News

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

• Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday Nov 12 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4pm
  Identity and Fieldwork: Perspectives from Working within our Communities
  Panel discussion with Claudia Iron Hawk, Wendy Liz Arbey López Márquez, Nafisa Iyatunde Rashid, and Hei Vangz (UC Berkeley)
• Phorum - Friday Nov 14 - Dwinelle 1229 and Zoom - 4:10-5pm
  Sarah Ertel (UC Berkeley alum): "The Front Vowels of Eastern Washington English"
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Nov 7 - Dwinelle 5125 - 3-4pm
  Teresa Pratt (SFSU): Workshop on sociolinguistic fieldwork and ethnography
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Nov 14 - Dwinelle 5125 - 3-4pm
  Group study session
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Nov 7 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3:10-4:30pm
  Daniel Aremu (Goethe University Frankfurt): "Towards an Operator-Particle Approach to exclusive association with focus in Yorùbá" (remote talk)

UC Berkeley News has just run a feature story on the California Language Archive's acquisition of Pomoan language materials from the late linguist Sally McLendon (PhD 1966), highlighting the work of department members Zachary O'Hagan and Tyler Lee-Wynant. The collection is supporting language revitalization efforts with the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake Tribe.

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"

Research by Gašper Beguš and Maksymilian Dąbkowski on the metalinguistic abilities of language models has been featured in Quanta Magazine! Check it out here.

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 (password: lx-colloq) 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.

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

• Remembering Robin Lakoff: A Memorial at UC Berkeley - Sunday Nov 2 - Alumni House - 1-4pm
• Ladino/Judeo-Spanish Working Group - Tuesday Nov 4 - Dwinelle 1229 and Zoom - 3:40-4:30pm
  Presentation by Daniel Kaufman (Queens College, CUNY & Endangered Language Alliance) on Ladino documentation in New York City
• Language Revitalization Working Group - Wednesday Nov 5 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4pm
  Jonathan Cirelli: "Eastern Pomo Language Program at Habematolel"
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Oct 31 - Dwinelle 5125 - 3-4pm
  Verónica Grajeda (UC Berkeley): "U.S. Spanish Nasal Neutralization: A Case Study on the production of /njV/ and /ɲV/"
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Nov 7 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3:10-4:30pm
  Talk by Daniel Aremu (Goethe University Frankfurt)

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.

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

• Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday Oct 29 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4pm
  Lewis Lawyer (UC Davis): "Two paths, walking together: Patwin fieldwork in the 21st century"
• Phorum - Friday Oct 24 - Dwinelle 1229 and Zoom - 4:10-5pm
  Nick Aoki (UC Davis): "When multiple-talker exposure is necessary for generalization: Insights into the emergence of sociolinguistic perception"
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Oct 24 - Dwinelle 5125 - 3-4pm
  Verónica Grajeda (UC Berkeley): "U.S. Spanish Nasal Neutralization: A Case Study on the production of /njV/ and /ɲV/"
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Oct 31 - Dwinelle 5125 - 3-4pm
  Special mystery meeting
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Oct 24 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3:10-4:30pm
  Melissa Cronin (Stanford): "What does it mean for 'used to' to be a past habitual?"

Eve Sweetser will be giving two talks in Germany in next two weeks:

• "Religious metaphors, embodiment and multimodality," keynote address for the International Conference on “Metaphors of Religion,” Ruhr Universität Bochum, Oct. 27, 2025
• "Embedded Narrative Viewpoint in Multimodal Story-telling," Linguistics Colloquium, University of Köln, Nov. 3, 2025