ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I elaborate on Rickford and King’s (2016e) call for sociolinguists to become more actively involved in educating actors in the legal sphere on the nature of dialect variation. I discuss how linguists can work with a full array of actors in the legal arena and describe my own work with various actors in the justice system, including attorneys, law enforcement officers, exonerees, and incarcerated individuals. The work that I and other sociolinguists have done in the legal sphere demonstrates that there is mutual benefit to such outreach efforts. Our various audiences learn about the true nature and cultural value of dialect variation, while we learn from them about how profoundly language-related matters are implicated in matters of social justice-and injustice-and how important our work to help ameliorate language-based miscarriages of justice can truly be.
