Academic English is no one’s first language. Many students and scholars work hard to learn and practice academic conventions. These challenges are often intensified for multilingual students, who may come from diverse linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds. Varieties of English are often judged through narrow expectations about how English should be used, even though language is often shaped by contexts and communities1. When written or spoken language in assessment doesn’t fully align with dominant norms, students may receive negative feedback or even criticism—not because of their ideas, but because of their expression.
In higher education, these dynamics are often associated with so-called standardized English. Expectations around this “standard” can place multilingual students and students who speak varieties of English in the position of having to adjust their language practices to match those who already hold linguistic privilege1, 2, 3. As a result, higher education both reflects and reinforces an uneven linguistic playing field, valuing certain ways of speaking and writing over others4, 5. While helping students learn dominant academic conventions can be useful, doing so alone does not address the deeper inequities that shape students’ experiences, including how they are assessed.
Barriers to Linguistic Justice in Assessment
Many assessment practices in higher education rely on rigid binaries: good versus bad writing, right versus wrong language use, and errors to be fixed rather than ideas to be explored3. Within these frameworks, linguistic diversity is likely to be interpreted as language deficiency rather than as meaningful variations to engage with.
One particularly limiting and harmful perspective is native-speaker ideology. This ideology positions white, male, middle-class, “native English speakers” as the ideal speakers and writers, against whom all others are measured6. This comparison creates a benchmark that is difficult, if not impossible, for many multilingual students to meet and may implicitly influence grading and feedback, subtly shaping evaluation in exclusionary ways.
In contrast, a linguistically just approach shifts the focus from correctness of language to purpose and function—asking whether ideas are clearly and effectively communicated—and from right/wrong judgments to questions about language choices, contexts, and intentions.
Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy
Linguistically responsive pedagogy offers an equitable framework for rethinking assessment. It refers to a pedagogical approach that leverages learners’ linguistic backgrounds as assets, integrates knowledge and skills about language development, and promotes awareness and respect for diverse language practices7.
This anti-deficit and asset-based approach to assessment recognizes that students bring unique strengths shaped by their linguistic and cultural experiences. In academic writing contexts, a linguistically responsive approach regards students’ home languages as resources for learning and supports students in making informed choices about how they use academic English, including how they employ word choice, sentence structure, and organization8. Rather than expecting uniformity in student writing, linguistically responsive pedagogy emphasizes flexibility, reflection, and learner agency.
Core Principles of Linguistically Just Assessment
Four interrelated concepts are central to linguistically responsive and just assessment practices7, 9:
Viewing multilingual students’ linguistic repertoires as strengths, not deficits.
Providing students with choices in assessment that foster motivation, autonomy, and informed decision-making about language use.
Focusing on learning as an ongoing process rather than merely on final outcomes, and using feedback-oriented assessment practices that prioritize growth over correction to support student development.
Moving beyond simply acknowledging diversity to actively creating equitable learning environments; equity requires not just counting diversity, but making it count in practice.
In the context of assessment, linguistically just teaching supports students in developing rhetorical agency—the ability to decide when and how to follow disciplinary conventions and when divergence may be possible4. One effective strategy is to engage students in open conversations about how language becomes standardized in their discipline—exploring the historical and political roots of language and how it functions in the field, as well as who benefits when specific varieties are privileged. These conversations help students make thoughtful, strategic language choices rather than simply complying with dominant rules.
Viewed through a linguistic justice lens, academic writing becomes less about right versus wrong and more about when, why, and how language is used. Taken together, asset-based learning, learner agency, process-oriented assessment, and a commitment to diversity provide a practical framework for advocating linguistic justice in assessment across higher education.
Linguistically Responsive Strategies for Assessment
The following strategies offer concrete ways to adopt or adapt linguistically responsive approaches in assessment practice9, 10:
- Be transparent about course goals and the purpose of each assignment.
- Use warm, inclusive language in syllabi and rubrics; acknowledge the diversity of linguistic traditions and practices in your classroom.
- Consider adding a “growth” or “improvement” component to assessment criteria.
- Create opportunities for feedback through scaffolding and revision options.
- Prioritize clarity and meaning over surface-level correctness in writing.
- Make grading criteria explicit, using rubrics that take an asset-based approach to linguistic diversity.
- Provide students with options (e.g., modality, weighting, feedback format, grading approaches).
- Design assessment practices that encourage collaboration rather than competition.
1 Lippi-Green, R. (2012). English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203348802
2 Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education. Harvard educational review, 85(2), 149-171. https://doi.org/10.17763/0017-8055.85.2.149
3 Inoue, A. B. (2015). Antiracist writing assessment ecologies: Teaching and assessing writing for a socially just future. WAC Clearinghouse. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2015.0698
4 Wolfram, W. (2023). Addressing linguistic inequality in higher education: A proactive model. Dædalus, 152(3), 36-51.
5 Baker-Bell, April. (2020). Linguistic justice: Black language, literacy, identity and pedagogy. Routledge.
6 Dewaele, J. M., & Saito, K. (2022). Positive psychology can help overcome the pernicious native speaker ideology. The European Educational Researcher, 5(2), 225-234.
7 Homza, A., & Fontno, T. J. (2021). Supporting teacher candidates as social justice change-makers: A faculty-librarian collaboration for building and using diverse youth collections. In Handbook of research on teaching diverse youth literature to pre-service professionals (pp. 398-421). IGI Global.
8 Blazer, S., & Fallon, B. (2020, June). Changing conditions for multilingual writers: Writing centers destabilizing standard language ideology. In Composition Forum (Vol. 44). Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition.
9 Shapiro, S. (2022). Cultivating critical language awareness in the writing classroom. Routledge.
10 Chaudhuri, A., & Stouck, J. (2023, February). Assessment strategies for linguistic justice. FLO Friday, BCcampus.
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