Kiesha Martin

This dissertation offers an ostensive definition of linguistic identity illustrated through historical and literary examples, lived experience, and even public policy. Linguistic identity consists of three parts: idiolect, dialect, and linguistic agency. The idiolect is a speaker’s personal identity. The dialect is a speaker’s social identity. Linguistic agency is the synthesis of both. This is an attempt to clarify the nature of the relationship between language and the self. Linguistic identity is an aspect of identity that has received scant attention in philosophy—even amidst the focus on language and linguistic analysis in this discipline. The objective is to bring linguistic identity into the philosophical space as an object of inquiry. Hegemonic linguistic practices, especially those derived from historical acts of colonization and the ongoing reality of coloniality, are oppressive and discriminatory; not simply because they result in cultural domination, psychological trauma, material harm, or actual violence, but hegemonic linguistic practices also violate the autonomy of the person qua linguistic subject. This work relies heavily on the metaphysics of personal identity to articulate a conception of personhood that helps to elucidate the harm of linguistic injustice. These oppressive practices often, if not always, sever one’s relationship to their linguistic community, further coloniality, and result in forms of alienation that are often internalized and produce profound forms of self-estrangement.