Manifesting a Crip Linguistic Theory through a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic Perspective

The language practices and experiences of ethnically and racially minoritized users of signed languages have been ignored and marginalized within sign language linguistics. We try to explain why, giving some historical grounding and locating the issue in the theoretical assumptions from socially dominant approaches to linguistics in North America. We bring a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic perspective (Cioè-Peña 2021) to Crip Linguistics (Henner & Robinson 2023), and show how this approach undoes the harmful logics inherited from hegemonic spoken language linguistic theories. We then consider some assumptions which would need to be rejected and embraced in order to work toward a Crip Linguistic Theory. We conclude that a linguistic theory which enacts Jon Henner’s ethos towards language is one that we can and must try to manifest.