“Your English Is . . .” Linguistic Bias and the Construction of Self and Other

Aims: This article examines linguistic bias as experienced by migrants of different language backgrounds in Australia, focusing on their construction of Self as shaped by the perpetrators of bias. Approach, data, and analysis: It draws on narrative interview data and applies a thematic analysis method, and makes use of the Sartrean conception of gaze in relation to the Self and the Other to understand how the participants make sense of their Self before the Other on being exposed to linguistic bias. Findings: The participants framed their awareness of their Self, in the gaze of the Other, as an “incompetent” or “unbelievably competent” English speaker/writer who was forced into pre-determined categories of race, language, or residency status. They gazed back at the Other and were not willing to accept the negative dimensions about their Self as imposed by the latter. The participants, in addition, became the social Other in the eyes and ears of the bias perpetrators who represented/supported the social Self. Originality: Studies which discuss incidents when migrants receive biased comments on their English competence do not focus much on linguistic-bias encounterers’ construction of self in relation to bias perpetrators. The present study attempts to shed light on this issue. Implications: The idea about a particular form of English associated with a certain type of English users needs to be critically examined and debated.