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The Whiteness of Nerds: Superstandard English and Racial Markedness

2001/06/01 by Mary Bucholtz · 3 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Multilingual Education and Policy #EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning #Second Language Learning and Teaching

paper · doi:10.1525/jlin.2001.11.1.84

openalex publication_date 2001/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/03

Abstract

Anthropological research has shown that identities that are "not white enough" may be racially marked. Yet marking may also be the result of being "too white." California high school students who embrace one such white identity, nerds, employ a superstandard language variety to reject the youth culture norm of coolness. These practices also ideologically position nerds as hyperwhite by distancing them from the African American underpinnings of European American youth culture.

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