The introduction to this special issue frames White supremacy as a central concern within linguistic anthropology, both as a focus of analysis and as a power structure that has profoundly shaped the field’s logics and demographics. We emphasize how carefully attending to language, discourse, and signs can productively illuminate White supremacy’s slippery logics, organizing principles, dynamic infrastructures, and diverse practices. Centering the role of White supremacy in constituting modern sign relations can contribute significantly to linguistic anthropologists’ efforts toward understanding historical and contemporary power structures that organize the dynamic yet systematic interplay between language and context. We hope that this special issue builds constructively on longstanding and more recent linguistic anthropological work that has led us to reconsider the fundamental relationship between language, race, and culture while also pushing our field in important new directions by reconsidering the fundamental relationship between language and racism as a strategy for understanding and contributing to efforts toward combating White supremacy.

中文翻译：

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简介：语言和白人至上

本期特刊的介绍将白人至上作为语言人类学的核心关注点，既是分析的焦点，也是深刻塑造该领域逻辑和人口统计的权力结构。我们强调认真对待语言、话语和符号可以如何有效地阐明白人至上主义的滑溜溜逻辑、组织原则、动态基础设施和多样化的做法。以白人至上在构成现代符号关系中的作用为中心，可以大大有助于语言人类学家努力理解历史和当代权力结构，这些结构组织了语言和语境之间动态而系统的相互作用。