Raciolinguistic ideology was born from European colonialism, and it suggests that language and race are correlated, which leads to a deficiency of language practices among racialized communities. According to historians, colonialism “resulted in the uneven development of forms of capitalism across the world and the destruction and/or transformation of other forms of social organization and life” (McElhinny & Heller, 2017, p. 30). Language is a part of people’s social life since it has always been a way of communicating with each other, expressing feelings and emotions, and preserving interpersonal relationships. Colonialism significantly contributed to the phase shift from speaking practices of racialized communities to listening practices concentrated around a white subject. In many respects, such a juncture possibly made people feel like there was only one language that mattered, which explains the dangers associated with linguistic deconstruction.
When the era of colonialism came, class distinctions also significantly impacted the development of different languages, thereby contributing to the raciolinguistic ideology. Historians suggest that language has always been a tool for creating empires, such as the one Spanish Conquest aimed to build (McElhinny & Heller, 2017). That tool was also involved in colonization processes to establish a specific hierarchical structure among different classes. Traders, missionaries, settlers, and soldiers needed to “command language,” eventually developing the “language of command” (as cited in McElhinny & Heller, 2017, p. 34). That necessity contributed to the deconstruction of language by significantly altering its initial purpose. As mentioned before, people used their languages to communicate with each other as equals. In the colonization era, the language acquired another purpose: for one people to command the others, who were primarily representatives of colonized racialized communities.
Reference
McElhinny, B. S., & Heller, M. (2017). Language, capitalism, colonialism: Toward a critical history. University of Toronto Press.