Linguistic stereotyping’ refers to predefined negative perceptions imposed on English speakers based on their race, ethnicity, and nationality. These speakers are often ‘heard,’ ‘seen,’ or ‘imagined’ speaking ‘bad’ or ‘low proficient’ English irrespective of their actual high-level in English. Alarmingly, a majority of international students who participated in this study have experienced these two types of linguistic racism, which further posed serious ‘psychological damages.’ These traits of linguistic racism often instigate inferiority complexes leading to social withdrawal, sense of non-belonging, low self-esteem, fear, and anxiety over speaking English. The accumulation of these inferiority complexes further instigated severe depressive symptoms of mental health such as suicidal ideations. This study, therefore, concludes that an integrated perspective addressing linguistic racism and psychological damages together may be particularly useful in developing interventions against international students who are suffering from mental health problems.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-920262023-06-08T08:46:36Z The psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in Australia Dovchin, Sender Drawing on ethnographic interview data informed by international students in Australia, this study aims to expand the notion of ‘linguistic racism’ through two main traits–‘ethnic accent bullying’ and ‘linguistic stereotyping.’ ‘Ethnic accent bullying’ refers to bullying in the forms of ‘laughing’ and ‘joking’ towards ethnically and linguistically different background speakers’ biographical English accent. ‘Linguistic stereotyping’ refers to predefined negative perceptions imposed on English speakers based on their race, ethnicity, and nationality. These speakers are often ‘heard,’ ‘seen,’ or ‘imagined’ speaking ‘bad’ or ‘low proficient’ English irrespective of their actual high-level in English. Alarmingly, a majority of international students who participated in this study have experienced these two types of linguistic racism, which further posed serious ‘psychological damages.’ These traits of linguistic racism often instigate inferiority complexes leading to social withdrawal, sense of non-belonging, low self-esteem, fear, and anxiety over speaking English. The accumulation of these inferiority complexes further instigated severe depressive symptoms of mental health such as suicidal ideations. This study, therefore, concludes that an integrated perspective addressing linguistic racism and psychological damages together may be particularly useful in developing interventions against international students who are suffering from mental health problems. 2020 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/92026 10.1080/13670050.2020.1759504 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE180100118 restricted
spellingShingle Dovchin, Sender
The psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in Australia
title The psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in Australia
title_full The psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in Australia
title_fullStr The psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in Australia
title_full_unstemmed The psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in Australia
title_short The psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in Australia
title_sort psychological damages of linguistic racism and international students in australia
url http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE180100118
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/92026