While legal academia is no stranger to questions of linguistics, it has been estranged (until now) from the practice of adopting linguistic theory and methods. In Part 2 of our conversation, Alex Walker and I discuss the implications of applying optimality theory (OT) to law. By utilizing the formalism of OT, Alex argues our entire legal system and conceptualization of law will change for the better. Rather than conceptualizing law as a set of rules, Alex argues we should view law as a tapestry of ordered preferences. For example, during the 51 years that Roe v. Wade dictated the “rules,” anti-abortion laws were never repealed or struck down, they were simply suppressed. Our system has never been about any given rule, but rather about the multitude of preferences continually shifting in their hierarchy. From AI judges to forum shopping, OT has something to offer the legal system both practically and Platonically.

Somewhat ironically—perhaps paradoxically—I’ve found that the application of OT to law pushes legal questions further away from linguistic ones. If law is about consequences and outcomes and why those outcomes exist, then it’s not really about the semantic change of a singular noun or the bounds of an entailment condition, right? And if law’s fulcrum isn’t language, then perhaps our legal outcomes—our laws, current precedent, and so on—shouldn’t be predicated upon questions of linguistics or deontological “rules.” But in order to come to that conclusion, perhaps we need the formalism of a linguistic theory.

Watch a short video on optimality theory here

Read about optimality theory

Alex Walker’s website

Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins

Asking ChatGPT for the Ordinary Meaning of Statutory Terms

Stare Decisis

The history of Arizona’s Civil War-era Abortion Ban

Center for Law, Brain & Behavior

Legal academia is no stranger to questions of linguistics. After all, law is, in some sense, a linguistic construction. But our entire legal system interfaces with language far more than we might think. For a long time, the relationship between linguistics and law has concentrated on philosophy of language and forensic linguistics. Lawyers and linguists become friends over debates about entailment conditions or Constitutional arguments predicated upon the semantic change of a singular noun (arms, anyone?). But Alex Walker (the current Rappaport Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School), works not at the intersection of linguistic structure and the law, but rather on the legal system's reception of linguistic utterances. In Saussurean terms, this is about parole, not langue.

In Part 1 of our conversation, Alex explains his work on linguistic discrimination in the legal system. Why are some voices unable to be heard properly in courtrooms? What is Dialectal Due Process and how will its implementation improve the situation? While linguistic prejudice and misinterpretation are ubiquitous, the consequences can be graver when someone can’t be understood on a witness stand as opposed to a job interview. That's a key part of this conversation: the ideas discussed here closely resemble ideas and concepts discussed in the past by sociolinguists. What's different is the methodology. As a legal scholar, Alex is interested in proposing policy and legal frameworks (backed-up by philosophical, economic, and historical arguments) to address problems that are not inherently linguistic, but rather instantiated through language. Racism won't be eradicated through linguistic justice alone, and linguistic justice won't solve the problem of mass incarceration, either. This is about making sure all people are understood and respected—linguistically and legally.

As always, it was an honor to interview someone so committed to interdisciplinary scholarship. The questions I ask and the arguments he offers are nothing if not legal—litigious, even—but they are concerned with language. And if all people are to be taken seriously in legal contexts, we need to hear them first.

Alex Walker's website

Publications

Black English for Lawyers

Rappaport Fellowship

Artwork by: Maja Mishevska, Brown '27 (https://mishevska.myportfolio.com/)

Ben Zimmer, a language columnist for the Wall Street Journal, is a self-described "linguist, lexicographer, and all-around word nut," but I think this episode proves him to be a paragon of linguistic curiosity. He's committed to bringing the nuances and complexities of language to a general audience, and all through his work on words—which, as we know, are often persona non grata in the linguistics community. But nevertheless, this episode focuses on words, specifically, their political impact.

Words—signifiers—have power; they can index history (re: slay), political allegiance (🍉), in groups and out groups, overt and covert prestige, age, gender, and a whole lot more. Whether it's cunty, -ussy, rizz, nasty woman, enshittification, or ucalagon, we will discuss words' potential to be used and abused for political power. What happens when language becomes a conscious phenomena wherein the symbols we invoke index a political teleology?

This episode stretches across time and space to get at the importance of language when it’s invoked in a word-like form. From Bakhtin to Saussure to discussions of Trump and Biden, this conversation is alive with the awesomeness of language.

On a personal note I would like to thank Ben for being such an inspiring figure for young language scholars like myself. Thank you for the work you do, and thank you for doing it so thoughtfully.

Full interview on YouTube

Ben Zimmer - WSJ

Ben Zimmer - Twitter

Traveling Among the New Words: Lexical Adventures in the Digital Age

Ben Zimmer on CNN

Slang Trends Through History

Artwork by: Maja Mishevska, Brown '27 (https://mishevska.myportfolio.com/)

People often talk about language as "a window" into many things. Language can teach us about the mind, the brain, history, etc. But language is also a medium for discrimination, ridicule, oppression, unequal labor, and various other insidious practices. Linguistic oppression, as Kelly Elizabeth Wright tells us, isn't really about language, it's about how practices of oppression exploit language in their conquests.

Kelly E. Wright uses language to study and address forms of oppression, labor, racism, sexism, ableism, and the ideologies of what makes something "standard." This episode will address the question of sociolinguistic labor: why it exists, why it persists, and how to address it. We discuss how language is used as a barrier, a tool for discrimination and inclusion, a proxy for race and gender and class, among other things. If nothing else, this episode will show how studying language empowers you to make a difference in the world and highlight systemic issues.

For the full, unedited version of this episode, head to youtube.

Kelly E. Wright Website

Dr. Wright's Public Scholarship

Housing Policy and Linguistic Profiling

Hearing Rachel Jeantel

You Met My Ambassador

Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America

Sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology of US Latinos

There’s a lot that I can say about Emily M. Bender, but I think that a philosophy professor of mine said it best when he described her as the “cutting edge of technology and AI and linguistics and ethics.” Obviously some of her cutting-edge-ness concomitantly stems from the cutting-edge-ness of large language models, deep fakes, and 'artificial intelligence' inventions. But out of all the computational linguists, Emily M. Bender stands out to me because she's made the problem of unregulated AI pertinent and understandable to everyone—linguists, computer scientists, climate activists, lawyers, everyone. Her message about LLMs and other AI inventions is clear: we have to do something, and soon, preferably yesterday. Because there is great incentive for AI to remain unregulated at the cost of our democracy, our right to privacy and ownership over our data, our planet, and (as she calls it) our "information ecosystem."

This episode answers all the questions you've had about 'AI' technology: how is the language of an LLM intrinsically different from the language of a human? What are the legal implications of un-watermarked synthetic media? What's going on with deep fakes? How can linguists use their knowledge to effect change? And throughout it all, you'll hear Emily's wisdom and empathy radiating through her wealth of knowledge.

Emily's Website

Collection of links about the 'Stochastic Parrots' paper and the subsequent firing of multiple coauthors

On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜

Baldwin: Understanding the link between joint attention and language

George Carlin

NBC News: Deepfake porn

Patricia Kuhl TedTalk: The Linguistic Genius of Babies

Language and Linguistics on Trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel

Abeba Birhane

⁠Wesley Leonard ⁠

To study language is to study something uniquely human. To study language throughout time and history is to study the evolution of something uniquely human, to determine the variables and constants which shape human existence. Historical linguistics remains one of my favorite subfields of linguistics because it’s so much more than just one subfield. To study language diachronically (through time), historical linguists can examine many different aspects of language at once. We can wonder about the social conditions that might cause semantic change, or think about biological evolution as a catalyst for sound change.

Brian Joseph (OSU) has been in the field of linguistics since the late 70s. He’s written books on everything from syntax universals, to morphology, to clitics. He’s written papers on things as specific and niche as phonesthemes, to broader concepts like the connection between historical linguistics and sociolinguistics, or the problematic of “change” and historiography. On top of all that, he was the President of the Linguistic Society of America in 2019. Needless to say, I was humbled by the chance to speak with him. This conversation encompasses questions of why and how language changes. Whether through physical, cognitive, or social means, language responds to human evolution accordingly, leaving all linguistic utterances as evidence of both our history and our future. After all, what is "synchrony" if not a contradictory quality nearly impossible to qualify?

Brian Joseph's Website

Presidential Address: What is Time?

Picture this: it's early January, 2024, and hundreds upon hundreds of linguists have gathered for the Linguistic Society of America (LSA)'s annual meeting in New York City. With so many language nerds in one place, I couldn't help but interview as many people as I could about their favorite linguistics fact.

This episode contains tantalizing tidbits of information about everything from onomastics, non-concatenative morphology, and the McGurk effect—to historical events effecting language change, and statistics about sociolinguistic judgements. There are allusions to the debate of creole uniformitarianism vs exceptionalism, as well as examples of the Great Vowel Shift and the ongoing discussion of language's encapsulation of culture. From etymology facts, to tricky syntactic constructions, to cross-linguistic phonological observations, to the entrenchment of misogyny through language, you will be entranced and entertained for the entire episode.

The voices showcased here represent a diverse field; linguists hail from all backgrounds and subfields, and they work in industries like academia, healthcare, technology, journalism, and media. Who knew linguistics was such a versatile discipline that can totally and most definitely aid you in a lucrative career where you'll never have to worry about "tenure"??

Several interviews were filmed and posted to Nicole Holliday's tiktok page, accessible here.

Thank you to all who participated in this episode. Being a linguist is one of the greatest privileges I have ever known. I feel immeasurably lucky to be able to share that title with all of you.

Voices heard throughout the episode, in the order they appear:

Heidi Harley, Professor at University of Arizona

Nicole Holliday, Professor at Pomona College

Daniel Ginsberg, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the American Anthropological Association

Canaan Breiss, Professor at USC

Caitl Light, Academic Advisor at Loyola University Chicago

Kirby Conrod, Professor at Swarthmore College

Allison Casar, PhD candidate at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Joshua Dees, PhD candidate at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Walt Wolfram, Professor at North Carolina State University

Gretchen McCulloch, Internet Linguist and host of Lingthusiasm: a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics

Kelly Elizabeth Wright, Post-doc at Virginia Tech

Jordan Douglas Tavani, PhD candidate at UCSB

Rachel Burdin, Professor at UNH

Gabby Poplawski, Undergraduate student at Pomona College

Jamaal Muwwakkil, Post-doc at UCLA

Michel DeGraff, Professor at MIT

Aaliyah Bullen, Undergraduate student at Swarthmore College

Paul Reed, Professor at University of Alabama

Alex Johnston, Professor at Georgetown and Consultant

Brad Davidson, Director of Medical Anthropology at Havas Health and You; Penny Eckert, Professor Emeritas at Stanford

Ceci Cutler, Professor at CUNY Graduate Center and Lehman College

Valerie Fridland, Author of Like, Literally, Dude, and Professor at University of Nevada, Reno

Mike Stern, PhD student at Yale

Katie Russel, PhD candidate at UC Berkeley

Bruno Ferenc Segedin, PhD student at Brown

Alexa Little, Learning Experience Designer at Veeam Software

Emily Bender, Professor at University of Washington

Ben Zimmer, Columnist for the Wall Street Journal

Aiden Malanoski, PhD candidate at CUNY Graduate Center

Jon Stevenson, PhD candidate at University of York

Byron Ahn, Professor at Princeton

and me, Talia Sherman, Undergraduate student at Brown