What Does It Mean to Sound Black?

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i study intonation. i am a very interested in this idea of what it means to sound black, sort of from the perspective of something that you can perform as part of your identity. But also when people make that judgment, like water the hearing. This is daily life for meas i am a kind of social psychologist who studies race and language. And so a lot of the work that i do looks at what people are attuned to when they're making those kind of social judgments about race.

Alie is delirious with the flu, so it’s an encore presentation of a favorite episode. If you slept on this when it first aired, get into Phonology now. Vocal fry. Code switching. Black Twitter. Valley girls. Culture vultures. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT TALKING. Alie battles traffic to sit down with linguistics professor Dr. Nicole Holliday about intonational phonology: how tones and pitch help us bond with others and construct identities. Inspired in part by former President Barack Obama's masterful linguistic variability, Dr. Holliday's work focuses on how language is used in the crossing and construction of racial/ethnic boundaries. She graciously fielded tons of questions for a fascinating dive into the nuances and strict grammatical rules of African American Language, cultural appropriation, our educational system, honoring your identity, what not to wear in Paris and the roiling debate over who is the best rapper. Also: Alie is maybe a lizard person.

Follow Dr. Nicole Holliday @MixedLinguist on Twitter and Instagram

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Music by Nick Thorburn