Dr. Sarah Hercula, assistant professor of English and technical communication, will present a lecture titled “Cultural Conversations: Why Language Deserves a Seat at the Table” 3-4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, in Room 201 Humanities and Social Sciences Building. The lecture is a part of the Sigma Tau Delta Brown Bag Series.

The lecture description is as follows:

We’re in the midst of an important sociocultural moment in the United States. Our broad social conversations in this country are currently centered on important issues like immigration, women’s rights and gun violence, among others. At the root of many of these conversations are questions about perceptions of human diversity: our differences in terms of factors such as race, gender, religion and sexual orientation. There is one key component that often gets left out of these conversations, though, namely, language variation. In this talk, I will introduce the concepts of linguistic prejudice and linguistic discrimination, making the case for why language should be an important consideration in discussions of social issues. I will then examine the source of our broad cultural ideas about language by showing and analyzing examples from popular culture (such as comedy, television and movies) that illustrate how we are socialized into particular beliefs and assumptions about language diversity, considering the implications of such socialization on us as individuals and as a society.