Speaker 1: Today's quote is from Adrian Marie Brown, who wrote an
Speaker 1: amazing book called Pleasure Activism. She says, quote, Ultimately, pleasure
Speaker 1: activism is us learning to make justice and liberation the
Speaker 1: most pleasurable experience as we can have on this planet.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I would like to make public speaking
Speaker 1: an active pleasure activism. Welcome to Permission to Speak. The
Speaker 1: podcast about how we talk and how we get ourselves
Speaker 1: heard with me samar Abe. Today's guest is Catherine Kinsler.
Speaker 1: She's a professor of psychology at University of Chicago who
Speaker 1: was also the chair of the psychology department at Cornell
Speaker 1: for a few years and a Fulbright scholar in Paris.
Speaker 1: And she's the author of a new book called How
Speaker 1: You Say It, Why you talk the way you do,
Speaker 1: and What it Says about You. I obviously wanted to
Speaker 1: have her on as soon as I heard about the book,
Speaker 1: and then I read it, and it is fantastic. She
Speaker 1: manages to give an overview of every major study at
Speaker 1: the intersection of linguistics and psychology about how we speak
Speaker 1: and how we listen without in any way sounding academic
Speaker 1: or like it's a bunch of studies um and really
Speaker 1: instead the book has this really compelling, I think argument
Speaker 1: that each of us A has an accent hello and
Speaker 1: b that actually our own unique way of pronouncing sounds,
Speaker 1: and all the subtle markers of where we've been and
Speaker 1: where we're going is, as she says, a window into
Speaker 1: who we are. We also take this opportunity to talk
Speaker 1: about accent bias, which is real, real, and we talk
Speaker 1: about some really wildly distressing data and stories like Trayvon
Speaker 1: Martin's friend who he was on the phone with at
Speaker 1: the time of his murder, who testified at his killer's
Speaker 1: trial and was just not heard. And we talk about
Speaker 1: our options, We talk about our way out. We talked
Speaker 1: about what we should be teaching our kids and why
Speaker 1: kids are so cool to study, which is what Katherine
Speaker 1: Kindler actually does in the lab and online. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you're listening and you have a kid, we even
Speaker 1: have info on how to enroll your kid if you're interested.
Speaker 1: This is Katie Kindler. Welcome, Katie. UM are you teaching
Speaker 1: these days? I'm doing a little bit of teaching, but remotely.
Speaker 1: Um And then I work a lot with graduate students,
Speaker 1: and I have a lab, so I you know, I
Speaker 1: run a psychology lab and we test kids, and so
Speaker 1: we've actually moved it all online um, and it's been
Speaker 1: fascinating because we have all these families signing up to
Speaker 1: join our studies and it's all virtual, um, and it's
Speaker 1: working in a way that it wouldn't have worked a
Speaker 1: year ago. I think that, you know, prior to now,
Speaker 1: parents would be kind of freaked out with this idea
Speaker 1: of my kids gonna go online and you're not questions
Speaker 1: that we're going to record it, you know. Now they're
Speaker 1: kind of like, please entering my child for thirty minutes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's literally safer to go online and participate
Speaker 1: in a study than like use a playground. And I
Speaker 1: think for the kids, they're getting so remarkably talented at
Speaker 1: any virtual form of communication in a way that's, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, mind boggling to adults, at least to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a six year old who was
Speaker 1: on a Zoom call with two friends and then she
Speaker 1: manages to take a screenshot of the three of them
Speaker 1: talking and drawing it to make it more beautiful and
Speaker 1: uploaded as her virtual Zoom background. And I didn't teach
Speaker 1: her that, And I'm just you know, thinking oh, she's
Speaker 1: native and zoom technology so and they all are right.
Speaker 1: Has it actually has this new you know, virtual way
Speaker 1: of doing things actually affected the studies themselves that you're
Speaker 1: working on, or have you had to adapt? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there's certainly some constraints and some things we could do
Speaker 1: in person that are harder online. But looking to the future,
Speaker 1: you know, in many ways it actually opens up I
Speaker 1: think a lot of possibilities and that it's so important
Speaker 1: to think about getting a more diverse sample of people
Speaker 1: participating in research. And so when it's online, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to just be people who are you know, local
Speaker 1: in Chicago or who are comfortable coming into a university community. Um,
Speaker 1: of course there's going to be some equity issues and
Speaker 1: who has access to internet or you know, the space
Speaker 1: and time to talk with you. But I think it
Speaker 1: actually might be a way to increase the diversity of
Speaker 1: our participant base, which is you know, exciting. Is something
Speaker 1: I think that's really important your book. I want to
Speaker 1: start with a quote, Um, you said, Uh, linguistic bias
Speaker 1: is completely culturally acceptable in a way that racial bias
Speaker 1: is not. Many parents feel uncomfortable with any expression of
Speaker 1: race based preference but when their children express a preference
Speaker 1: based on the way someone speaks, they are not as concerned.
Speaker 1: I want to know how you came to write this book,
Speaker 1: and even more so why it didn't already exist. So,
Speaker 1: you know, when we look out in the world, there's
Speaker 1: so many social group divisions were also aware of this
Speaker 1: um race, gender, nationality, political affiliation. We could go on
Speaker 1: and on, but one thing that we use to you know,
Speaker 1: as you know, well, to connect with people in a
Speaker 1: good way, but then also to really divide ourselves and
Speaker 1: to judge people and to be judged by others, is
Speaker 1: about our speech. And I just think we're so unaware
Speaker 1: of this um as a society, about the way that
Speaker 1: our speech works to structure our social lives and how
Speaker 1: much bias and prejudice can exist against people based on
Speaker 1: how they sound. And so I just think it's so
Speaker 1: important for people to think about and why do you
Speaker 1: think this book didn't already exist or something you know
Speaker 1: that covers this topic. Partly, I think the answer is
Speaker 1: in how interdisciplinary you are, and it requires one to be.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if you know, did you see that
Speaker 1: there was a real void and then you were like, wait,
Speaker 1: how is it possible or does it make sense. I
Speaker 1: guess that this is sort of always flown under the radar,
Speaker 1: you know. So I think part of it is this
Speaker 1: cultural flying under the radar, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: real thing, and I do hope that that will change,
Speaker 1: that people become aware of linguistic prejudice in society. Now,
Speaker 1: I could give you somewhat of the academics response, which
Speaker 1: is that I'm trained as a psychologist, and I study
Speaker 1: developmental and social psychology, and at least within the field
Speaker 1: of psychology, which is often the field that you know,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of studies about bias and implicit
Speaker 1: biases and people's conscious and less conscious thinking about racism,
Speaker 1: and you know, the kinds of studies that are really informative,
Speaker 1: and we're thinking about intergroup bias. A lot of that
Speaker 1: is in social psychology, but all the more language stuff
Speaker 1: in psychology tends to be in other areas. So there's
Speaker 1: you know, language is such a fundamental part of psychology,
Speaker 1: of course, but it's often about language processing and language
Speaker 1: acquisition and more this cognitive language for language's sake, as
Speaker 1: opposed to language and social psychology. And so it's almost
Speaker 1: this weird gap in the field. And then I so
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this, and I was working on
Speaker 1: this problem, and then I started reading more and more
Speaker 1: neighboring fields, and then you get into different aspects of linguistics, psycholinguistics,
Speaker 1: socio linguistics, you see, linguistic anthropology. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: relevant research in economics and education, you know, in other
Speaker 1: policy oriented fields, and so it it felt to me
Speaker 1: like one book that tried to draw in all these
Speaker 1: different fields might be the best way to tackle this problem.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, as somebody who's a dialect coach,
Speaker 1: to have to find a book that basically says that
Speaker 1: accent a is something every single person has and b
Speaker 1: is so foundational to how we are treated in the
Speaker 1: world or how we are perceived that we all miss
Speaker 1: it is a very satisfying book to a found you know.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I have to say also as
Speaker 1: a lay person, I I really just want to like
Speaker 1: shout out there isn't even a question attached to this,
Speaker 1: although you're welcome to pick up whatever you want from it,
Speaker 1: but I really want to shout out that I believe
Speaker 1: you just gave everyone who read this book a survey
Speaker 1: on all of the important studies in socio linguistics and
Speaker 1: in these related, um you know, intersecting fields. But in
Speaker 1: no way made it sound like that, like you weren't
Speaker 1: like in another important study. You really just like held
Speaker 1: our hand and said, here's what we know, and here's
Speaker 1: what people have been wondering. Well. Thanks, that's lovely to hear. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm so excited to be talking to
Speaker 1: a dialectic so now, because I mean, people are always
Speaker 1: asking me questions about this field, and though it feels
Speaker 1: so related to the questions that I study, but yet
Speaker 1: it's not a field that I'm very familiar with myself.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really different from my academic exercises. So
Speaker 1: I feel like this connection is so excited, it's super cool.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely just a few moments in your
Speaker 1: book where you talk about, like, you know, a changing
Speaker 1: up your accent, especially when English is your second language,
Speaker 1: is wildly difficult to do, which I want to talk
Speaker 1: more about. But be you know, some of the people
Speaker 1: who do it are actors and actually see that there
Speaker 1: is this there's this sort of two sided reaction that
Speaker 1: people have when they hear for example, Hugh Laurie speaking
Speaker 1: in his actual British accent. If you've seen the TV
Speaker 1: show House and the two the two different feelings are
Speaker 1: one like, I'm so impressed, and too, I feel a
Speaker 1: little like he betrayed me. Yeah, exactly. It feels like
Speaker 1: it's the superhuman feat because it's not what we typically do.
Speaker 1: And then you start recategorizing and saying, wait, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought he was this guy I knew, and now
Speaker 1: I don't know him anymore, right, well, okay, so it
Speaker 1: is about linguistic bias. But even before that, it's there
Speaker 1: is such a lovely argument in this book that how
Speaker 1: we talk or language is so crazy. There's this quote
Speaker 1: here I have it's so critical to feelings of identity
Speaker 1: that when you speak, you let a little bit of
Speaker 1: yourself out for the world to interpret. And I think
Speaker 1: it's so important and it's so hard to talk. I mean,
Speaker 1: part of what's been fascinating about having this podcast is
Speaker 1: that I do sometimes feel like I have to sort
Speaker 1: of shine a light on the fact that we can
Speaker 1: even talk about the voice before we can then also
Speaker 1: talk about the voice, because it's so invisible because it
Speaker 1: flies under the radar. And yet you know, as you say,
Speaker 1: the way you talk is a window into who you are.
Speaker 1: There's so there's so much research, and there's so much
Speaker 1: about how much our identity comes out and how we sound.
Speaker 1: And I actually would love to talk about Ruth Bader
Speaker 1: Ginsburg as an example of what I'm talking about. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: would you tell us about this and what we learned.
Speaker 1: It's so it's so it's a bit counterintuitive, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So on your broader point about your speech letting out
Speaker 1: a bit about who you are, I think it does
Speaker 1: so in two ways. So one is that, as I'm
Speaker 1: sure we can talk about more, it's so hard to
Speaker 1: learn a non native language or a non native accent
Speaker 1: into adulthood. So in that sense, when we speak, we're
Speaker 1: often showing people who the voices were who were talking
Speaker 1: to us when we were children. But then the other
Speaker 1: thing it does is it your language does shift to
Speaker 1: some extent across your life. And as you know, right,
Speaker 1: you know, you're teaching people and helping people work on changes,
Speaker 1: and so your voice also shows your aspirations and who
Speaker 1: you want to be and who you're with now, not
Speaker 1: just who you're with then. And so it's really kind
Speaker 1: of these two facets I think about it. So when
Speaker 1: we think about the Ruth Bader Ginsburg example, linguists charted
Speaker 1: her speech over time and find some real interesting aspects
Speaker 1: of her speech coming through. So you know, she grew
Speaker 1: up and had some you know, New York or Brooklyn
Speaker 1: features in her language, such as dropping the r at
Speaker 1: the end of a word, so you know, mother, mother,
Speaker 1: something like that, leaving the r at the end um,
Speaker 1: leaving off the art. We can think of Bernie Sanders
Speaker 1: as like a extreme example of some of the yes.
Speaker 1: And so the interesting thing was that she'd been in
Speaker 1: d C for a while and so first of all,
Speaker 1: she wasn't immersed in this Brooklyn speech. And also the
Speaker 1: dialect itself is shifting a little bit in New York,
Speaker 1: so that was more true a generation ago than it
Speaker 1: is today. The are dropping and then also some they
Speaker 1: call it some vowel raising, so um, that exactly right.
Speaker 1: So those two features you can hear that those are
Speaker 1: really stereotypical, you know, stereotypically thought of as this New
Speaker 1: York accent. Now, what's interesting about with Vader Ginsburg is
Speaker 1: that she grew up in that community, but then for
Speaker 1: a long time, when you look at when the linguists
Speaker 1: listened to recordings of her arguing prior in court, prior
Speaker 1: to becoming a Supreme Court justice, they don't hear those
Speaker 1: New York features. It's as if she's hyper correcting her speech.
Speaker 1: She's really trying to sound more, you know, more what
Speaker 1: people might see of think of as proper. And then
Speaker 1: it's only in the later years when she's a justice
Speaker 1: that you start to see this voice from her childhood
Speaker 1: coming out again. And so in some ways, I really
Speaker 1: think it's a sign that she feels like she's made it.
Speaker 1: She's comfortable with herself and with her voice, and so
Speaker 1: she doesn't need to correct in the same way. There's
Speaker 1: such a lesson there for all of us, right, and
Speaker 1: and it's also complicated. I mean, one thing that I
Speaker 1: think is so useful about that story is that sometimes
Speaker 1: I think about formal versus informal speech and formal versus
Speaker 1: in formal situations, but that what I learned from that
Speaker 1: is there's actually this much more important lens than just
Speaker 1: looking at the context, which is, are do you have
Speaker 1: something to prove? Yeah? Are you being evaluated in that moment?
Speaker 1: And then you know, to bring it into all of
Speaker 1: our lives. There is this element of if we're being
Speaker 1: evaluated and our natural instinct is to overcorrect, as you say, um,
Speaker 1: when can we not do that? Is that is that
Speaker 1: you know, at what point is it is? It? Is
Speaker 1: it about like when in our own lives do we
Speaker 1: feel like we don't have anything to prove anymore? Or
Speaker 1: is there something about like there being a kind of
Speaker 1: a revolutionary act in um just teaching people that like
Speaker 1: you can sound you know, non standard and still be
Speaker 1: taken seriously. But you know, then the problem is sometimes
Speaker 1: you aren't right. And I think both of those things
Speaker 1: so are true. So a lot of it is that
Speaker 1: probably you know, your relationship with your voice is a
Speaker 1: lot about self acceptance. You know, there's all these linguistic
Speaker 1: studies about people who speak in a way that other
Speaker 1: people feels nonstandard, and they can feel very insecure about
Speaker 1: the way they speak. At the same time, the flip
Speaker 1: side of that is, I hope we're approaching some education
Speaker 1: where we can actually realize this hidden source of prejudice
Speaker 1: and bias and become more aware of it, and then
Speaker 1: in that sense, more people, you know, as you're trying
Speaker 1: to do, can feel comfortable in their voices. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and especially because it makes me think about like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, when we don't have anything to prove anymore, sure,
Speaker 1: when when does that happen exactly? And if we're you know, ambitious,
Speaker 1: or if we're always moving forward or upward or whatever
Speaker 1: metaphor you want to use, then like, in a way,
Speaker 1: maybe we're always finding ourselves in new positions where we
Speaker 1: have to prove ourselves and we can't just always be
Speaker 1: sort of chasing like someday I'll be myself, especially because
Speaker 1: there's this added complicating thread, which is that often people
Speaker 1: who really create these magical moments to capture a society.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm talking I'm thinking specifically of of AOC's
Speaker 1: speech the other week in Congress. But you know, there
Speaker 1: are these there are these moments when people sound more
Speaker 1: like themselves than you're than you expect given the formality
Speaker 1: of the context, and then it becomes really poignant and
Speaker 1: often they become leaders. Right. Part of I think what's
Speaker 1: valuable about the conversation you're having in the book and
Speaker 1: that I'm having on the podcast is this idea of
Speaker 1: we can't all just fall back on these safe tropes
Speaker 1: of um, the room makes me scared, so I will
Speaker 1: hide myself or you know, we won't find our own
Speaker 1: leadership and we won't find we won't have like you
Speaker 1: know this, our society won't move forward the way we
Speaker 1: actually all want it to. Yeah, I mean that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that definitely resonates and finding this authentic self which is
Speaker 1: very vulnerable. In fact, actually i'd love you to talk
Speaker 1: about you very honestly reference your feeling of being conflicted
Speaker 1: about up speak sure and vocal for I mean, they're
Speaker 1: both mentioned, and actually they're both really relevant really as
Speaker 1: practical sort of examples of what we're talking about. Would
Speaker 1: you do you want to talk about Yeah, I'll talk
Speaker 1: about so. Um. So this is where I talk about
Speaker 1: how often, you know, language changes over time, and often
Speaker 1: it's adolescence and in particular even adolescent women who are
Speaker 1: changing the language. And so you know, new features come out,
Speaker 1: and adolescents are kind of fighting against the old guard,
Speaker 1: and so you know, another facet of that is that
Speaker 1: old people always don't like the way that young people speak.
Speaker 1: But when they were young, someone didn't like the way
Speaker 1: that they spoke, and so that's kind of a recurring
Speaker 1: cycle of human nature. So up speak or up talk
Speaker 1: is ending sentences in a question, and so you know,
Speaker 1: kind of some people might call it a valley girl
Speaker 1: kind of speak. Um. You know, I was a teenager
Speaker 1: in the nineties, and so I think of the movie
Speaker 1: Clueless is one reference point that I get. We're definitely
Speaker 1: a temporarius by the way, Okay, you know, I find
Speaker 1: myself slipping into that sometimes and I hear it and
Speaker 1: my students in the complexity is that there's no good
Speaker 1: or bad way of speaking. It doesn't it's not you know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing that has to be good or bad about
Speaker 1: a particular intonation, and so I don't want to judge
Speaker 1: it because I because I know that. At the same time,
Speaker 1: if I find myself slipping into it, it gets really
Speaker 1: complicated because it originated you know, often it's women doing it.
Speaker 1: It sort of gets mixed into this notion of maybe
Speaker 1: a sexist notion that a woman doesn't know what she's
Speaker 1: saying something like that, and so it's really you know,
Speaker 1: it's a tough one that I struggle with in my
Speaker 1: own voice. And then you point out beautifully, Um in
Speaker 1: the book that uh, that it's complicated by the fact
Speaker 1: that not only did you grow up with this, but
Speaker 1: also as a result, a lot of role models, a
Speaker 1: lot of the icons that we all grew up with
Speaker 1: also speak this way. Yeah, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: vocal fries interesting. I think that that tends to out
Speaker 1: tends to be a little bit younger or you know,
Speaker 1: not so much to say when we were in high school. Um,
Speaker 1: so this is kind of ending, you know, adding this
Speaker 1: kind of uh, like a growlly sort of feature to
Speaker 1: the end of your words or to some vowels. And
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that adults really don't like it. But
Speaker 1: one paper pulled a bunch of college students somewhat recently
Speaker 1: a few years ago, and I've tried this too with
Speaker 1: my students, and you know, you play them a clip
Speaker 1: and they say, oh, yeah, no, that that doesn't sound
Speaker 1: bad to me. That sounds like somebody who's you know,
Speaker 1: kind of going somewhere. And so I think, yeah, that
Speaker 1: you get these generational differences, and so which makes sense
Speaker 1: because if that's the way you you know, if that's
Speaker 1: the way that people of your generation speak, it can
Speaker 1: sound positive. And then you know, here I'm like, now
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like an old person thinking, Yah, the kids
Speaker 1: are speaking in this way, that you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: Well also you said adults don't like it, but there
Speaker 1: is some cut off, right of like kind of adults
Speaker 1: we're talking about totally, and these are not you know,
Speaker 1: it's not usually like, well, if you're born you know after,
Speaker 1: if you're born before, hate it. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: usually that clear cut. It's complicated, and it's complicated by
Speaker 1: the fact that, as you say in the book, less
Speaker 1: so with upspeak perhaps, But but vocal fry is a
Speaker 1: great example that I have this quote here where you said,
Speaker 1: once a way of rebelling against the linguistic establishment, vocal
Speaker 1: fry seems to have joined its ranks because obviously at
Speaker 1: some point the people who are speaking in vocal fry
Speaker 1: as their you know, rebellious streak. I'll share in clueless um,
Speaker 1: then get a little hour, then become the boss. And
Speaker 1: if they have, if they haven't lost that you know,
Speaker 1: whatever linguistic marker that is revealing of their character, then
Speaker 1: suddenly that's what bosses sound like. And then probably young
Speaker 1: people will do something different. Right, It is kind of
Speaker 1: freeing and ridiculous that we grab onto these ideas just
Speaker 1: knowing that like there's gonna be another train of them
Speaker 1: coming up, which leads me to one other philosophical question
Speaker 1: which doesn't have an answer, but but perhaps it's worth
Speaker 1: thinking about, which is that sometimes we feel an obligation
Speaker 1: in the coaching world leadership coaching and with corporate clients
Speaker 1: who have, you know, a sort of a sense of
Speaker 1: what a strong voice sounds like, what they're going for.
Speaker 1: We're often in a position of having to tell people
Speaker 1: to you know, learn how to speak without up speaking
Speaker 1: vocal fry. And then the question is because as you say,
Speaker 1: and I love the way you put it, Uh, this
Speaker 1: is where the complexity comes in. Is there and ours
Speaker 1: elves quote unquote that is more us than the social
Speaker 1: markers that we've picked up, Like are we more ourselves
Speaker 1: if we let go of some of those markers because
Speaker 1: we pick them up as ways to minimize ourselves in
Speaker 1: certain spaces, or are they part of our story and
Speaker 1: so letting go of them, you know? And obviously there
Speaker 1: is not a one way answer, right, There's not a
Speaker 1: one way answer. And I think for me, the bigger
Speaker 1: picture truth is just how much our language, how much
Speaker 1: the way we speak, reflects the social complexity of our lives.
Speaker 1: And so a big part of that is our childhood
Speaker 1: and the languages we learned in childhood when our brains
Speaker 1: were still you know, malleable and ready to learn languages.
Speaker 1: And then a large part reflects our social ambition and
Speaker 1: our social changes in our new social worlds. And so
Speaker 1: I think it's really hard to turn any of that off.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then we're
Speaker 1: gonna come back and talk about some of the specific
Speaker 1: things we can turn off and that we're doing without
Speaker 1: even knowing it. We're back, and actually i'd love to
Speaker 1: step back for a second and ask how all of
Speaker 1: this work that you've been doing for you know, over
Speaker 1: a decade now, but specifically um, for this book has
Speaker 1: made you think about your own voice. So one important
Speaker 1: thing that we can all think about. But I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up in New York a little bit,
Speaker 1: but a lot of mostly in Connecticut, which is part
Speaker 1: of the region where people often say that they don't
Speaker 1: have an accent and other people have an accent. So
Speaker 1: you see this like which doesn't make logical sense. So
Speaker 1: everybody has an accent. I mean, it's so it's so beautiful, right,
Speaker 1: So it's such a it's such a human thing. To do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so even people who speak a sign language have
Speaker 1: a manner have a have an accent. Um, So you know,
Speaker 1: everybody has an accent. Well you actually define in this
Speaker 1: case what you mean by an accent, sure, so a
Speaker 1: manner of pronounced you know, pronunciation, so the way that
Speaker 1: you say your words, the sound of your words. Um.
Speaker 1: And of course for for signs, they don't have a sound,
Speaker 1: but they do have a manner of pronunciation in a
Speaker 1: way that feels very like the same idea. And then
Speaker 1: I see this in you know, in my colleagues and
Speaker 1: friends and you know, people from childhood, just that it's
Speaker 1: so easy to think about accents as a gradation from
Speaker 1: the self. So like somebody who has oh but somebody
Speaker 1: you know who really has an accent. Well, but what
Speaker 1: does that mean again, you know, because everybody has an accent.
Speaker 1: And so I think when you're thinking about, um, mastering
Speaker 1: a language that's not your own, that might be you know,
Speaker 1: you could think about whether or not you sound like
Speaker 1: a native speaker, so you might use accent in that way.
Speaker 1: But I think when I think about, you know, how
Speaker 1: I grew up speaking, or the amount of linguistic diversity
Speaker 1: that I heard which was somewhat little. And that's something
Speaker 1: that I reflect on too, that I think that it's
Speaker 1: so important where possible to expose kids to different languages,
Speaker 1: and so I think about that, you know, living in
Speaker 1: a city or having two little kids. Um, everybody has
Speaker 1: an accent. And also, as I talk about some in
Speaker 1: the book, even the way of hearing an accent, when
Speaker 1: you hear somebody and you think, oh, a strong accent
Speaker 1: or oh a week accent, A lot of that is
Speaker 1: entirely subjective and about the listener, not about the speaker,
Speaker 1: And so much happens. I didn't realize until I read
Speaker 1: your book. So much happens when we perceive an accent
Speaker 1: that's psychological. It's just not about the sounds. It's not
Speaker 1: like I hear that accent, but okay, I can tell
Speaker 1: that sound is actually usually that other sound. Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: I've solved it. But instead all these like new things
Speaker 1: come into play of I can't understand this person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so you know, there's just these elegant studies about
Speaker 1: how elegant for the science, not like elegant about humanity,
Speaker 1: possibly the opposite about humanity. So you know, people here
Speaker 1: often what they want to hear, you know, so there
Speaker 1: can be studies of somebody listening to speech and thinking
Speaker 1: that because the person speaking looks Asian, that they're more
Speaker 1: likely to be a non native speaker of English because
Speaker 1: a lot of people have this bias about kind of
Speaker 1: attaching whiteness to being American, and then that's not at
Speaker 1: all present in the person's speech. It's like you're bringing
Speaker 1: this bias or you're bringing this prejudice. And then you
Speaker 1: could hear speech in a way that's just so laden
Speaker 1: with bias and not actually about what the person is saying.
Speaker 1: And then it also leads us into the credibility issue.
Speaker 1: So either we just literally shut down and we don't
Speaker 1: think we're hearing somebody like you're like you just described,
Speaker 1: or I mean, the Trayvon Martin story, Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: know the story. This is a really I mean I
Speaker 1: find it just so poignant and heartbreaking that this is
Speaker 1: the story of Trayvon Martin, who was who was murdered
Speaker 1: as an unarmed African American teenager and um, you know
Speaker 1: in the trial, uh he was right before he died,
Speaker 1: he'd been speaking on the phone with a friend of
Speaker 1: his and um, Rachel jon Tell and she was in
Speaker 1: the courtroom, and she was speaking a dialect of African
Speaker 1: American English, and you know, she testified to the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, Trayvon was trying to you know, get
Speaker 1: away from the shooter and so forth, which would really
Speaker 1: go against a claim of self defense. And evidence from
Speaker 1: linguists have gone and UM analyzed, you know, what happened
Speaker 1: in the trial and what the juror said after the fact,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of evidence that they either didn't
Speaker 1: understand her or just felt like she She was basically discredited,
Speaker 1: UM because of the way she spoke and her truth
Speaker 1: just wasn't heard in that trial, UM, in the trial
Speaker 1: against George Zimmerman, the shooter. And it should be noted
Speaker 1: that the jury was basically all white. Yes, correct. So
Speaker 1: now these issues are really complicated, and you know, even
Speaker 1: linguists debate over how to think of them. It's not
Speaker 1: like there's a one size fits all answer because in
Speaker 1: some ways, thinking about a courtroom, you want to offer
Speaker 1: for a way to translate speech so that everybody understands.
Speaker 1: At the same time, a lot of bias against language
Speaker 1: is not just this idea of oh, was the speech
Speaker 1: comprehensible or not? In this really neutral way, but you
Speaker 1: can see racism being so central to judgments against speech,
Speaker 1: and I think in some ways it can just be
Speaker 1: this really insidious part of bias where somebody can say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not being racist, I just don't understand this person,
Speaker 1: but they're bringing so much baggage to how they think
Speaker 1: about the person's voice. Well, and it really is I
Speaker 1: mean that story specifically as a real counter argument to
Speaker 1: um my kind of you know, sometimes pollyanna Ish instincts
Speaker 1: of like can't we all just be ourselves? You know?
Speaker 1: And I'm well aware of it. I mean, whenever I'm
Speaker 1: coaching people, I'm not just saying like, you know, however
Speaker 1: you sound with your favorite people when you're the most
Speaker 1: comfortable will work in every context. I wish it did.
Speaker 1: I think that there's a social justice element to that,
Speaker 1: um but you know, the reality is when we are
Speaker 1: learning different ways to speak in different contexts, it is
Speaker 1: often because there are like power structures in play, and
Speaker 1: like do you, you know, help your friend who has
Speaker 1: been brutally murdered, uh, you know, find justice posthumously or
Speaker 1: don't you as all of the nation watches, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, when the stakes are that high, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, would it have been useful for her to
Speaker 1: have been coached by someone on how to speak differently?
Speaker 1: Is that even possible? You know? I mean obviously the
Speaker 1: greater answer is just that, like, people need to hear better,
Speaker 1: but we can't always assume that they will. And I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, I'm I would say that I'm
Speaker 1: pro language learning, and that can mean a lot of
Speaker 1: different things, and so I'm not I think the people
Speaker 1: who only speak English at home should learn in schools,
Speaker 1: and we should have this benefit for our children to
Speaker 1: teach them different languages at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: learning as a child, Um, you know, being bilingual in
Speaker 1: different dialects that you use in different contexts, being bilingual
Speaker 1: in different languages that you use in different settings. This
Speaker 1: can be really positive and the more languages that people
Speaker 1: are able to master can be really wonderful in my view.
Speaker 1: But I think you have to do so in a
Speaker 1: way that's sensitive, and that isn't teaching people languages because
Speaker 1: the one that they have is being devalued, but rather
Speaker 1: seeing an advantage of having multiple ways of speaking in
Speaker 1: multiple contexts. Yeah, there's this concept that you talked about
Speaker 1: that I really I think it's a useful label of
Speaker 1: of like linguistic status that we don't you know that
Speaker 1: we all often have. The Americans have this sense of like,
Speaker 1: we like British accents. Why is that? You know? And
Speaker 1: we also obviously don't have to cross the pond before
Speaker 1: we realize that we have certain you know, inherent biases
Speaker 1: towards as well as against certain accents. The British English
Speaker 1: example is so fun because, um, you're right, we have
Speaker 1: this like British English status loose stereotype going on in
Speaker 1: the US. Absolutely, But what I find fascinating is that
Speaker 1: we also have often a close to home advantage in
Speaker 1: accent detection, and so telling apart different varieties of English
Speaker 1: in the UK to an American ear is very difficult, right,
Speaker 1: And so you might be able to hear, you know, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: from California from New York, but you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to pick out different regions of the UK
Speaker 1: unless maybe you could because you're trained professional. But I couldn't.
Speaker 1: But the editor exactly right, so I couldn't. Um. And
Speaker 1: what's fascinating though, I think is that as an American
Speaker 1: you could hear a British accent, think oh this person sounds,
Speaker 1: you know, so so amazingly I don't know, British and
Speaker 1: educated or something, but it doesn't have to be one
Speaker 1: of the fancier British accents. So then if you're in
Speaker 1: the UK, somebody might categorize that accent as being not
Speaker 1: at all posh, right, And so I think that that
Speaker 1: shows how much of this is about the stereotypes who
Speaker 1: bring to the table and nothing actually about the actual
Speaker 1: signal value from the voice. So two other things. One
Speaker 1: is I want to call out that we move very
Speaker 1: quickly away from what you think about your own accent.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if you think about, um, what version
Speaker 1: of you comes out when you teach, what version of
Speaker 1: you comes out in conferences? I mean, on on some
Speaker 1: really practical level. This podcast is about public speaking, and
Speaker 1: so not only are you somebody who studies all of this,
Speaker 1: but also you are somebody who is, you know, in
Speaker 1: a sort of leadership position where you get in front
Speaker 1: of lots of people in speech. And I wonder how
Speaker 1: you think about your own sort of style of teaching,
Speaker 1: maybe even dare I say, before the pandemic, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: although teaching on zoom or talk, giving a talk on zoom.
Speaker 1: I think actually raises so many other issues about how
Speaker 1: we present ourselves and feel comfortable on video. And you
Speaker 1: know all the time that's because that it's completely but
Speaker 1: I think it's really you know, I think there's all
Speaker 1: these fascinating questions about who feels comfortable in this new
Speaker 1: medium and who doesn't. So I don't, you know, in
Speaker 1: some ways, probably like a lot of people, I find
Speaker 1: hearing myself talk to be so embarrassing and terrible and um, well,
Speaker 1: by the way, as an expert, what is that? Because
Speaker 1: it's true and it's so culturally acceptable that if somebody
Speaker 1: said they liked the way they spoke, we would be shocked. Probably.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, I could imagine it, but
Speaker 1: and it's not so, you know, I've been talking to
Speaker 1: a lot of people about the book, and you know,
Speaker 1: my mom asked me what I thought about some interview
Speaker 1: and I was like, what do you mean. She's like, well,
Speaker 1: did you think you know he sounded like this and
Speaker 1: you said this? And I was like, Mom, I definitely
Speaker 1: didn't watch that. Are you crazy? I have no idea,
Speaker 1: and please don't tell me. It feels embarrassing right now
Speaker 1: to even just like think about that. So probably, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, I haven't listened to
Speaker 1: myself on any interviews about the book. Um. I know
Speaker 1: though it's really good practice. So you know, I've heard
Speaker 1: from people that even you know, really famous orders you know,
Speaker 1: often listen to tapes of themselves and you think about
Speaker 1: how they could do better. So it's not to say
Speaker 1: that at a cognitive level, I a hundred percent think
Speaker 1: that I could do better and with learn a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount by listening to uh to my speech, But yet
Speaker 1: I haven't taken up that learning opportunity. I will say
Speaker 1: recently I listened, I just read a transcript of myself
Speaker 1: on a podcast, and even that was horrifying because well,
Speaker 1: if you look, if you actually look at a written transcript,
Speaker 1: we speak in all sorts of weird ways, completely completely.
Speaker 1: No transcripts are literally the worst, and we all say,
Speaker 1: you know, and um, way too many you know. But
Speaker 1: when I had Amanda montell On, who has written at
Speaker 1: this great book called word Slut, a feminist guy to
Speaker 1: taking back English language about linguistics, uh, she pointed out that, um,
Speaker 1: if we take our arms in our you know, is out,
Speaker 1: we actually come across as much less human. Interesting. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I was very human on the transcript that I read.
Speaker 1: So I like your brand. I like what you did there.
Speaker 1: Um tell us a little bit though about because partly
Speaker 1: what you're saying that this with this idea of like
Speaker 1: listening back to oneself and and and improving whatever that means, right, uh,
Speaker 1: is is I would love to touch on what we
Speaker 1: are actually all changing all the time. You know. On
Speaker 1: the one hand, learning a new accent really hard, uh,
Speaker 1: without a without a training professional like a plug. I
Speaker 1: did not mean to do. But you know that there's
Speaker 1: a reason why it's hard to learn languages when you're older,
Speaker 1: and also that um that when English isn't your first language,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to pass as native. But then on
Speaker 1: the other hand, there are these small changes we make
Speaker 1: all the time when we are around people we like.
Speaker 1: Will you tell us about this? Yeah? So you know,
Speaker 1: I think you said it really well that there's this
Speaker 1: bigger picture it's so hard to change, and yet in
Speaker 1: subtle ways, work cobstantly changing. And so if you're interacting
Speaker 1: with somebody and you like each other, your voices start
Speaker 1: to come together a little bit, and so you might
Speaker 1: not notice it as a a listener. It might take
Speaker 1: a linguist to go in and you know, measure exactly
Speaker 1: how long your vowels are and how things are spaced. Um.
Speaker 1: But you can see these subtle differences and they actually
Speaker 1: happen moment to moment, and so you're getting this you know,
Speaker 1: kind of vocal accommodation and togetherness with the person you're
Speaker 1: talking to. So that's just the one on one interaction. UM.
Speaker 1: Now you can imagine you move to a new place,
Speaker 1: or you join a new social community, or you take
Speaker 1: on some new social identity and that comes with a
Speaker 1: new social group and a new social world, and then
Speaker 1: your voice is going to change to match that social
Speaker 1: world that you're in. Because fundamentally, the reason we all
Speaker 1: sound different from each other is about wanting to fit
Speaker 1: in or is about belonging and that thing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: about connecting and it can be really positive. It's about
Speaker 1: this feeling of identity and culture with your group, and
Speaker 1: language is so tied up in that. So this idea
Speaker 1: of well, why don't we just all speak exactly the
Speaker 1: same way, and then there'd be just no more, you know,
Speaker 1: no problems in the world. But it's just not how
Speaker 1: humans what a racial right, and so it's like it's
Speaker 1: you know, it just doesn't it's just not how humans work.
Speaker 1: We're never going to all speak exactly the same way.
Speaker 1: And so the solution if we want to head towards
Speaker 1: a more perfect union, Um, I think of I think
Speaker 1: his name is Mike from chapter one, this idea of
Speaker 1: linguistic diversity. Yeah, right, this idea, like, yeah, will you
Speaker 1: tell me about him? Yeah? So you know, this is
Speaker 1: the idea of somebody who you know, has all this
Speaker 1: diversity in his life and you know, his friends are
Speaker 1: from different racial groups, and he feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: he's just really progressive and that's great. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that he's not progressive or not trying to
Speaker 1: live you know, his ideal life. Um. But he notices
Speaker 1: then that all of his friends sound the same and
Speaker 1: you actually wouldn't be able to guess who was who,
Speaker 1: like match the friend to the photo, because they all
Speaker 1: have really similar educational backgrounds. Um. You know, just so
Speaker 1: many similarities among them, including the way that they spoke.
Speaker 1: And so you know, in terms of these kind of
Speaker 1: real world solutions, well, one thing is to reflect on
Speaker 1: linguistic diversity and think of it as an advantage to
Speaker 1: be exposed to different ways of speaking as another. And
Speaker 1: I think there's lots of advantages to different forms of diversity,
Speaker 1: so it's not to say it's the only one. But also,
Speaker 1: if you have kids, think about exposing kids to situations
Speaker 1: where people speak different languages, and I think that is
Speaker 1: a really good thing for children. Do you feel like
Speaker 1: there's sort of one social cognition study that everyone should
Speaker 1: know about, like that you wish were part of education,
Speaker 1: or not even one necessarily, but do you feel like
Speaker 1: it would be so helpful if this stuff was introduced
Speaker 1: early there my I have a researcher who works with
Speaker 1: me who graduated with a social linguistics degree, and they said, um,
Speaker 1: quote unquote, linguistics has really bad pr People don't know
Speaker 1: you know that, like everybody thinks they're an expert in
Speaker 1: language because like they talk. Yeah. Yeah. So this is
Speaker 1: parents where parents, you know, particularly say white parents who
Speaker 1: come into the lab and their kids express some sort
Speaker 1: of a racial attitude or bias, like liking the other
Speaker 1: white kids. Now they're very uncomfortable, which I think is
Speaker 1: a good thing in a sign of progress and wanting
Speaker 1: to understand you know, how these structurally racist societies are
Speaker 1: seeping into these five year old minds, right, Where is
Speaker 1: that coming from? And what we can do to address that.
Speaker 1: That's really important and it's good that parents are uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and want to change it. However, it's a serious contrast
Speaker 1: when a kid comes into my lab and you know,
Speaker 1: I had this study where they were white kids and
Speaker 1: they were um evaluating people who looked white or looked
Speaker 1: black and spoke in a native or a foreign accent
Speaker 1: of English. And when they expressed a preference for the
Speaker 1: white people, parents were just deeply uncomfortable, which again, you know,
Speaker 1: is something that that as a society we need to
Speaker 1: be deeply uncomfortable with. But when say they liked people
Speaker 1: who were black and spoke in a native accent over
Speaker 1: people who were white and spoken a foreign accent, parents
Speaker 1: are just so relieved and say, oh, look, you know,
Speaker 1: few my kids not racist. My kids, you know, just
Speaker 1: loves people who speak in English like I do. And
Speaker 1: so it's really reassuring to parents, and it doesn't usually
Speaker 1: occur to people that kids might be expressing two biases,
Speaker 1: one that's about race and one that's about speech. And
Speaker 1: that what people's accents are is the more our salient one,
Speaker 1: but that that's also a problem. Yeah, right, But you
Speaker 1: know it's also this like deeply primal thing apparently that
Speaker 1: we feel like we connect with people who sound like us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a way that that kid. You know,
Speaker 1: first of all, I'll say that five year old is
Speaker 1: not prejudiced in the way an adult is. And I
Speaker 1: really believe that. Um, you know, they're still learning what
Speaker 1: society has to teach them, and unfortunately a lot of
Speaker 1: that is negative based on race and speech. But they're
Speaker 1: still learning. But the idea that when a parent sees
Speaker 1: a kid expressing a preference for one kind of speech
Speaker 1: over another, and it's just kind of like few my
Speaker 1: kids just learning languages, there's absolutely no problem with it.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of them teaching that's going to facilitate
Speaker 1: linguistic prejudices growing with time, right, right, Because that is
Speaker 1: not I mean, it seems like what you're saying is
Speaker 1: that that is a stereotype that is completely culturally permissible. Still,
Speaker 1: exactly why do you study kids to teach us about adults? So, um,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's why in many ways, to teach
Speaker 1: us about adults. So I mean, kids are important for
Speaker 1: their own sake. Um, and we can agree that. But
Speaker 1: a lot of why I study kids is because if
Speaker 1: we want to understand our social thinking, and we want
Speaker 1: to understand our our cognition about the world, children can
Speaker 1: give us so much insight into how we think about things,
Speaker 1: sort of where our cognitive system starts out, and then
Speaker 1: how experience layers on top of that. And so I
Speaker 1: like to think about it as we study kids to
Speaker 1: think about the building blocks of later thinking. And you
Speaker 1: know what we could do to change ourselves. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: change ourselves. Okay, we're gonna take another quick break and
Speaker 1: then we're going to come back and find out who
Speaker 1: you brought in for us. Okay, so who have you
Speaker 1: brought in? I brought in Rachel Maddow and tell me
Speaker 1: about why. So I've loved her show for a really
Speaker 1: long time. And I feel like when I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: who's credible, I find her credible. And I think she's
Speaker 1: really angry in a way that feels righteous and correct
Speaker 1: to me. And I think it's really hard to pull
Speaker 1: off angry, and I think she does so really successfully.
Speaker 1: And so you know, i'd love to learn how can
Speaker 1: you be you know, how can you be angry in
Speaker 1: a real and meaningful way and not turn people off?
Speaker 1: Because I think, yeah, so i'd love to know how
Speaker 1: she does. Yeah, well, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna listen
Speaker 1: to a short clip of hers. I feel like an
Speaker 1: answer to that question, although it's not necessarily like, um, so,
Speaker 1: here's what to do with your mouth kind of a thing.
Speaker 1: But in terms of sort of mindset, I find that
Speaker 1: women tend to be heard when angry more dot dot
Speaker 1: dot when um it's very clear in both the content
Speaker 1: and in the style that it's on behalf of others,
Speaker 1: which just feels like there's all kinds of psychological data
Speaker 1: to back that up to. Yeah, no, that makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me. But whenever we're mad, if
Speaker 1: we can take a moment and figure out how we
Speaker 1: can speak on behalf of if how it's actually about
Speaker 1: something larger than ourselves in a way, it's the righteousness
Speaker 1: thing that you talk about that that ignites a sense
Speaker 1: of righteousness, because you know, there's certainly I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of Rebecca Tracer's book Good and Mad, there's certainly
Speaker 1: a history of like when any of us is sort
Speaker 1: of mad in our own lives. If we just dig
Speaker 1: a little deeper, it's probably because of some injustice that thus,
Speaker 1: you know, we can say, maybe this is something that
Speaker 1: isn't just happening to me. So here you go having
Speaker 1: a patchwork policy here, having some states where it's stay
Speaker 1: at home in some places where it not. It's like
Speaker 1: having a pool where there's one section in the pool
Speaker 1: where it's okay to pee. It's like having an airplane
Speaker 1: where there's one section that where it's okay to smoke,
Speaker 1: but everything else you're gonna call non smoking, despite what
Speaker 1: all those people are gonna smell like when they get
Speaker 1: off that plane. I mean, Dr Fauci at least is saying,
Speaker 1: let's have a national stay at home order? Why don't
Speaker 1: we have one yet? The Surgeon General is going on
Speaker 1: the Today Show and saying, I think we should have
Speaker 1: a national stay at home order? Can I just tell
Speaker 1: people that we do even if we don't. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: so satisfied. Good right. I Mean I was once told
Speaker 1: I coached a man who is running for the US Senate. Uh,
Speaker 1: sort of did a one day consultancy coaching with him,
Speaker 1: and he said, at the end, I know who you
Speaker 1: remind me of Rachel at out and I was like,
Speaker 1: at once deeply flattered and also like, wow, I am
Speaker 1: actually kind of nothing like Rachel Maddow. And I feel
Speaker 1: like he just has no other strong women, like he
Speaker 1: has one archetype. But it is useful to think of Rachel.
Speaker 1: I think it is a bit of an archetype for
Speaker 1: a lot of us, because it's you're absolutely right, and
Speaker 1: in fact I chose that bit because you're you're right.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's furious, but she also has the sort
Speaker 1: of presence of mind and of spirit to be able
Speaker 1: to joke within that. But the joking is very pointed.
Speaker 1: It's not like to diffuse the tension. It's so spot on.
Speaker 1: And then I also listened and I have the feeling
Speaker 1: how much somebody who is not like me in many
Speaker 1: ways would be really would not like her right, and
Speaker 1: you you know, and that feels so unfair, and it's
Speaker 1: like I I feel this, I feel a political divide
Speaker 1: to you know, but that everything she says feels like
Speaker 1: it's so spot on and well reasoned, and you know,
Speaker 1: just that was a great example that she gets it
Speaker 1: and she explains it, and there's craziness in this world,
Speaker 1: and she cuts through that, do you feel like in
Speaker 1: your career that you have ever had issues with being
Speaker 1: taken seriously? So, I think I've been fortunate in so
Speaker 1: many ways in my career, UM and I've had the
Speaker 1: benefit of having really strong female mentors, and that's been
Speaker 1: really meaningful to me. I kind of sensed that from
Speaker 1: your acknowledgements in your book. I was wondering if that
Speaker 1: it seemed like. And also that the people that you
Speaker 1: have coming up behind you, who you've you've hired as um,
Speaker 1: you know, post docs or research assistance for women. So
Speaker 1: I feel like I've had kind of a It's not
Speaker 1: you know, not to say that every step of the
Speaker 1: way has been perfect, for sure, but I feel like
Speaker 1: when there has been a misstep or when there has
Speaker 1: been a time where I felt not, you know, not valued,
Speaker 1: or something was unfair, that I've had these really strong
Speaker 1: female mentors that I've been able to go to and
Speaker 1: that I feel like, are you know, mentoring me and
Speaker 1: championing me? And yeah, I do want to try to
Speaker 1: do that for the next generation of scholars coming up.
Speaker 1: For sure. It also feels like there's an element tell
Speaker 1: me if this is true that that whether it's socio
Speaker 1: linguistics or this sort of more complicated interdisciplinary that, Um,
Speaker 1: there's sort of a inherent reason why there might be
Speaker 1: more women in that in that field, or that we
Speaker 1: might be drawn to it because there is this long
Speaker 1: history of having to sort of understand and these these
Speaker 1: nuances of social interactions in order to get ahead. I
Speaker 1: think that's possible, and I think that language is so
Speaker 1: personal to people and so um, you know, I do.
Speaker 1: I do feel like it's it's a field where, um,
Speaker 1: people can really connect with it and it can connect
Speaker 1: with their own lives. Yeah, I love that. Thanks for
Speaker 1: doing that work for us, Catherine. Thank you for speaking
Speaker 1: with me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: It was such a pleasure to meet you and you know,
Speaker 1: talk about all these questions with you. And I should say,
Speaker 1: if anyone wants to enroll their kids in your studies,
Speaker 1: what's the best way to find out more? If anybody
Speaker 1: listening wants to participate in research at home with their kids,
Speaker 1: you know, you can absolutely sign up. So my lab
Speaker 1: is d SC Lab dot U Chicago, dot E DU
Speaker 1: though a lot of different developmental psychology labs just like mine,
Speaker 1: are online now and so there might be other opportunities too.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you want to read about my
Speaker 1: book How You Say It and my research with my
Speaker 1: graduate students, you can find it there. Thank you to
Speaker 1: Katherine Kindler for coming in and we will have all
Speaker 1: of the info that she just shared about her lab
Speaker 1: and her research and her book in our show notes
Speaker 1: of course, and on our website Permission to Speak Pod
Speaker 1: dot calm and join me tomorrow on Instagram at Permission
Speaker 1: to Speak Pod at ten am for an ig live
Speaker 1: with very special guest, Hadar Shamash. She is a accent
Speaker 1: and English language coach for people all around the world.
Speaker 1: She has a massive and robust and loving and really
Speaker 1: exciting platform, the Accents Way, and we found each other
Speaker 1: across the world. She's based in Israel, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a real meeting of the minds and meeting of
Speaker 1: the hearts because both of us help people with like
Speaker 1: you know, the logistics of the sounds that come out
Speaker 1: of our mouths, but also and equally, if not more importantly,
Speaker 1: with a sense of power and freedom and joy around
Speaker 1: you know, the sounds that come out and with you know,
Speaker 1: finding peace with sounding different than the quote unquote standard.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be great. We're going to have a lovely
Speaker 1: media conversation about accent bias in honor of Katherine ken
Speaker 1: Fler's episode. Thank you to Sophie Lichterman and the team
Speaker 1: at I Heart Radio and all of you. We're recording
Speaker 1: this podcast at various locations around Los Angeles on land
Speaker 1: that is the historic gathering place for the Tongva indigenous tribe,
Speaker 1: and you can visit us d a C dot us
Speaker 1: to learn more about honoring Native land. Permission to Speak
Speaker 1: is a production of I Radio and Double Vision, executive
Speaker 1: produced by Katherine Burke Canton and Mark Canton. For more
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