For the first three years of Justin Davidson's childhood in Chicago, his mom spoke only Spanish to him. Although he never spoke the language as a young child, when Davidson began to learn Spanish in middle school, it came very quickly to him, and over the years, he became bilingual.

Now an associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Davidson is part of a research team that has discovered where in the brain bilinguals process and store language-specific sounds and sound sequences. The research project is ongoing.

This is the final episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to the first two episodes: "A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish" and "A language divided."

Photo courtesy of Justin Davidson.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are countless English varieties in the U.S. There's Boston English and California English and Texas English. There's Black English and Chicano English. There's standard academic, or white, English. They're all the same language, but linguistically, they're different.

"Standard academic English is most represented by affluent white males from the Midwest, specifically Ohio in the mid-20th century," says UC Berkeley sociolinguist Justin Davidson. "If you grow up in this country and your English is further away from that variety, then you may encounter instances where the way you speak is judged as less OK, less intelligent, less academically sound."

And this language bias and divide can have devastating consequences, as it did in the trial of George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012.

This is the second episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to the first and third episode: "A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish" and "One brain, two languages."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

AP photo by Jacob Langston.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spanish speakers in the United States, among linguists and non-linguists, have been denigrated for the way they speak, says UC Berkeley sociolinguist Justin Davidson. It’s part of the country's long history of scrutiny of non-monolingual English speakers, he says, dating back to the early 20th century.

"It’s groups in power — its discourses and collective communities — that sort of socially determine what kinds of words and what kinds of language are acceptable and unacceptable," says Davidson, an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

But the U.S. is a Spanish-speaking country, he says, and it’s time for us as a nation to embrace U.S. Spanish as a legitimate language variety.

This is the first episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to other two episodes: "A language divided" and "One brain, two languages."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu).

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.