Linguistics Department News (Calques)

The following Berkeley linguists will be presenting their research at the 53rd annual conference New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV), taking place November 5-7, 2025, at the University of Michigan. The full program is available here.

• Nicole Holliday: "Accent Translation" AI Fails to Generate "Standard English" Intonational Patterns

• Julian Vargo: "Acoustical Diphthongal Trajectory Variation in Hispanic Californian English"

• Julian Vargo and Akul Shivkumar: "Multidimensional Vowel Dispersion as a Cue to Stylistic Variation"

• Becky Everson and Kamogelo "Blade" Mokgosi: "Linguistic Elicitation and Style in a Language Documentation Context: Variable Click Production in Tjhauba"

• Sarah Ertel: "Prevelar Movement in Eastern Washington English"

The 2025-2026 Linguistics Colloquium series continues on Monday, November 17, with a talk by Aris Clemons (UT Knoxville). The talk will take place in Dwinelle 370 and synchronously via Zoom from 3:10-4:30pm. The title is "US Black Vernacular Spanish(es): Toward a Theory of Linguistic Solidarity through Blaxican Soundscapes in Southern California" and the abstract is as follows:

Drawing on the work of social, political, and linguistic theorists, this talk seeks to disrupt traditional approaches to mapping contact varieties of Spanish used by Black speakers in the United States. To do so, I first provide an overview of foundational concepts to underscore the ways that language and race are inextricably bound, such that language begets understandings of race and race becomes a lens by which we are able to analyze language. Anchored by a discussion of Blackness as a hemispheric concept, the talk considers how the Black Mexican soundscape of (Southern) California represents an unruly entrance into the possibility for a distinct methodological approach to mapping a Blaxican variety of Spanish. Positing an interdisciplinary incursion into sociolinguistic analysis, I contest colonial framed ontologies and argue for a human centered approach to Social and Anthropological Linguistics. Specifically, the talk provides a cultural and linguistic case-study analysis of four songs: (1) El Rey by D-Smoke; (2) Go Loko by YG featuring Tyga and Jonz; (3) Que Maldición by Banda Mas, Karol G, and Snoop Dog; and (4) Wacced out Murals by Kendrick Lamar. Using a combination of linguistic and anthropological methods, including critical conversation analysis and a descriptive sociophonetic analysis, I argue that community alignment shapes both the production and reception of Blaxican Spanish as a locally situated ethnolect. Moreover, I propose linguistic production as a space for ethnoracial solidarity while contesting identity regimes that ultimately sets the stage for future empirical research on Black Spanish varieties.

Julia Peck has just published an article titled "Ladino en Kaza: The Promise of At-Home Language Nesting as a Revitalization Method for Ladino" in Letras Hispanas, part of a special volume on "Judeo-Spanish and Sephardic Studies," edited by Bryan Kirschen.

A new review of Andrew Garrett's book The Unnaming of Kroeber Hall: Language, Memory, and Indigenous California has appeared, by William M. Chace, in Common Knowledge 31 (2025), pp. 230-232.