0:00:00.289,0:00:03.486
People say that a long, long time ago,

0:00:03.486,0:00:05.811
everybody on Earth spoke the same language

0:00:05.811,0:00:07.947
and belonged to the same tribe.

0:00:07.947,0:00:10.550
And I guess people had[br]a little too much time on their hands,

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because they decided they[br]were going to work together

0:00:13.085,0:00:15.010
to become as great as God.

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So they started to build[br]a tower up into the heavens.

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God saw this and was angry,

0:00:21.649,0:00:23.536
and to punish the people[br]for their arrogance,

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God destroyed the tower

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and scattered the people[br]to the ends of the earth

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and made them all[br]speak different languages.

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This is the story of the Tower of Babel,

0:00:33.869,0:00:36.923
and it's probably not[br]a literal historical truth,

0:00:36.923,0:00:40.683
but it does tell us something[br]about the way that we understand

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languages and speakers.

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So for one thing, we often think[br]about speaking different languages

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as meaning that we don't get along[br]or maybe we're in conflict,

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and speaking the same language as meaning[br]that we belong to the same group

0:00:54.285,0:00:57.062
and that we can work together.

0:00:57.062,0:00:59.414
Modern linguists know[br]that the relationship

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between language and social categories[br]is intricate and complex,

0:01:03.851,0:01:07.733
and we bring a lot of baggage[br]to the way that we understand language,

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to the point that even[br]a seemingly simple question,

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like, "What makes a person[br]a speaker of a language?"

0:01:13.545,0:01:16.383
can turn out to be really,[br]really complicated.

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I'm a Spanish professor at Ohio State.

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I teach mostly upper level courses[br]where the students have taken

0:01:22.794,0:01:27.047
four to five years[br]of university-level Spanish courses.

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So students who are in my class[br]speak Spanish with me all semester long.

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They listen to me speak in Spanish.[br]They turn in written work in Spanish.

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And yet, when I asked my students[br]at the beginning of the semester,

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"Who considers themselves[br]a Spanish speaker?"

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not very many of them raised their hands.

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So you can be a really,[br]really good speaker of a language

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and still not consider yourself[br]a language speaker.

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Maybe it's not just about[br]how well you speak a language.

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Maybe it's also about what age[br]you start learning that language?

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But when we look at kids[br]who speak Spanish at home

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but mostly English at work or in school,

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they often feel like they don't[br]speak either language really well.

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They sometimes feel like they exist[br]in a state of languagelessness,

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because they don't feel fully comfortable[br]in Spanish at school,

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and they don't feel fully comfortable[br]in English at home.

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We have this really strong idea[br]that in order to be a good bilingual,

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we have to be two[br]monolinguals in one body.

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But linguists know that's not really[br]how bilingualism works.

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It's actually much more common

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for people to specialize,

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to use one language in one place[br]and another language in another place.

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Now, it's not always only about[br]how we see ourselves.

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It can also be about[br]how other people see us.

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I do my research in Bolivia,

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which is a country in South America,

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and in Bolivia, as in the United States,

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there are different social groups[br]and different ethnic categories.

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One of those ethnic categories[br]is a group known as Quechua,

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who are Indigenous people.

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And people who are Quechua[br]speak Spanish a little bit differently

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than your run-of-the-mill Spanish speaker.

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In particular, there are some sounds[br]that sound a little bit more alike

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when many Quechua speakers use them.

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So a colleague and I designed a study

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where we took a series[br]of very similar-sounding word pairs,

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and they were similar-sounding[br]in exactly the same sorts of ways

0:03:31.624,0:03:35.762
that Quechua-speakers often sound similar[br]when they speak Spanish.

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We played those similar-sounding[br]word pairs to a group of listeners,

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and we told half of the listeners[br]that they were going to listen

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to just your normal[br]run-of-the-mill Spanish speaker,

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and the other half of the listeners that[br]they were going to hear a Quechua speaker.

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Everybody heard the same recording,

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but what we found was that people[br]who thought they were listening

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to a run-of-the-mill Spanish speaker

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made clear differences[br]between the word pairs,

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and people who thought they were[br]listening to a Quechua speaker

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really didn't seem to make[br]clear differences.

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So if a visual would help,

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here are the results of our study.

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What you see here in the top line

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is a little bit of an arch.

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That's what you would expect[br]from people who are making

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clear differences between the word pairs,

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and that's what you see for people[br]who though they were listening

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to a Spanish speaker.

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What you see on the bottom[br]is a little bit more of a flat line,

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and that's what we expect to see

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when people are not[br]making clear differences,

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and that came from the group that thought[br]they were listening to a Quechua speaker.

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Now, since nothing[br]about the recording changed,

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that means that it was the social[br]categories that we gave the listeners

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that changed the way[br]that they perceived language.

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This isn't just some funny thing[br]that only happens in Bolivia.

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Research has been carried out[br]in the United States,

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in Canada, in New Zealand,

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showing exactly the same thing.

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We incorporate social categories[br]into our understanding of language.

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There have even been studies[br]carried out with American college students

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who listen to a university lecture.

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Half of the students were shown[br]a picture of a Caucasian face

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as the instructor.

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Half of the students were shown[br]a picture of an Asian face

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as the instructor.

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And students who saw the Asian face

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reported that the lecture was less clear[br]and harder to understand,

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even though everybody listened[br]to the same recording.

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So social categories really influence[br]the way that we understand language.

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And this is an issue that became[br]especially personal to me

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when my children started school.

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My children are Latino,

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and we speak Spanish at home,[br]but they speak mostly English

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with their friends out in the world,

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with their grandparents.

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When they started school,[br]I was told that the district requires

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that any household that has a member[br]who speaks a language other than English,

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the children have to be tested[br]to see if they need

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English-as-a-second-language services.

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And I was like, "Yes, my kids[br]are going to ace this test."

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But that's not what happened.

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So you can see behind me the results[br]from my daughter's ESL placement exam.

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She got a perfect five out of five[br]for comprehension,

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for reading and listening.

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But she only got three out of five[br]for speaking and writing.

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And I was like, "This is really weird,[br]because this kid talks my ear off

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all the time."

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But I figured it's just one test[br]on one day and it's not a big deal.

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Until, several years later,[br]my son started school,

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and my son also scored[br]as a non-native speaker of English

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on the exam.

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And I was like, this is really weird,

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and it doesn't seem like a coincidence.

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So I sent a note in to the teacher,

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and she was very kind.

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She sent me a long message explaining[br]why he had been placed in this way.

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Some of the things that she said[br]really caught my attention.

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For one thing, she said that[br]even a native speaker of English

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might not score at advanced level

0:07:07.974,0:07:09.409
on this test,

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depending on what kinds of resource[br]and enrichment they were getting at home.

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Now, this tells me that the test

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wasn't doing a great job[br]of measuring English proficiency,

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but it may have been measuring

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something like how much resources[br]kids are exposed to at home.

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In which case, those kids need[br]different types of support at school.

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They really don't need[br]English language assistance.

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Another thing that she mentioned[br]caught my attention as a linguist.

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She said that she had asked[br]my son to repeat the sentence,

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"Who has Jane's pencil?"

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And he repeated, "Who has Jane pencil?"

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She said this is a typical error made[br]by a non-native English speaking student

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whose native language does not contain[br]a similar structure for possessives.

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The reason this caught my attention[br]is because I know that there is

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a systematic, rule-governed[br]variety of English

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in which this possessive construction[br]is completely grammatical.

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That variety is known to linguists[br]as "African-American English,"

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and African-American English[br]is actually group of dialects

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that's spoken across the United States,

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mostly in African-American communities.

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But it just so happens[br]that my son's school

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is about 60 percent African-American.

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And we know that at this age,

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children are picking things up[br]from their friends,

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they're experimenting with language,

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they're using it in different contexts.

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I think when the teacher saw my son,

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she didn't see a child

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who she expected to speak[br]African-American English.

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And so instead of evaluating him[br]as a child who was natively acquiring

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multiple dialects of English,

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she evaluated him as a child

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whose standard English was deficient.

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Language and social categories[br]are intricately connected,

0:09:08.780,0:09:12.791
and we bring so much baggage[br]to the way that we understand language.

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When you ask me a question like,

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"Who counts as a speaker of a language?"

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I don't really have[br]a simple answer to that question,

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but what I can tell you

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is that people are pattern-seekers,

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and we're always looking for ways[br]to connect the dots

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between different types of information.

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This can be a problem

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when our underlying biases[br]are projected onto language.

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When I look at children like my own

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and I see them in the gentlest[br]and most well-meaning of ways

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being racially profiled[br]as non-native speakers of English,

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it makes me wonder,

0:09:54.369,0:09:55.979
what's going to happen

0:09:55.979,0:09:57.990
as they move from elementary school

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onto high school and college[br]and onto their first jobs?

0:10:02.069,0:10:04.304
When they walk into an interview,

0:10:04.304,0:10:07.729
will the person sitting[br]across the table from them

0:10:07.729,0:10:10.665
look at their color or their last name

0:10:10.665,0:10:13.534
and hear them as speaking[br]with a Spanish accent,

0:10:13.534,0:10:17.036
or as speaking bad English?

0:10:17.036,0:10:21.064
These are the kinds of judgments[br]that can have long-reaching effects

0:10:21.064,0:10:22.632
on people's lives.

0:10:23.349,0:10:26.519
So I hope that that person, just like you,

0:10:26.519,0:10:29.845
will have reflected[br]on the naturalized links

0:10:29.845,0:10:32.464
between language and social categories,

0:10:32.464,0:10:36.084
and will have questioned their assumptions[br]about what it really means

0:10:36.317,0:10:38.543
to be a speaker of a language.

0:10:38.543,0:10:39.894
Thank you.

0:10:39.894,0:10:41.664
(Applause)