Elizabeth Baddour, Ph.D. The University of Memphis. May 2018. The Linguistic Turn in Composition History and Students' Right to Their Own Language. Professor: Joseph Jones, Ph.D. "The Linguistic Turn in Composition History and Students' Right to Their Own Language" examines the seventeen-year period of 1957 to 1974 to explore the role of what has come to be known as the linguistic turn in making way for the acceptance of alternative dialects, affirmed with the Conference on College Composition and Communication's (CCCC) Students' Right to Their Own Language (SRTOL) Resolution in 1974. Linguistics was instrumental in enriching the ways writing is taught at the college level and augmented the discipline's potential to propel a societal shift in our understanding of the interconnectedness of culture, identity, and language. The linguistic perspective advocated primarily by progressive Black scholars of the late mid-twentieth century invited a consideration that words and the way we use them are freighted with persuasive elements---elements containing touches of identity, tidbits of hidden meaning, traces of hegemony. It is from this viewpoint that the role of linguistics and composition intersect to form the central argument of this dissertation: the linguistic turn led to the SRTOL Resolution and new perspectives in teaching writing that continue to shape college composition instruction in the twenty-first century. Using historiography, this project examines the major influences upon the initiation of the linguistic turn to better understand it in relation to the broader political and cultural events of that time period. Doing so further illustrates the parallel relationship of changes in American culture during the years under study with developments in composition instruction---particularly relative to African American students newly admitted to the academy following the end of institutional segregation. The linguistic turn created space for the SRTOL Resolution that ultimately influenced subsequent pedagogical theories regarding college composition instruction and acceptance of linguistic pluralism in college composition.