0:00:00.380,0:00:03.230
People say that a long, long time ago,

0:00:03.254,0:00:05.537
everybody on earth spoke the same language

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and belonged to the same tribe.

0:00:07.980,0:00:10.950
And I guess people had[br]a little too much time on their hands,

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

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to become as great as God.

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

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God saw this and was angry,

0:00:21.219,0:00:23.356
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,

0:00:33.698,0:00:36.899
and it's probably not[br]a literal historical truth,

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but it does tell us something

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about the way that we understand[br]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

0:00:53.921,0:00:55.579
and that we can work together.

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Modern linguists know

0:00:58.223,0:01:01.321
that the relationship between[br]language and social categories

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is intricate and complex,

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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?"

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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,

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where the students have taken[br]four to five years

0:01:23.963,0:01:26.463
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 raise 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[br]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

0:03:30.932,0:03:35.715
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[br]is a little bit of an arch.

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That's what you would expect

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from people who are making[br]clear differences between the word pairs,

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and that's what you see for people

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who though they were[br]listening 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]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,

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but they speak mostly English[br]with their friends out in the world,

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with their grandparents.

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When they started school,

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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

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to see if they need[br]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,

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because this kid[br]talks my ear off all the time."

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(Laughter)

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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

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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[br]wasn't doing a great job

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of measuring English proficiency,

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but it may have been measuring[br]something like how much resources

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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 my son[br]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

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is because I know

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that there is a systematic,[br]rule-governed 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 who she expected[br]to speak 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[br]whose standard English was deficient.

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Language and social categories[br]are intricately connected,

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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:

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What's going to happen

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as they move from elementary school

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

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When they walk into an interview,

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will the person sitting[br]across the table from them

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look at their color or their last name

0:10:10.340,0:10:13.186
and hear them as speaking[br]with a Spanish accent

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or as speaking bad English?

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These are the kinds of judgments[br]that can have long-reaching effects

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on people's lives.

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So I hope that that person, just like you,

0:10:26.360,0:10:29.181
will have reflected[br]on the naturalized links

0:10:29.205,0:10:31.868
between language and social categories

0:10:31.892,0:10:35.310
and will have questioned their assumptions[br]about what it really means

0:10:35.334,0:10:37.536
to be a speaker of a language.

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Thank you.

0:10:39.473,0:10:41.243
(Applause)