Speaker 1: Did you see Chet Hanks on Z Way, Yes, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just don't understand why anyone would want
Speaker 2: to make a fool out of themselves like that.
Speaker 1: It's just embarrassing.
Speaker 2: And I am a huge fan of Thomas Jeffrey Hanks,
Speaker 2: and I cannot believe that this is the spawn of
Speaker 2: an American treasure. So Chet Hanks is out there doing
Speaker 2: patois and he thinks it.
Speaker 1: What he thinks is patois.
Speaker 2: Yes, And he said he thinks he put it on
Speaker 2: the map. That's colonizer language. You can't put something on
Speaker 2: the map that was already on.
Speaker 1: The map map.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I think it really makes me think
Speaker 2: about people laying claim to other people's language and culture
Speaker 2: and the way they speak. We see this with people saying, oh,
Speaker 2: this is TikTok talk and I'm like, no, it's not.
Speaker 1: No, it's not. And it's just really got.
Speaker 2: Our wheels turning right, And I think it's time we
Speaker 2: put it under the microscope. I think this is very important.
Speaker 2: I'm t T and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify.
Speaker 3: This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science,
Speaker 2: pop culture and a healthy dos of friendship. You know,
Speaker 2: on the show, we love to talk too much, and
Speaker 2: this week we're talking all about how much we love
Speaker 2: to talk and how it influences how we talk.
Speaker 1: All of it.
Speaker 2: Yes, from you know, where we were born, from where
Speaker 2: our parents are from.
Speaker 1: Everything influences how we talk.
Speaker 2: And so this week we're talking all about linguistics specifically.
Speaker 2: We really wanted to know more about how the science
Speaker 2: of linguistics shows up in our everyday lives and some
Speaker 2: of the reasons that we speak the way we do.
Speaker 1: Yes, let's jump right into the recitation. So what do
Speaker 1: we know? Tt?
Speaker 2: I think one thing that we know is that language
Speaker 2: is complex. I mean, when you think about the number
Speaker 2: of languages in the world and how many languages can
Speaker 2: appear in like small sections of the world, it's really wild.
Speaker 2: It's such a big part of our culture and how
Speaker 2: we move.
Speaker 1: Through the world.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think we also know that there's so much
Speaker 2: nuance even in the same words that you might say
Speaker 2: how you say them. This is reminded me of like
Speaker 2: a tweet that while where people were saying okay, oh, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: like it was all the different things like bruh, yeah, bruh,
Speaker 2: Like you know, the same word all these different ways.
Speaker 2: So even like intonation and emphasis in different areas can
Speaker 2: mean so many different things.
Speaker 1: And what we also.
Speaker 2: Know is is that language is influenced by everything that
Speaker 2: is happening around us. So when we were younger, you know,
Speaker 2: we spoke a little bit differently what you knew hip
Speaker 2: young whipper snappers are saying these days, we're still trying
Speaker 2: to catch up. Oh my goodness, t T is one
Speaker 2: thirty two years old. Even if we take all of
Speaker 2: those things into account, right, there's still so much more
Speaker 2: I want to understand, like what does it mean, like
Speaker 2: when we consider linguistics as a field, Like what's the
Speaker 2: difference between a dialect and an accent? And is there
Speaker 2: a such thing as an American accent? Right, you know,
Speaker 2: like because it's just a melting pot.
Speaker 1: That's a good point.
Speaker 2: I want to know the linguistic history in the United States,
Speaker 2: and I think specifically for us, I want to know
Speaker 2: some of the roots of black or African American vernacular English,
Speaker 2: like where we got some of our terminology from. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's reminded me of when my friend from the Midwest
Speaker 2: recently said, well better lick your caf over and I
Speaker 2: was like, this is a real cowboys were long line cowboys.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's jump into the dissection. Our guest for
Speaker 1: today's lab is doctor John Ball.
Speaker 4: I'm the Margaret Bush Wilson Distinguished University Professor at Washington
Speaker 4: University in Saint Louis, and I am currently President of
Speaker 4: the Linguistic Society of America.
Speaker 2: Doctor Ball has written several books on linguistics and is
Speaker 2: known for his theory on linguistic profiling, which happens when
Speaker 2: people discriminate agains others based on the way that they talk.
Speaker 2: So let's start with some linguistics basics. We act doctor
Speaker 2: bad to break down what he means by linguistic science.
Speaker 4: Linguistics is the science that tries to evaluate what all
Speaker 4: human languages have in common, including sign language, and to
Speaker 4: evaluate those commoniolies through some shared scientific principles and methodologies.
Speaker 4: And my own specialty is called socio linguistics, which takes
Speaker 4: all of this linguistic science and then looks at it
Speaker 4: in a social realm. It really is a science you
Speaker 4: can measure and break down all of the elements in language.
Speaker 2: Okay, So linguistics is the study of languages, and there
Speaker 2: are thousands of different languages in the world. Many of
Speaker 2: them are very different from one another, but doctor Boss
Speaker 2: says they all have certain elements in common.
Speaker 4: They all have a sound system produced through articulation that
Speaker 4: divides into me meaningful units of sound, whether it's full
Speaker 4: words or prefixes or suffixes, and then they have to
Speaker 4: be strung together in a grammatical sequence to have meaningful leutterances.
Speaker 2: Doctor Bab says that we can see this in English
Speaker 2: with the prefix un un by itself doesn't mean anything,
Speaker 2: but when you use it as a prefix, it means
Speaker 2: not so like unfulfilled means not fulfilled, or unreal means
Speaker 2: not real. And whether you're a fan of prefixes or not,
Speaker 2: one thing that we know is that where you grew
Speaker 2: up in the world can determine how you speak a language.
Speaker 1: Right, we were just talking about this.
Speaker 2: I feel like if I'm on the phone with somebody
Speaker 2: for like thirty seconds, I can figure out, Oh, this
Speaker 2: person is from the East coast, or they're from the
Speaker 2: West coast, or they're from the South, like my friend
Speaker 2: who is Southern, Okay. And sometimes even when I hear
Speaker 2: Southern folks h depending on what we're talking about. There
Speaker 2: might be some key words in there, and if I
Speaker 2: listen long enough, I can maybe narrow down the state.
Speaker 2: And I feel the same way about folks that are
Speaker 2: from the area of the country where I'm from. So
Speaker 2: I'm from Maryland, and so they call the DC, Maryland
Speaker 2: and Virginia area the DMV. And there's some slang or
Speaker 2: ways of speaking that people from the DC metro area
Speaker 2: the way they speak, so I can usually I hear
Speaker 2: that and I'm like, oh, what's up. I have seen
Speaker 2: her say that person is from DC, that person is
Speaker 2: from the neighboring county, Okay, PG County, and then this
Speaker 2: other person is from Baltimore. Yeah, because Baltimore is not
Speaker 2: a part of what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Baltimore is on separate state. I feel like we have
Speaker 1: different accents.
Speaker 2: But somebody recently told me that they can't tell the
Speaker 2: difference between us on the podcast, and so I want
Speaker 2: you to yes, So I.
Speaker 1: Really want you to let that sink in. I don't
Speaker 1: know what. Welcome to the South, you know what, I'll
Speaker 1: take it as a compliment.
Speaker 2: I feel like we have very different acts and speak
Speaker 2: very different dialects at times.
Speaker 1: But doctor All explain to us the difference between dialect
Speaker 1: and accent.
Speaker 4: When someone speaks a dialect of a language, that means
Speaker 4: that they do so in a way that has unique
Speaker 4: grammatical properties, and that often intersects with the fact that
Speaker 4: speakers of different dialects will also have shared accents. But
Speaker 4: accents are based on your pronunciation.
Speaker 2: Okay, So some examples of different accents in English are
Speaker 2: Southern United States, that's your girl, Midwestern New England, and
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 1: And there's a bunch of other ones too. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Some examples of dialects of English in the United States
Speaker 2: are Southern again, African American English, and Appalachian English. And
Speaker 2: within these accents and dialects, there's still even finer kind
Speaker 2: of differences. So there's variation based on region, generation, socioeconomic status,
Speaker 2: so many other factors that we can't even name. So
Speaker 2: let's take a minute for a pole, because tt I
Speaker 2: know you have a very good ear and you can
Speaker 2: tell somebody's accent in the United States where they're from.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if everybody else can too. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's easy for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Okay, So check the app right now and tell us
Speaker 2: which one of these accents. Can you easily distinguish no problem,
Speaker 2: no trouble, just hands down, I know this person's from
Speaker 2: the Midwest, hands down, I know they're from the southern US.
Speaker 1: I want to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Doctor bad told us about the concept of linguistic dexterity,
Speaker 2: and that's when people have the ability to modify their
Speaker 2: speech based on their environment.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really great point, tt and I
Speaker 1: really like the term linguistic dexterity because it feels like
Speaker 1: it's dignifying the skill that it takes to use language
Speaker 1: in different ways to connect and communicate with people from
Speaker 1: different backgrounds.
Speaker 2: And we see this happening also with Native English speakers
Speaker 2: depending on their environment.
Speaker 1: We call this code switching.
Speaker 2: But doctor Boss, it's technically a little bit of a misnomer.
Speaker 4: Code switching is a term that's used quite commonly by
Speaker 4: a lot of Americans. But if you're looking at it
Speaker 4: from a scientific point of view, what most people mean
Speaker 4: when they're talking about black people who code switch is
Speaker 4: in linguistics either called bi dialectalism or style shifting, and
Speaker 4: that's because you're not changing languages.
Speaker 3: MM.
Speaker 1: We talk about style shifting a lot.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, Like when we started doing dope labs. That
Speaker 2: was really important to us to not style shift, yes,
Speaker 2: and to speak authentically to who we are based off
Speaker 2: of our life experiences and where.
Speaker 1: We grew up, right, and to be honest. We've received
Speaker 1: some pushback.
Speaker 2: Right, people have said, oh, you should more academic or
Speaker 2: more scholarly, and I'm like, this is what a scholar
Speaker 2: sounds like exactly, you know, like, oh, you know, it
Speaker 2: sound like a vad Well, I have one, so by defaults.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: Doctor Bab helped highlight the difference between the two. Style
Speaker 2: shifting is happening more along a continuum, whereas code switching
Speaker 2: is when you have complete switching of languages.
Speaker 4: And then even with code switching, there are distinctions between
Speaker 4: something like Spanglish, which is a mixture of Spanish and English,
Speaker 4: and code switching where part of the sentence might be
Speaker 4: English and then you flip and then have the other
Speaker 4: part of the sentence exclusively in Spanish, whereas Spanglish actually
Speaker 4: kind of combines elements of some English words with Spanish words.
Speaker 2: Who that is a lot to wrestle, Honestly, it's a lot.
Speaker 2: And when you think about it, I mean in the
Speaker 2: linguistic dexterity of it all. What we are able to
Speaker 2: achieve through language is fascinating, and people are able to
Speaker 2: do it at the drip of a dime so quickly.
Speaker 2: It makes me think about people from immigrant communities who
Speaker 2: speak English as a second or third or even fourth language.
Speaker 2: They're going to have a lot more linguistic dexterity than
Speaker 2: someone who was born in the US and raised in
Speaker 2: an English only household. If you've ever tried to learn
Speaker 2: a language, you know that the sentence structure changes, how
Speaker 2: we handle verbs are differently than a lot of other languages,
Speaker 2: and so it doesn't always overlay perfectly.
Speaker 1: And so it can be really tough.
Speaker 2: I think it sounds like a superpower to have this
Speaker 2: type of linguistic dexterity and the ability to styleship at
Speaker 2: the drip of a dime. But that's not how folks
Speaker 2: are treated like in everyday life, and it's just like
Speaker 2: everything in our society. Racism plays a huge role in
Speaker 2: how society deems people who are in the linguistic majority
Speaker 2: versus the minority.
Speaker 4: You have many well educated speakers of mainstream, dominant forms
Speaker 4: of American English who have very little linguistic dexterity. But
Speaker 4: because they speak from a position of linguistic privilege, they
Speaker 4: are not penalized for their lack of linguistic dexterity. Right,
Speaker 4: The burden is always upon the group who is not
Speaker 4: the dominant group. And we could take it international. You
Speaker 4: can go to France or Germany or England, and the
Speaker 4: well educated speech of the upper classes is the norm
Speaker 4: by which everyone else is judged. And then that's true
Speaker 4: here in the United States except for one wonderful exception,
Speaker 4: and that's the fact that many very wealthy educated Americans,
Speaker 4: most of them tend to be white, often speak with
Speaker 4: different regional dialects. We see this beautifully displayed in Congress
Speaker 4: and the Senate. You don't see somebody saying to Lindsay Graham, oh,
Speaker 4: you need to sound more like a TV broadcaster. Right,
Speaker 4: Lindsey Graham's going to sound like the southern senator he is.
Speaker 4: And oh, by the way, that's helpful to him in
Speaker 4: his political context.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You know when sometimes people say, oh, there are sometimes terms,
Speaker 2: there are sometimes accents, those are the hidden signals that, oh,
Speaker 2: this person is like me. You know, where we get
Speaker 2: different people associating grouping and social grouping when they hear
Speaker 2: someone speak. This also makes me think about the linguistic
Speaker 2: heritage when we talk about the South, right, Yeah, the
Speaker 2: heritage and what has happened historically and how that's influenced linguistics.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, we both want to learn more
Speaker 2: about the linguistic heritage of black people in the United
Speaker 2: States and understand how history has shaped the words and
Speaker 2: phrases that show up in African American dialects, specifically in
Speaker 2: the past and the present.
Speaker 4: There are unique properties to the linguistic dexterity exhibited by
Speaker 4: African Americans. And then we need to take into account
Speaker 4: that at this point in time, not all African Americans
Speaker 4: are slave descendants, right, So the linguistic legacy that we're
Speaker 4: speaking of has to do with the fact that slavery
Speaker 4: created a unique set of linguistic circumstances that are not
Speaker 4: shared by any other group that came.
Speaker 2: The Transatlantic slave trade stole people from their lives in Africa,
Speaker 2: taking away their freedom, family, culture, and languages, and so
Speaker 2: much more. This experience is unique to the victims of
Speaker 2: the slave trade.
Speaker 4: Every immigrant group that's come to the United States had
Speaker 4: their own volition. In other words, they decided, come on, y'all,
Speaker 4: we're going to back up. We're moving to America right
Speaker 4: where it was their decision. Where they were not enslaved,
Speaker 4: they did so with others who spoke their same language.
Speaker 4: That's why we have communities where Polish, Italian, German, Korean, Russian, Japanese, Vietnamese.
Speaker 4: They all came to America intact. So how come no
Speaker 4: African language made it across. Some people with racist stereotypes
Speaker 4: would say, well, because well, the black people aren't smart
Speaker 4: enough to remember their language.
Speaker 2: No. When African people were captured during the Atlantic slave trade,
Speaker 2: they were often separated by language to restrict and limit
Speaker 2: their ability to communicate and to prevent uprisings.
Speaker 4: One of the very first things they did, even before
Speaker 4: the Atlantic crossing, was let's divide them up. Who speaks Tweet,
Speaker 4: who speaks Ebo, separate them And so that created a
Speaker 4: situation where you've already got dislocation from the mother tongue
Speaker 4: even before you board the slave ships. You've already snatched
Speaker 4: somebody from their family. You're about to put them into
Speaker 4: slavery for the rest of their lives. They're going to
Speaker 4: be trying to figure out out to escape. Well, if
Speaker 4: everybody speaks the same language, they're going to be firing
Speaker 4: pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: This intentional separation and denial of language continued once enslave
Speaker 2: people arrived in America.
Speaker 4: Once you get to America and you're put on the
Speaker 4: auction block, it's illegal to teach you to read and write. Okay,
Speaker 4: you don't get to go to school. There's no such
Speaker 4: thing as a public school for slaves. You're out there
Speaker 4: into plantation. We need you picking cotton. So where do
Speaker 4: you get exposed to English? You get exposed to English
Speaker 4: by the white slave over here. Well, it turns out
Speaker 4: most of them they didn't get here by their own choice.
Speaker 4: They happened to be, for the most part, indentured servants
Speaker 4: from Scotland and Ireland, and they would say things like
Speaker 4: the bucket done be over yonder in their brogue. Well
Speaker 4: that done be over yonder. You hear black people say
Speaker 4: all the time, I'll be done. Told you that. That's
Speaker 4: from the Scots Irish. And the fact that we were
Speaker 4: denied access to schools for hundreds of years. That linguistic fossilization,
Speaker 4: which is grammatically productive, is passed from one generation to
Speaker 4: the next in a very useful way.
Speaker 1: I really like that phrase.
Speaker 2: Grammatically productive people understand it and when you think about
Speaker 2: the words, they make sense.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break and when we come back we'll
Speaker 2: get into more of the linguistic nuances of Black American English.
Speaker 2: We're back, and don't get too sad, but next week
Speaker 2: we're going to be out of the lab.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. Don't worry.
Speaker 2: We've got you covered with one of our favorite labs
Speaker 2: until we return. Before the break, we talked about the
Speaker 2: linguistic heritage of black people in the United States and
Speaker 2: how the legacy of slavery shows up in our speech today.
Speaker 1: Now that we understand that the slave trade was integral
Speaker 1: to the way African American dialects formed in resistance to
Speaker 1: the violence of white supremacy, we want to understand some
Speaker 1: of the linguistic differences that we hear in these dialects.
Speaker 4: So African Americans who are familiar with the colloquial vernacular
Speaker 4: dialect will know well that one of the common words
Speaker 4: used in ways that are not similar to other dialects
Speaker 4: of English is the word be as in you know,
Speaker 4: they be talking right, or she be sick. And what
Speaker 4: a lot of people don't realize is that doesn't mean
Speaker 4: the same thing as she is sick. Or sometimes that
Speaker 4: particular expression where is would be used, the word is
Speaker 4: doesn't appear. They just say she's sick.
Speaker 2: Like we learned earlier, different dialects have their own unique grammar,
Speaker 2: and it's not as simple as swapping out one word
Speaker 2: for another. The grammar allows for meaning to change, and
Speaker 2: we see people doing it wrong on the internet all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's not that's not for you. Talk about
Speaker 1: what you know about.
Speaker 4: Oh, come on, somebody, So what's the difference between he
Speaker 4: happy and he'd be happy? He be happy means he's
Speaker 4: usually happy all the time. It's an habitual state of affairs.
Speaker 4: He happy, or he's happy, or he is happy could
Speaker 4: be a momentary state. Unfortunately, because of the history of
Speaker 4: the country, when people didn't know anything about linguistics and
Speaker 4: slaves would say things like, you know, i'd be going
Speaker 4: to the store or we be jumping, they would say, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, they're not educated. They don't understand English properly.
Speaker 2: And this just goes back to that myth where people
Speaker 2: think that they can tell how educated someone is based
Speaker 2: on the way that they talk.
Speaker 1: The next example is ben.
Speaker 2: Doctor Ba discusses the research of his colleague, doctor John Rickford,
Speaker 2: a professor of linguistics at Stanford University.
Speaker 4: The difference between the emphasis on the word ben as
Speaker 4: in b e n as in we've been to the movies,
Speaker 4: and the difference that he pointed out is if you
Speaker 4: ask someone is your sister married? If you answered, oh,
Speaker 4: she'd been married, okay, that means not only is she
Speaker 4: married now, she's been married a long time. But if
Speaker 4: you said she'd been married, that means she's no longer married, but.
Speaker 1: She used to be.
Speaker 2: In this example, the difference in meaning comes from the
Speaker 2: tonal difference in the word ben. English is not a
Speaker 2: tonal language, but some African languages are tonal languages.
Speaker 4: So the slaves hearing the word ben began to impose
Speaker 4: a grammatical distinction using tone that was not part of English.
Speaker 4: And again, because they weren't going to school, it wasn't
Speaker 4: anybody correcting them.
Speaker 2: It's so amazing how black people are able to maintain
Speaker 2: that tonal aspect of their native languages in the creation
Speaker 2: of this new dialect of English. Like one of my
Speaker 2: favorite words that has a lot of different intonations, I
Speaker 2: guess or tonalities is all right, like all right, like
Speaker 2: all right, that kind of like all right, we're gonna
Speaker 2: keep messing around, is gonna be a problem, all right,
Speaker 2: all right, I got you.
Speaker 1: Like, it's just so many things. Ah, I feel like okay.
Speaker 2: Too, and bet and baby baby. The next example is
Speaker 2: one that a lot of people have opinions on the
Speaker 2: way we say ask, so ask and how Some folks
Speaker 2: say acts.
Speaker 1: So, like different pronunciations for the same word yes.
Speaker 2: So ask and how some people say, oh, can I
Speaker 2: ask you a question? The linguistic term for this is metathesis,
Speaker 2: where you invert to sounds.
Speaker 4: If you're a parent of a child, when your child
Speaker 4: was growing up, they said pasketti rather than spaghetti. Now
Speaker 4: why would they do that? Well, Technically, having the syllable
Speaker 4: S before a P and then a vowel sound is
Speaker 4: difficult to produce, whereas pasketti has a consonant followed by
Speaker 4: a vowel then followed by an S sound. Well, it
Speaker 4: turns out that ask a vowel and then what we
Speaker 4: in linguistics call a sibilant consonant and then a stop
Speaker 4: consonant is more difficult to produce than a vowel followed
Speaker 4: by a stop consonant. So ax versus ask is easier
Speaker 4: to pronounce in terms of just the phonology of it.
Speaker 4: And some people say, oh, well, on't they get confused
Speaker 4: because an ax is a tool, Well, an ax is
Speaker 4: also and ask is a verb. So therefore, if I say,
Speaker 4: let me ask you a question, unless you don't speak English,
Speaker 4: you're not going to assume that the person has substituted
Speaker 4: a noun for a verb. Those two pronunciations live quite compatibly.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something, Hey, I want to go
Speaker 2: all the way back to the fifth grade.
Speaker 1: No, actually it was second grade, missus Schmidt and shot
Speaker 1: to fire.
Speaker 2: And I would always always say asks, Oh, I want
Speaker 2: to ask the question.
Speaker 1: She'd be like, no, I don't want you to ask me.
Speaker 1: And I'd be like, that's okliating.
Speaker 2: And just like we talked about exactly like you were
Speaker 2: talking about a now and a verb and you know,
Speaker 2: you know, And so language is a tool to communicate
Speaker 2: how everything, and when folks try and box you in
Speaker 2: to only speak it in a certain way, it prevents
Speaker 2: that dexter that doctor Ball was talking about. So when
Speaker 2: we're talking about I knew what you were talking about
Speaker 2: nomadic productivity.
Speaker 1: You knew what I was talking about, and you knew
Speaker 1: it made sense. You were just giving me a hard time.
Speaker 2: Doctor Bo's next example is about the linguistics of hip hop.
Speaker 4: Not only do people notice these linguistic differences, you get
Speaker 4: some pride taking place. Right, So this slang term fat
Speaker 4: comes into existence. Oh that's fat, but it spelled phat
Speaker 4: in rap culture. Let's think about that. Did those young
Speaker 4: brothers that came up with that, were they really thinking, oh,
Speaker 4: that's pahat. No, they had taken the English classes that
Speaker 4: showed them that Philip was spelled pH and they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: so pH is the F sound okay? Well, if pH
Speaker 4: is f and fat is a slang term and I
Speaker 4: spell it with pH, but I pronounced it fat, I'm
Speaker 4: reinforcing my linguistic loyalty too much. Culture.
Speaker 2: That's another great one that I like, reinforcing my linguistic
Speaker 2: loyalty to my culture. And when you learn about that
Speaker 2: rich linguistic culture and heritage, it just makes you feel
Speaker 2: even stronger that those phrases and dialects should be preserved
Speaker 2: and that we should continue to exercise our linguistic dexterity.
Speaker 1: It also makes me think about.
Speaker 2: Mmm, oh my god when we see non black people
Speaker 2: trying to use phrases or words in a dialect that
Speaker 2: they didn't grow up with. And so we see them
Speaker 2: doing this a lot. I see it a lot on
Speaker 2: social media, but they're using it in the wrong way,
Speaker 2: trying to look cool.
Speaker 1: Ooh Chile, Yes, you mean woo child.
Speaker 2: Yes. And we talked about cultural appropriation in black music
Speaker 2: in last week's episode. Yes, but we wanted to know
Speaker 2: what doctor Bob thought from a linguistic perspective about the
Speaker 2: mainstream consumption and use of African American English and its
Speaker 2: impact on the dialect and meaning of the words.
Speaker 4: So as a linguist, one of the things that it's
Speaker 4: important to realize is that all languages constantly undergo change,
Speaker 4: and so when people adopt a style of speaking that's
Speaker 4: not native to them, you have to ask what's their motivation.
Speaker 4: And when I was a child, and we're talking in
Speaker 4: the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, the vast majority of
Speaker 4: times that you would see white's imitating black speech was
Speaker 4: in a very overt racist and discriminatory way. That's very
Speaker 4: different than fourteen year old white boys that trying to
Speaker 4: sound like Tupac, who they think of as kind of
Speaker 4: an urban hero. And they're not coming from a place
Speaker 4: of racism when they try to say it.
Speaker 2: But it's still not right. Yeah, it might not be
Speaker 2: coming from a place of racism, but it's still not right.
Speaker 2: And I think it makes me think about On z
Speaker 2: Way's show recently, she talked to Chitt Hanks about him
Speaker 2: saying that he thought he was putting Patois on the map.
Speaker 2: Kind sir, that's how you being generous. Yeah, you're totally oblivious.
Speaker 2: You're not appreciating the rich linguistic heritage here. No, he's
Speaker 2: just doing a caricature of it and for clicks and likes,
Speaker 2: which is not what it's about. And nobody's saying he
Speaker 2: must be dumb because he's not speaking in a certain
Speaker 2: way the way they would if a native Patois speaker
Speaker 2: was speaking right. Same thing for the adoption of different
Speaker 2: phrases from Black American English.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, I think those.
Speaker 2: Examples really point to how aspects of black culture and
Speaker 2: speech have become popular and valuable in mainstream media, but
Speaker 2: it's often non black people who are profiting off of
Speaker 2: that culture and history.
Speaker 1: That we created and experienced.
Speaker 2: Doctor Bod told us about a concept he coined called
Speaker 2: econo linguistics, and that's when your linguistic behavior has economic
Speaker 2: realfe events.
Speaker 4: From an econo linguistic perspective, the slave descendant dialects have
Speaker 4: historically been devalued, but in the contemporary context, the econo
Speaker 4: linguistics of the ability to wrap can actually make you
Speaker 4: a lot of money. Jay Z is a billionaire. I'm
Speaker 4: old enough that I remember the difference in reaction to
Speaker 4: Vanilla ice as opposed to eminem right, and eminem is
Speaker 4: seen as being more authentic. Right. He grew up in
Speaker 4: Detroit in eight Mile. He knows what to say and
Speaker 4: enough about black culture that his adoption of the vernacular
Speaker 4: is seen as respectful. But there's a white woman who's
Speaker 4: from Australia who tries to wrap in black dialect.
Speaker 2: That's Iggy Iggy.
Speaker 1: I think that's what he's talking about. Yes, that is
Speaker 1: what he's talking about.
Speaker 2: It's strange and it's problematic, you know, Iggy Azalia, because why.
Speaker 1: Do you talk like it just doesn't even make sense.
Speaker 2: You would think that she would rap like an Australian
Speaker 2: would rap, but she doesn't how she's rapping like she
Speaker 2: grew up with Trina and mia X and I'm like,
Speaker 2: you don't know naw one of them.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: But I think that nuance about Eminem and Iggy Azelia
Speaker 2: is really important to recognize. This feels like a little
Speaker 2: bit of the conversation I've seen online about Jack Harlow,
Speaker 2: Like I think a lot of black folks feel like
Speaker 2: if you didn't grow up in these neighborhoods, then you
Speaker 2: don't understand. And sometimes people are overdoing it and it's like,
Speaker 2: are you making fun of us?
Speaker 1: Like, you know, what is it really about?
Speaker 2: But then there are also people that feel like they're
Speaker 2: really respecting the art and the culture and the history.
Speaker 2: So I think about mac Miller, who had a very
Speaker 2: different reception, you know, And so it can just really
Speaker 2: be contentious, and it really depends on how you came up.
Speaker 2: There's so much to talk about when it comes to linguistics,
Speaker 2: and we've only talked about us small slice today, but
Speaker 2: before we wrapped up with Doctor Bob, we wanted to
Speaker 2: learn about the linguistics behind sign language.
Speaker 4: The basic thing with sign language is that when a
Speaker 4: baby can't hear, their brain still has the capacity to
Speaker 4: process language, and if they're fortunate enough to be in
Speaker 4: an environment where they're exposed to sign language users, that
Speaker 4: developing brain will then begin to process visually what the
Speaker 4: developing child processes through their brain auditorially. If you're too young,
Speaker 4: you don't know how to read and write, well, if
Speaker 4: you're a young signer, you don't know how to finger spell,
Speaker 4: so finger spelling comes in later. But it's just as complex,
Speaker 4: if not more complex, than speech, and it goes through
Speaker 4: a different modality. So sign language, you know, encoded through
Speaker 4: your eyes, it uses gesture.
Speaker 2: Doctor Boss said is very important for brain development for
Speaker 2: children to start learning a language, regardless of if it's
Speaker 2: sign language or spoken language, and this will help them
Speaker 2: later when they learn to read and write. Doctor Boss
Speaker 2: shared that deaf and hard of hearing people have their
Speaker 2: own experiences with linguistic bias and discrimination.
Speaker 4: All of them, regardless of background, are strong proponents of
Speaker 4: linguistic human rights. Deaf people get linguistic discrimination right because
Speaker 4: they're at McDonald's signing and depending upon how people react
Speaker 4: to them, I mean, for heaven's sakes, people used to
Speaker 4: say deaf and dumb right, So the stereotype that if
Speaker 4: you can't hear, you're less intelligent is very similar to oh,
Speaker 4: if you speak with a slave descendant dialect, you must
Speaker 4: not be smart.
Speaker 1: And doctor Ball also revealed a little more history within
Speaker 1: the deaf community, sharing that African Americans tended to be
Speaker 1: isolated from white Americans and develop their own dialect of
Speaker 1: sign language.
Speaker 4: There's actually a black dialect of sign language. Essentially. The
Speaker 4: best way that I can describe the differences there is
Speaker 4: it's got more soul, it's got more movement. Black signers
Speaker 4: are just using a lot more emphasis in their gestures.
Speaker 4: There's a lot more body movement.
Speaker 2: That's so amazing to hear. It shows that black folks,
Speaker 2: no matter our circumstance, we persist, We push through and
Speaker 2: have the mental fortitude to make a way for ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I love that.
Speaker 4: If you take anything away from this conversation today, one
Speaker 4: thing is please appreciate the unique linguistic heritage of slave descendants.
Speaker 4: It is different than any of every other immigrant group.
Speaker 4: Please try to accepting of others whose linguistic backgrounds are
Speaker 4: different from your own, and that applies to everybody. And
Speaker 4: if we can be more accepting, not just that you
Speaker 4: tolerate these people, but do you actually accept the fact that,
Speaker 4: if you live in the United States, your fellow citizens
Speaker 4: are going to come from very diverse linguistic backgrounds. If
Speaker 4: we all do our best to try to understand one another,
Speaker 4: that will be progress of a certain kind.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, it is time for one thing?
Speaker 2: Tt what's your one thing this week? My one thing
Speaker 2: this week is a clothing brand that is definitely new
Speaker 2: to me. It's called Kids of Immigrants and it was
Speaker 2: founded by Daniel Buazo and Wayle Dennis and they are
Speaker 2: based in Los Angeles. In the mission statement is Kids
Speaker 2: of Immigrants is a movement to recognize that we are
Speaker 2: all cut from different fabrics, but together we make a whole.
Speaker 2: And it's such an amazing brand. I really love all
Speaker 2: the stuff that they put out. Things sell out very quickly,
Speaker 2: but if you can get your hands on something, it
Speaker 2: is really great. Street where on almost all of their
Speaker 2: items they have this little patch that says, shout out
Speaker 2: to immigrant parents who came here with nothing but gave
Speaker 2: us everything, which I love. You know, my parents are
Speaker 2: both immigrants. Yes, shout out to all the immigrant kids.
Speaker 1: Love it. What's your one thing?
Speaker 2: My one thing is a book this week back on
Speaker 2: my reading cheeks.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I want to hear it. I want to
Speaker 1: hear it. Okay.
Speaker 2: So you know we did this episode before about science denial, Yes,
Speaker 2: and people ask us all the time like, how do
Speaker 2: you help people understand this is the science?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: We talked to doctor Barbara Hofer and Gail Sinatra, Yes,
Speaker 2: and they had a book about science denial.
Speaker 1: There's a new book out that's called How Mind's Change.
Speaker 2: It's from David mcgrainey, who hosts the podcast You Are
Speaker 2: Not So Smart.
Speaker 1: Okay. I think it feels like the next step.
Speaker 2: So once we figure out what's making people believe certain things,
Speaker 2: how do we get them to change their mind and
Speaker 2: what's the science behind that? So I just got that
Speaker 2: book in the mail and I'm reading it now. So
Speaker 2: that's my one thing this week. I can't wait to
Speaker 2: hear all about it and read it myself. Yes, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to pass it to cats, it to your neighbor.
Speaker 2: All right, that's it for this lab. Did this make
Speaker 2: you think about anything? Did it make you look at
Speaker 2: some of your favorite Internet personalities who are adopting some
Speaker 2: different dialects accents?
Speaker 1: If it did let us know. If it didn't, we
Speaker 1: want to know that too.
Speaker 2: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 2: zero two eight and tell us what you thought about
Speaker 2: this lab, and don't forget you can always give us.
Speaker 1: An idea for a lab that you want to hear
Speaker 1: this semester.
Speaker 2: That's two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight.
Speaker 1: And don't forget that.
Speaker 2: There is so much more to dig into on our website.
Speaker 2: There'll be a cheap keeper today's lab, additional links and
Speaker 2: re sources in the show notes. Plus you can sign
Speaker 2: up for our newsletter check it out at Dope Labs
Speaker 2: podcast dot com. Special thanks to today's guest expert, doctor
Speaker 2: John Ba. You can find out more about his work
Speaker 2: and his ted talk on our website Dope labspodcast dot com,
Speaker 2: and you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 2: Dope Lab Podcast. TT's on Twitter and Instagram at dr
Speaker 2: Underscore t Sho, and you can find Zakia at z
Speaker 2: said So. Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from
Speaker 2: Mega Ownmedia Group. Our producers are Jenny radlit Mass and
Speaker 2: Lydia Smith of WaveRunner Studios. Our associate producer from Mega
Speaker 2: Ohmedia is Brianna Garrett.
Speaker 1: Editing in sound design by Rob Smerciak, Mixing by Hannis Brown.
Speaker 2: Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex
Speaker 2: Sugier from Spotify. Creative producer Miguel Contreras. Special thanks to
Speaker 2: Shirley Ramos, Jess Bison, Jasmine Afifi, camu Elolia, tillcrat Key
Speaker 2: and Brian Marquis, Executive producers from Mega Own Media Group,
Speaker 2: all Right US, T T Show, Dia and Zekiah Wattley