Narrator: Imagine being the last person to speak to a friend before he was killed. You are the key witness in a nationally televised murder trial. Your testimony could be the difference between justice and a man walking free. But when you take the stand, the jury doesn't focus on the content of your words. They focus on your accent, your grammar, your dialect. They later describe you as "hard to understand" and "not credible." This was the reality for Rachel Jeantel, the prosecution's star witness in the 2013 trial of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. Her testimony was dismissed not because of what she said, but because of how she said it.

This unsettling scenario reveals a powerful and often invisible force that shapes our lives: linguistic prejudice. In her book, How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do—And What It Says About You, psychologist and linguist Katherine D. Kinzler unpacks the profound ways our speech—from our native tongue to the slightest accent—defines who we are, how we are perceived, and the opportunities we are afforded. The book reveals that the way we talk is not just a tool for communication; it's a fundamental marker of our identity and a primary driver of social connection and division.

Narrator: Our speech is far more than a collection of words; it's a living reflection of our history, our social circles, and even our aspirations. Kinzler argues that how we speak is a fundamental component of who we are. This connection is so deep that changes in our life and identity are often mirrored by changes in our voice.

Consider the journey of filmmaker David Thorpe. In his forties, Thorpe became deeply self-conscious about his voice, feeling that he "sounded gay." This anxiety prompted him to create the documentary Do I Sound Gay?, an exploration into the link between voice and identity. He discovered that his speech had, in fact, changed. His high school friends from the conservative Bible Belt noted he sounded different after he came out in college. Linguists explained that this wasn't a biological inevitability but a social one. To connect with his new community, he had subconsciously adopted certain speech patterns, like hyperarticulating vowels, that are sometimes associated with gay men. His voice had evolved to match his new, authentic identity.

This phenomenon isn't limited to personal transformations. Even figures like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg demonstrated this link. Analyses of her speech showed that as a young lawyer in the 1970s, she spoke with a very neutral, standard American accent, carefully enunciating her "r's." Decades later, as an established and powerful Justice, her classic New York accent, with its dropped "r's," returned. As a young woman in a male-dominated field, she likely monitored her speech to avoid prejudice. Once secure in her position, she "found the voice of her youth," a change that, as Kinzler puts it, implies she truly "found herself."

Narrator: Our tendency to judge others based on their speech isn't just a learned behavior; it's rooted in our evolutionary past and observable from the first moments of life. Kinzler explains that humans are born with a predisposition to prefer the familiar, and language is one of the first and most powerful markers of familiarity.

Research shows that newborns, just hours old, can distinguish their mother's native language from a foreign one and show a clear preference for the language they heard in the womb. This isn't just about sound; it's about social grouping. By five months old, babies prefer to look at people who speak in their native accent. By their first birthday, they not only prefer to learn from native-accented speakers but also expect them to be more cooperative and trustworthy. We are, from infancy, built to see language as a reliable clue to who is "one of us."

This instinct has a dark side, as illustrated by the ancient biblical story of "shibboleth." After a battle, the victorious Gileadites needed to identify fleeing Ephraimite soldiers. Their test was simple: they asked suspects to say the word "shibboleth." The Ephraimites' dialect lacked the "sh" sound, so they pronounced it "sibboleth," a subtle difference that revealed their identity and led to their execution. This story, though ancient, highlights a timeless human tendency: to use speech as a swift, and sometimes brutal, tool for distinguishing friend from foe.

Narrator: While our brains may be wired to prefer familiar speech, society teaches us which accents are "good" and which are "bad." Kinzler demonstrates that linguistic prejudice is one of the most common and culturally permissible forms of discrimination, with devastating real-world consequences in courtrooms, classrooms, and the workplace.

This bias is often based on stereotypes, not reality. In a fascinating study by sociolinguist Don Rubin, college students listened to a recorded lecture and were shown a picture of the supposed speaker. When the photo was of a white woman, students heard a standard American accent. But when the exact same recording was paired with a photo of an Asian woman, students reported hearing a foreign accent that simply wasn't there. Their prejudice literally changed what they heard.

This bias has severe economic and legal ramifications. In the 1980s, Manuel Fragante, a highly qualified Filipino American, was denied a clerk job at the DMV in Honolulu. Despite scoring highest on the civil service exam, interviewers rejected him because his "heavy Filipino accent" would make him difficult to understand. The courts upheld the decision, creating a legal precedent that allows employers to discriminate based on accent if they can claim it interferes with communication. This case highlights a critical point from the book: the burden of understanding is almost always placed on the non-standard speaker, while the listener's own biases go unexamined.

Narrator: In many Western societies, particularly the United States, there's an unspoken belief that monolingualism is the default and that bilingualism is a potential handicap. Kinzler calls this the "monolingual myth" and argues that it's not only scientifically wrong but also socially damaging. For decades, flawed studies suggested that raising a child with two languages would confuse them or lower their intelligence. This fear persists today, with well-meaning parents and even doctors sometimes advising against bilingual exposure.

However, modern research overwhelmingly shows the opposite. While a bilingual child's vocabulary in any single language might be slightly smaller than a monolingual peer's, their total conceptual vocabulary across both languages is just as large, if not larger. More importantly, bilingualism offers significant cognitive and social advantages. The constant mental juggling of two languages enhances executive functions like attention and problem-solving.

Perhaps the most profound benefit is in perspective-taking. Because bilingual children must constantly track who speaks which language and in what context, they become better communicators. Studies show they are more adept at understanding another person's point of view, a crucial skill for empathy and cooperation. By clinging to the monolingual myth, we not only deny children these cognitive benefits but also reinforce the idea that linguistic diversity is a problem to be solved rather than a resource to be celebrated.

Narrator: While the book's title emphasizes how you say it, the afterword brings home a final, crucial point: what you say has the power to create social reality. The very language we use to label groups can instill prejudice where none existed before.

The most famous demonstration of this is Jane Elliott's "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" experiment. In 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the third-grade teacher wanted to teach her all-white students in rural Iowa about prejudice. She divided them by eye color. On the first day, she told them blue-eyed people were superior—smarter and better. Within minutes, the blue-eyed children became arrogant and cruel, while the brown-eyed children became timid and submissive. The next day, she reversed the roles, and the behaviors flipped. Elliott's language didn't just describe a reality; it created one.

Research on "generic language" confirms this. When we say "Zarpies are scared of ladybugs" instead of "This Zarpie is scared of ladybugs," we imply that fear of ladybugs is an essential, unchanging trait of all Zarpies. Studies show that exposing children to this kind of generic language makes them believe the group is a real, distinct biological category, paving the way for stereotyping and prejudice. The words we choose to describe groups can either build bridges or erect walls.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from How You Say It is that speech is a primary, powerful, and deeply underestimated force in our social world. It is not a secondary characteristic but a core component of our identity that we use to signal who we are, form our tribes, and navigate our place in society. Yet this same force is a vehicle for profound bias, leading to systemic discrimination in our justice system, schools, and workplaces—a form of prejudice that remains stubbornly, and dangerously, permissible.

Kinzler's work challenges us to move beyond a passive acceptance of our linguistic biases. It forces us to confront an uncomfortable question: How often do we stop listening to what someone is saying because we are too busy judging how they are saying it? The first step toward a more equitable world may be as simple, and as difficult, as learning to truly listen.