Abstract
Drawing on research examining talk about racial, gender, and income inequality, this chapter details how the language of social inequality is patterned by the use of contradictory liberal egalitarian principles to rationalize and justify social inequality, particularly but not exclusively by members of dominant groups. Although principles of fairness and equity are often appealed to as core values of a just society, these are typically juxtaposed by self-sufficient liberal individualist arguments that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough and everyone should be treated equally (i.e., the “same”). We demonstrate the implications of this language of neoliberal practical politics and how it functions to justify existing social inequalities and deny the need for social change. We argue that how we talk about inequality is consequential, not only for how we understand our social world and our position in it but also for the solutions we generate for redressing inequality and social disadvantage. That is, the language of inequality has the power to shape social policy.
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Augoustinos, M., Callaghan, P. (2019). The Language of Social Inequality. In: Jetten, J., Peters, K. (eds) The Social Psychology of Inequality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28856-3_20
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