Volume 25 Fifty Years of CRIL
Graduate Working Papers

“You came here to get tacos, bro”: Place references as argumentative resources

Published 2021-08-22

Keywords

  • language policing,
  • place,
  • reference,
  • conversation,
  • institutionality,
  • conversation analysis
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How to Cite

Henry, J. (2021). “You came here to get tacos, bro”: Place references as argumentative resources. Colorado Research in Linguistics, 25. https://doi.org/10.33011/cril.v25i.1053

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which place references are made in incidents of language policing. Place references are made by both the "policer"and the "policed" in ways that support their fundamental claims regarding the appropriateness of speaking a language other than English. This paper highlights how two categories of place reference - local and non-local - both serve as an argumentative resource but support a language policer's claims in different ways, either as an invocation of some institutional body and the language policies embodied therein; or, as a call to raciolinguistic ideologies situating the "policed" as some part of some other institution. Finally, this paper brings to light further avenues of research regarding place references and their role in the larger language policing incident.