Jhonni Rochelle Charisse Carr, PhD
Conintuing Lecturer of Spanish Linguistics
Department of Spanish & Portuguese, UC Berkeley
RESEARCH
Language Solidarity
In recent years, linguistic discrimination—along with racial discrimination—has lead to increased attacks on individuals who speak a language other than English in public. These discriminatory events are often filmed and shared online where they become viral. Despite their pervasiveness, there is very little discussion on how to mitigate the occurrence of these episodes in the future; as a society, we remain without a coherent response.
To address this, Jhonni Carr and Román Luján have proposed in a co-authored published article the concept of “language solidarity,” which entails concrete strategies that linguistic allies can implement to engage in preventative measures to protect speakers of languages besides English and their freedom of language choice.
As 2021-2022 Lecturer Teaching Fellows at UC Berkeley, they are working to further develop the concept of “language solidarity” and create instructional materials and assignments that allow language educators to help our students learn about language justice and language solidarity and put in practice strategies to address linguistic discrimination through preventative measures in the public space.
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See media coverage on presentation at Rhode Island College
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Companion website here
Linguistic Landscapes
In writing my first book, I am delving into the finer details of my corpus of over 4,500 signs in order to expand the macro analysis of language contact in the signage with a micro analysis using corpus linguistics. I am currently working on a new chapter regarding the use of Los Angeles Vernacular Spanish (Parodi, 2004, 2009, 2011) and Spanglish as seen in public space, exploring such morphological innovations as store names Watería, Shoetería, and Pretzería.
Signs of Our Times: Language Contact and Attitudes in the Linguistic Landscape of Southeast Los Angeles
I completed my dissertation in June of 2017. To read my abstract, see below. If you would like to download a copy of my dissertation, click here. If you are interested in participating in the Linguistic Landscape working group, you can click here for more information.
Dissertation
There are nearly 5 million Latinos and 3.7 million Spanish speakers in Los Angeles County (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015a, 2015b). As such, Spanish is commonly seen in the city's signage, or its linguistic landscape (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). This dissertation exposes the power relations that lie in the coexistence of Spanish and English inscriptions in the urban space of three Southeast L.A. cities. This is done by comparing the material presence of languages in the linguistic landscape with Latina and Latino community members' perceptions of language use and their resulting attitudes. A corpus containing images of 4,664 signs is examined, along with responses from 24 semi-directed, sociolinguistic interviews. In the quantitative analyses of signs, I investigate languages' appearance and dominance, degree of prestige, and communicative usefulness. This is compared with informants' comments regarding their perceived amount of English and Spanish in the city, as well as language prestige and utility.
Results show that, while there is some overlap, we can gain insight from both the production and perception of languages in L.A. signage. In the quantitative analyses of signs, I demonstrate that English holds a great deal of prestige in the area. The qualitative studies confirm English's overt prestige but also reveal a covert prestige for Spanish as a language of solidarity among Latinas and Latinos. Similarly, while the majority of interviewees agree that Spanish is more useful for communication in these geographical areas, quantitative examinations show that both languages in fact have a high degree of utility. Furthermore, I use regression analyses to demonstrate how we can predict the arrangement of languages in signs.
This investigation illuminates the dynamic situation of language contact in the signage of Southeast Los Angeles and the manner in which language is directly intertwined with the public space and power relations. In addition to expanding sociolinguistic and linguistic landscape scholarship, this research has implications for language policy and planning, as well as for social and language justice organizations devoted to the needs of residents who have been linguistically excluded from public services.
​​Language Attitudes​
Attitudes Regarding the Non-Adaptation of Identical Cognates (NIC)
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A bilingual Spanish-English speaker walks into a Los Angeles restaurant and sits down to order enchiladas. How does this speaker pronounce this particular food item when speaking English? Some bilinguals would opt to phonetically adapt the word, yielding [É›nt͡ʃəˈlÉ‘dÉ™z]. Another option would be to pronounce this word in its language of origin, Spanish: [ent͡ʃiˈlaðas]. This seemingly arbitrary decision can have great consequences; linguistic characteristics can have a strong effect on the way that we perceive others or are perceived by others (Gal 1998, Gómez de García et al. 2009).
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For more information, see my article published in 2014.
Bilingualism
Myths and Realities about Bilingual Speakers in the U.S.
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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.
Click the image to view a PDF version.
Just a sample of my work. To see more or discuss possible work >>​
Our panel at the Why Spanish Matters II Conference: Jhonni, Bryan, Ian, and Ricardo​​
Presenting at the Why Spanish Matters II Conference​​