There are countless English varieties in the U.S. There's Boston English and California English and Texas English. There's Black English and Chicano English. There's standard academic, or white, English. They're all the same language, but linguistically, they're different.
"Standard academic English is most represented by affluent white males from the Midwest, specifically Ohio in the mid-20th century," says UC Berkeley sociolinguist Justin Davidson. "If you grow up in this country and your English is further away from that variety, then you may encounter instances where the way you speak is judged as less OK, less intelligent, less academically sound."
And this language bias and divide can have devastating consequences, as it did in the trial of George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012.
This is the second episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to the first and third episode: "A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish" and "One brain, two languages."
Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).
Music by Blue Dot Sessions.
AP photo by Jacob Langston.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
123: One brain, two languages
121: A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish
120: Medieval song holds clues to lost dialects
119: Art student's photo series explores masculine vulnerability
118: Take the first Black history tour at UC Berkeley
117: Bonobos and chimps show 'a rich recognition' for long-lost friends and family
Afterthoughts: The true origins of American immigration policy
116: How WWII incarceration fueled generations of Japanese American activists
115: They built the railroad. But they were left out of the American story.
114: Theater as power: New professor brings Caribbean performance practice to Berkeley
113: Funky and free-spirited: How a 1970s summer camp started a disability revolution
112: How the Holocaust ends
111: Britt H. Young on learning to navigate the world with the body she has
110: Gericault De La Rose knows who she is and won't change for anyone
109: Ali Bhatti on Ramadan and how his faith guided him through deep loss
108: 'Be the Change': Purvi Shah on the moments of beauty as a civil rights lawyer
107: 'Be the Change': Nazune Menka on creating the course, Decolonizing UC Berkeley
106: 'Be the Change': Khiara M. Bridges on claiming her voice as a prominent Black woman
105: 'Be the Change': A podcast that aims 'to remove the mystery of making change'
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