Jhonni Rochelle Charisse Carr, PhD
Lecturer of Spanish Linguistics
University of California, Berkeley
Research projects
My research investigates how language operates in social space, shaping belonging, access, and power in multilingual communities. My main body of work approaches these questions through the study of the linguistic landscape—the displayed language of public space—as a site where social meanings, language ideologies, and power relations become materially visible. Drawing on theories and methodologies from sociolinguistics and applied linguistics, I analyze Spanish and other minoritized languages across urban and institutional contexts in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil.
Book
Project
Visualizing Variation in Latinx Los Angeles
My current book project examines language attitudes, power, and regional variation in the Spanish linguistic landscape of Los Angeles. Drawing on a mixed-methods corpus of over 4,500 signs from three Southeast Los Angeles cities and 32 interviews with community members, the project investigates how Spanish is visually represented across neighborhoods with differing Latinx populations and how these representations align—or fail to align—with community language practices and preferences. Through quantitative analysis of language choice, dominance, and distribution across sign sections, alongside qualitative accounts of residents’ perceptions, I demonstrate a persistent mismatch between the linguistic composition of communities and the languages made visible in their everyday environments.
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Beyond documenting patterns of language use, this project examines the social consequences of linguistic visibility and absence. Interview data reveal that English-dominant or inaccurate Spanish signage produces informational barriers and undermines both linguistic and psychosocial accessibility, affecting residents’ sense of belonging and solidarity, particularly in communities where Spanish is widely spoken. In addition to this macro-level analysis, the manuscript incorporates a micro-level examination of morphosyntactic and lexical variation in Los Angeles Spanish as it appears in public space, including code-switching and innovative forms such as Watería and Shoetería. By integrating large-scale empirical analysis with community perspectives, the book advances sociolinguistic and linguistic landscape scholarship and offers a framework for understanding linguistic visibility as a measurable dimension of accessibility and language justice in urban contexts.​
Next
Project
Institutional Multilingualism and Hispanic-Serving Institutions
A second line of my research extends linguistic landscape analysis to higher education, with particular attention to universities pursuing Hispanic-Serving Institution status. This project shifts the focus from urban and commercial signage to university schoolscapes, analyzing how Spanish is used in physical signage, digital communication, and administrative discourse. Through this work, I investigate how language policies and practices shape participation and belonging for Latinx students, families, faculty, and staff, and how they align with university commitments to equity and inclusion.
The project will combine analyses of institutional signage and online materials with interviews and campus-based qualitative approaches to document patterns of linguistic inclusion across university spaces. By tracing where Spanish appears, with whom it is associated, and how it is positioned within the schoolscape, this research examines the role of institutions’ physical environments in shaping students’ ability to navigate academic systems and persist through degree completion. In doing so, it connectc language visibility to broader institutional goals related to student retention and graduation at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The project builds on preliminary collaborative work with Laura Álvarez López (University of Stockholm) and contributes empirically grounded insights relevant to sociolinguistics, linguistic landscape studies, and policy conversations surrounding multilingualism in higher education.
Public-Facing
Projects
Language Solidarity
Incidents of linguistic discrimination in public space have become increasingly visible in recent years, particularly in contexts where speakers are harassed for using languages other than English. While these encounters are often treated as isolated or reactive events, there has been limited attention to how such episodes might be prevented before they occur. This project addresses that gap by examining how public language use, social norms, and collective response can be mobilized to anticipate and interrupt linguistic discrimination, complementing existing efforts to respond to such incidents after they occur.
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In a co-authored publication with Román Luján, I theorize language solidarity as a set of preventative, actionable strategies through which linguistic allies can support speakers’ freedom of language choice. This work translates sociolinguistic insights into practical, evidence-based approaches for mitigating linguistic harm in public space.
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As Fellows at the UC Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning, we developed instructional materials that enable linguistics and language educators to introduce language solidarity and language justice in their courses. These public-facing materials have been disseminated through workshops and presentations, including invited talks at institutions such as Rhode Island College, and are accompanied by a dedicated project website designed for use by educators and community members.
Myths and Realities about Bilingual Speakers in the U.S.​
There are many folk tales about raising a child to be bilingual and bilingual speakers themselves. In a poster presentation at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Armando Guerrero, Jr. and I discussed common myths about bilingual English-Spanish speakers in the United States, what research tells us is the truth, and the myths' origins.
