Welcome to the Linguistics Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Repository, or LEDIR for short. This website contains resources for addressing and eliminating language-based bias in linguistics courses and pedagogical practices. We hope that you find the materials useful for your courses. LEDIR is part of a larger initiative in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto titled “Innovations in Linguistic Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Linguistics Curriculum and Beyond”, lead by Professor Nathan Sanders. For more information about the project and its members, see our About and People pages.
We are continually making updates to our website, so please check back if we don’t currently have what you’re looking for. Here are some of the resources we host on LEDIR (all of these are also available from the site’s dropdown menu at the top of every page):
- Handbook for Inclusive Linguistics Teaching: An online handbook with a list of suggestions for creating a more inclusive space for students in linguistics. We also outline ways to incorporate course materials and modules that will allow students to engage in social justice issues within linguistics.
- Course materials (lecture notes and data sets) that directly address language-based social justice issues: Materials that we have developed in partnership with course instructors in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto.
- The Diverse Names Database: A database of names for every letter of the English alphabet, from a variety of languages and cultures, categorized by gender and confirmed with native speakers. We hope that this tool will not only be supportive to instructors in creating more diverse and inclusive examples in their course material, but that it will also be a helpful resource for linguistics students, enabling them to create more affirming examples in their assignments and other coursework.
- Notes on affirming writing: A selections of notes based on a workshop about how to write in affirming ways about different marginalized communities.
- Publications, etc.: A list of our publications, presentations, and workshops.
For any questions or suggestions, please visit our Contact Us page.