languagingHR

Ep. 22: African American English in the 757

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky Date: April 10, 2026 Length: 37 minutes Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month In this episode we explore African American English, its history, features, and variations, including in Hampton Roads, aka the 757.  We interview three black academics in the region to learn about AAE and what defines it.  We talk to Dr. Iyabo Osiapem, teaching professor of Africana Studies and Linguistics at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. Founded in 1693, It’s the only university in the state to offer an undergraduate major in linguistics. At Hampton University in Hampton, the city where the first African indentured servants and slaves arrived in North America in 1619, we speak to Dr. Darylyn Dance, a specialist in rhetoric and composition. We also talk to Dr. Travis Harris, a hip hop scholar who teaches at Norfolk State University in Norfolk.  From them we learned about the distinctive syntactical and pronunciation features of the AAE dialect; various theories of its development, including from West African languages; some distinctive local vocabulary; the influence of hip hop in its evolution; and its controversial history related to education, including the 1979 Ann Arbor case and the 1997 Oakland decision. We learn about its labels over the years, including “non-standard Negro English” used by white linguist William Labov, “the father of sociolinguistics,” who pioneered research into AAE in the 1960s, We learn about the work of African American linguist John Baugh in exposing linguistic profiling and the development of the ebonics label by educational psychologist Robert Williams,     inventor of the BITCH test which highlighted cultural bias in standardized testing. Finally, we discuss attitudes to language variation.  Here are some of the books and authors the three professors recommended for AAE:  Olaudah Equiano (18th century)(enslaved, freed, went to UK) slave narratives, letters, poems; essayist and journalist Charles Chesnutt (turn of the 20th century) The Goophered Grapevine; Poetry by Frances Ellen Watkins (19th century); by Paul Laurence Dunbar (19th century); by Countee Cullen (early 20th century); by Langston Hughes (20th century); George Schuyler journalist, columnist, critic (20th century); Phyllis Wheatley, born in Africa, writing in second language; Imami All Mine by Connie Porter (This American Girl series); Zora Neale Hurston,  Their Eyes are Watching God; Alice Childress, Rainbow Jordan;  The Color Purple by Alice Walker;  Dutchman (1964 play) by Amiri Baraka; Sonia Sanchez (20th century) poet, playwright, professor; Maya Angelou; Toni Morrison;Gil Scott-Heron, “The Revolution will not be Televised” (“godfather of rap”); academic articles by Vershawn Ashanti Young (contemporary); Bernice McFadden, “Sugar” (2000) For those interested in hip-hop, the W&M Hip Hop Collection, started in the 1980s,  is part of Swem Library’s Special Collections and includes recordings, publications, and ephemera from Virginia based hip hop artists. Local stars include Pharell and Clipse (the brothers Pusha T and No Malice).Send your questions and feedback to languagingHR@gmail.com [languagingHR@gmail.com]; and for more information and to listen to previous episodes, check out our website, www.languaginghr.wordpress.com [http://www.languaginghr.wordpress.com].

Ep. 20 Bonus: An Interview with Clay Jenkinson (unfiltered) aka Thomas Jefferson

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads Episode 20 Bonus: Interview with Clay Jenkinson (unfiltered) on being Thomas Jefferson Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky Date: Dec. 15, 2025 Length: 45 minutes Publication Frequency: Monthly (approx) In this bonus episode, we talk to Clay Jenkinson, humanities scholar and longtime host of The Thomas Jefferson Hour (now Talking with America, ltamerica.org [http://ltamerica.org] ) on National Public Radio, about how he portrays the nation’s 3rd president and author of the Declaration of Independence. In a 90-minute interview, edited to 45 minutes, Jenkinson describes both his vast admiration for Jefferson, his political ideas and his writings, and the impossibility of reconciling the Founding Father’s words about liberty and equality with the fact that he owned 600 slaves over his lifetime. The hypocrisy and inherent conflict is one reason that Jenkinson finds the character interesting. He has studied and portrayed Jefferson for more than 40 years. He notes that the Virginian who had a 34-year affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, maintained a wall of silence about slavery that his friends and political contemporaries never challenged. Other conflicted characters that Jenkinson portrays include Meriwether Lewis, Robert J. Oppenheimer, and John Steinbeck. Jenkinson explains the 3-part  Chautauquan method he developed in the 1970s to interpret historical figures: an unscripted monologue, followed by a Q and A in character, followed by breaking character and speaking as himself.  Three years ago, as Jefferson became increasingly persona non grata with the public, Jenkinson changed the title of his show to Talking to America. He talks of the necessity but also his regret and his belief in the “whole person” approach – and mostly he believes that people today have a lot to learn from Jefferson. He dubs himself a Jeffersonian and expresses deep concern about the current political climate in the U.S. Jenkinson is the director of The Dakota Institute and is teaching courses on the U.S. Constitution and the fall of the Roman Republic. For more on Jenkinson and his use of 18th century language in his interpretation of Thomas Jefferson, listen to Ep. 20: Talk like a Revolutionary! Be Polite! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/languaginghr/id1727246364?i=1000734616760 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/languaginghr/id1727246364?i=1000734616760] Send us feedback and questions at languagingHR@gmail.com [languagingHR@gmail.com]; and for more information and to access all our past episodes, check out our website at languagingHR.wordpress.com [http://languaginghr.wordpress.com] LanguagingHR is available free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio. Don’t forget to like, follow, and subscribe!

Ep. 20 Talk like a Revolutionary: Be Polite!

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads Episode 20: How to Talk Like a Revolutionary: Be polite! Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky Date: Oct. 31, 2025 Length: 43 minutes Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month Colonial Williamsburg, the restored Colonial capital (until 1780) of Virginia lies at the northwestern edge of Hampton Roads, part of a historic triangle with Yorktown and Jamestown. Since it opened as “the world’s largest U.S. history museum” in the 1930s, it has been telling the story of the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution. To learn about all its tours, programs, activities and educational programs, go to www.colonialwilliamsburg.org [http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org]. In this episode we explore how CW’s use of 18th century language contributes to understanding the men and women who drove revolutionary change in the turbulent years before and after the American Revolution. We learn about the distinctive features of speech at the time of the Declaration of Independence, whose 250th anniversary is next year, 2026.  We talk to Cathleene Hellier, senior historian at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, who authored the book, “18th Century English as a Second Language” (2011, out of print; available online at https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Eighteenth_Century_English_as_a_Second_Language?id=V0N3CAAAQBAJ&hl=en_US&pli=1. [https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Eighteenth_Century_English_as_a_Second_Language?id=V0N3CAAAQBAJ&hl=en_US&pli=1. ]) She discusses the hundreds of primary sources she used to understand how language has changed over the past 250 years and its significance.   We shared the book with humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson, host of Listening to America (formerly The Thomas Jefferson Hour) on NPR, https://ltamerica.org/ [https://ltamerica.org/]  and the country’s best-known Thomas Jefferson impersonator. He details the textbook’s relevant points and describes his own literature-based method of conveying the thoughts of the nation’s third president.   CW’s  Nation Builders program offers first-person interpretations of 18th century Virginians, both the well-known, such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, and the lesser-known, including a preacher, a teacher, and a barkeep, all of  whose lives impacted the community. We attended a Nation Builders performance at the Kimball Theatre, with Stephen Seals portraying James (Armistead) Lafayette, a formerly enslaved African-American who earned his freedom for his spying services for the Patriots during the Revolutionary War; and Robert Weathers, who represents George Wythe, a jurist, scholar, and signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Hellier addresses the difficulties in portraying African-American history in the Colonial period and details the extensive research she’s done into the language varieties of the time. She’s a contributor to enslaved.org [http://enslaved.org], a database of information regarding enslaved people worldwide. She touts the importance of the Virginia Gazette newspaper as a source (digitized copies are available on the CW website, www.colonialwilliamsburg.org [http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org].) We’re reminded too of the newspaper resources collected by the Library of Virginia, https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/digital-collections [https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/digital-collections] And the Valentine Museum in Richmond has a rich repository of African-American history, https://thevalentine.org/ [https://thevalentine.org/] Check out our website, languagingHR.wordpress.com [http://languaginghr.wordpress.com]. Send your feedback and questions to languagingHR@gmail.com [languagingHR@gmail.com]. Visit us on facebook and Instagram, and be sure to like, follow, review! Thanks for listening!

Ep. 19: The Myth of Standard English: 3 profs talk about how language works

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads Episode 19: The Myth of Standard English: 3 profs talk about how language works Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky Date: September 6, 2025 Length: 46 minutes Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month What exactly is linguistics? Quite simply, linguistics is the study of language, not the study of one particular language, but language as a whole. So, when we talk about Applied Linguistics, we’re talking about how linguistic theory translates to practice, whether teaching TESOL or a foreign language to English speakers, understanding language variations and dialects, recognizing the bias and power inherent in standardized or normative language, or how language changes and what that tells us about history, culture and identity. For this episode, we returned to interviews we conducted over the past 18 months with three linguists at Old Dominion University (ODU) in Hampton Roads to learn just how linguistics applies in so many aspects of life. And particularly about the standard English bias and its effects. Each professor talks about her linguistic path, her specialty and the broad reach of the field. We revisited our Jan. 2025 talk with sociolinguist Dr. Bridget Anderson, director of the Tidewater Voices oral history archive at Old Dominion University, a  collection of local dialects gathered over more than 20 years, https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/tidewatervoices/ [https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/tidewatervoices/]. Anderson is an expert in acoustic phonetics and language variation.  We also pulled from our spring 2025 conversation with professor emeritus Dr. Janet Bing, a phonologist, and a driving force behind the establishment of the university’s Applied Linguistics masters program (the only one in the region), and teacher of teachers of TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other  Languages).  And we returned to our dialogue with Dr. Staci Defibaugh, graduate program director of the Applied Linguistics program at ODU, whose research focuses on discourse analysis of speech in health settings. In this episode we discover the shared features of linguistic discovery and what it can teach us about social standing, bias, and much more. In our earlier episodes (see below), we drew on their specific areas of expertise. Ep. #13 Guinea Talk: Gloucester County’s Unique Dialect https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/languaginghr/id1727246364?i=1000688235981 [http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/languaginghr/id1727246364?i=1000688235981],  Ep. #16 How do you say Norfolk? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/languaginghr/id1727246364?i=1000706264104 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/languaginghr/id1727246364?i=1000706264104],   and  Ep. #4 How are you doing? Diagnosing Health Talk https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/languaginghr/id1727246364?i=1000654121382 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/languaginghr/id1727246364?i=1000654121382], Here are links to the Great Vowel Shift and the IPA vowel chart for American English, as discussed by Dr. Anderson https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/021dYoM3E3G2qxJg0p5VlIoRg#IPA_chart_for_American_English http://eweb.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/what.htm [http://eweb.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/what.htm] Send your feedback and questions to languagingHR@gmail.com [languagingHR@gmail.com], and be sure to visit our website, www.languaginghr.wordpress.com [http://www.languaginghr.wordpress.com]

E18: Williamsburg poet laureate talks character, community, and spits bars

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads Episode 18: Williamsburg Poet Laureate talks character, community and spitting bars Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky Date: July 18, 2025 Length: 36 minutes Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month In this episode, a follow to Ep. 6 (June 2024) we catch up with Lacroy “Atlas” Nixon, a spoken word artist, slam performer and founder of the nonprofit Slam Connection. He’s the newly named inaugural poet laureate of Williamsburg, Va.  In Ep. 6: Creative Community: Spoken Word in Hampton Roads, published a year ago in June 2024, we featured interviews with three of the region’s spoken word performers, Tanya Cunningham, George Mendez, and Nixon to showcase the genre and the local community. Since then, Nixon has been named poet laureate for the City of Williamsburg. In this interview, (recorded on June 29, 2025, and lightly edited) we spoke to him about his new role which officially started this month. In it, he explains the process of becoming a poet laureate and says that the emphasis of his two-year post will be on engaging the area’s youth.  Much of his work will involve pursuing partnerships with existing organizations, such as: 1. Slam Connection, (https://slamconnection.my.canva.site [https://slamconnection.my.canva.site]) established by Nixon in 2022, has a mission of encouraging self-expression, healthy discourse and spitting bars (a term explained in Nixon’s interview), and empowering youth through spoken word poetry. It hosts open mic nights, slam contests, and writing events. It also involves a strong service component.  2. The Ampersand International Arts Festival, www.ampersandfestival.com [http://www.ampersandfestival.com], an annual arts festival held in Williamsburg in March, “is part of the CIty of Williamsburg’s initiatives to support town and gown collaboration between the City, the College of William and Mary, Colonial Williamsburg, and partners.”  3. 2nd Sundays, Williamsburg’s Art & Music Festival, https://2ndsundayswilliamsburg.com [https://2ndsundayswilliamsburg.com] 4. The Poetry Society of Virginia, https://poetrysocietyofvirginia.org [https://poetrysocietyofvirginia.org]; a 100-year-old nonprofit dedicated to cultivating the writing and enjoyment of poetry. 5. Writers Guild of Virginia, https://www.writersguildva.com [https://www.writersguildva.com]; Nixon is a board member of the nonprofit that offers classes, workshops and events for writers. In the interview, Nixon references first Friday open mic nights at Column15 Cafe and Roastery, 701 Merrimac Trail R, Williamsburg; www.column15.com [http://www.column15.com]; and slam competitions at the Kimball Theatre, Duke of Gloucester Street, www.colonialwilliamsburg.org [http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org]. He also credits the location Bazaaro’s Deli in the Williamsburg Premium Outlets,  63A 5715 Richmond Rd, Williamsburg, www.bazaaros.com [http://www.bazaaros.com] for hosting slam contests. He also talks about competing in Southern Fried,www.southernfriedpoetryslam.com [http://www.southernfriedpoetryslam.com], one of the largest spoken word and performance poetry tournaments in the world. The event is held annually in a southern US city in the first week of June. Nixon’s team placed sixth in the 2025 competition in Knoxville, Tenn.  Send your feedback, comments and questions to languaginghr@gmail.com [languaginghr@gmail.com]. Also, check out our newly updated website, languaginghr.wordpress.com [http://languaginghr.wordpress.com] and engage with us on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks to our summer interns, Kaitlyn Asato of Christopher Newport University and Sarah Phillips of Old Dominion University, for their work on the website and social media respectively.