In the second episode of The Brink podcast Explain This! coproducer Sophie Yarin chats with Daniel Erker, a Boston University College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of linguistics and Spanish, about linguistic variation-the phenomenon of language evolution. As a sociolinguist, Erker’s scholarship looks at how human factors-such as migration, colonialism, and contact-shape what we say and how we say it. Director of the BU-based Spanish in Boston Project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, his research is invested in understanding the unique ways that local Spanish speakers communicate.
Everybody knows the quintessential Boston accent-“pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd.” Listen now as Erker tells us what effect it might have on the city’s bilingual residents.