What will I learn about: how subtle social forces and hidden unconscious biases shape everyday speech, often making how you sound more important than what you actually say?

Discover how subtle social forces and hidden unconscious biases shape everyday speech, often making how you sound more important than what you actually say.

What will I learn about: why vocal inflections naturally adapt to fit your social identity, whether it's teenagers adopting vocal fry or individuals changing their speech to align with a specific community?

Understand why vocal inflections naturally adapt to fit your social identity, whether it's teenagers adopting vocal fry or individuals changing their speech to align with a specific community.

What will I learn about: Learn why mastering a new language is significantly easier before age seven, as young, malleable brains are uniquely hardwired to pick up nuances in grammar and pronunciation?

Learn why mastering a new language is significantly easier before age seven, as young, malleable brains are uniquely hardwired to pick up nuances in grammar and pronunciation.

What will I learn about: why adults maintain a stronger emotional and physical connection to their native tongue, making newly learned languages feel less natural even after achieving fluency?

Find out why adults maintain a stronger emotional and physical connection to their native tongue, making newly learned languages feel less natural even after achieving fluency.

What will I learn about: Recognize the profound impact of accent attitudes and discover how judging linguistic differences can either build strong social bonds or fuel harmful stereotypes and linguistic insecurity?

Recognize the profound impact of accent attitudes and discover how judging linguistic differences can either build strong social bonds or fuel harmful stereotypes and linguistic insecurity.

Theme Song

How You Say It

Why You Talk the Way You Do – and What It Says About You

Katherine D. Kinzler

★ 4.2 / 5(152 ratings)

Start ListeningDownload QR code that opens AudiobookHub on the App Store

Try free on iPhoneScan to start in 5 seconds

Categories:

Psychology Communication Skills Society & Culture

If You're Curious About These Questions...

You should listen to this audiobook

💡Have you ever wondered why you instantly form an opinion about someone’s intelligence or background the moment they open their mouth?
💡Did you know that the way you speak might be a more powerful driver of social prejudice and identity than even your physical appearance?
💡Are you curious about how your unique accent and word choices are secretly influencing the way the world treats you—and how you treat others?

Listen to How You Say It — Free Audiobook

Loading player...

Key Takeaways from How You Say It

✓Discover how subtle social forces and hidden unconscious biases shape everyday speech, often making how you sound more important than what you actually say.
✓Understand why vocal inflections naturally adapt to fit your social identity, whether it's teenagers adopting vocal fry or individuals changing their speech to align with a specific community.
✓Learn why mastering a new language is significantly easier before age seven, as young, malleable brains are uniquely hardwired to pick up nuances in grammar and pronunciation.
✓Find out why adults maintain a stronger emotional and physical connection to their native tongue, making newly learned languages feel less natural even after achieving fluency.
✓Recognize the profound impact of accent attitudes and discover how judging linguistic differences can either build strong social bonds or fuel harmful stereotypes and linguistic insecurity.

Learning Tools

Reinforce what you learned from How You Say It

Mind Map

How You Say It

The Social Power of Speech+

Language Acquisition & Age+

Identity, Bonding, & Division+

Evolutionary & Innate Biases+

Accent Discrimination+

The Bilingual Advantage+

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

Question 1 of 8

Why did documentary filmmaker David Thorpe's speech patterns change after he came out as gay?

A. Physical changes in his vocal cords naturally altered his pitch over time.
B. He purposefully suppressed his Texas accent to avoid religious discrimination.
C. His speech adapted unconsciously to reflect his new social identity and group affiliation.
D. He consciously mimicked television characters to signal his new identity to his family.

Question 2 of 8

What does research reveal about how bilingual adults emotionally process their native tongue compared to a language learned later in life?

A. They feel equally emotionally attached to both languages once fluency is reached.
B. They experience a much stronger physical and emotional response to curse words in their native tongue.
C. They tend to prefer expressing deep emotions in their second language to maintain objectivity.
D. They completely lose their emotional connection to their native tongue if they use their second language daily.

Question 3 of 8

What is 'linguistic insecurity' as described in the text?

A. The evolutionary instinct to distrust strangers who speak an unfamiliar language.
B. When a society passes laws banning the use of minority languages to assert dominance.
C. The inability of older adults to grasp the grammatical nuances of a newly acquired language.
D. When individuals internalize negative attitudes about their own accent, causing social barriers and stress.

Question 4 of 8

In the study where participants categorized faces as German or Italian, what happened when voice samples were introduced?

A. Participants relied entirely on skin tone, ignoring the voice samples.
B. Participants categorized the faces based on the language and accent spoken, overriding visual cues like skin tone.
C. Participants became confused and were unable to categorize the faces at all.
D. Participants used the voice samples only when the visual cues were obscured.

Question 5 of 8

According to the book, what troubling message do many mainstream children's movies unintentionally convey?

A. Characters with non-standard or foreign accents are frequently depicted as villains or comedic relief.
B. Bilingual characters are usually portrayed as less intelligent than monolingual ones.
C. Heroes are typically shown learning a foreign language in order to defeat the villain.
D. Animals that speak with human accents are considered unnatural and untrustworthy.

Question 6 of 8

What did researchers discover when they studied American students who complained that their foreign teachers were too difficult to understand?

A. The students had genuine auditory processing deficits that prevented them from understanding certain accents.
B. The students were perfectly capable of transcribing the accented speech if they believed they were listening to a native speaker.
C. The teachers were using advanced vocabulary that the students had not yet learned.
D. The students could only understand the teachers if they spoke significantly slower than normal.

Question 7 of 8

What does the 'complementarity principle' refer to in the context of bilingual children?

A. The tendency for bilingual children to randomly mix grammar rules from both languages.
B. The requirement that parents must speak both languages equally for a child to become fluent.
C. The phenomenon where bilingual children use one language for certain topics and the other language for different topics.
D. The idea that a child's second language perfectly mirrors the vocabulary size of their first language.

Question 8 of 8

Which of the following is cited as a cognitive benefit of growing up bilingual?

A. The ability to learn mathematical concepts at a much younger age.
B. A larger overall vocabulary in a single language compared to monolingual children.
C. The complete elimination of unconscious biases toward people of other races.
D. Increased flexibility in thinking and protection against symptoms of dementia later in life.

How You Say It — Full Chapter Overview

1Recommendation
21 — How subtle social forces shape the way we speak.
32 — The younger you are, the easier language learning becomes.
43 — Language can unite people—or push them apart.
54 — Speech may be the most important factor shaping our biases.
65 — Linguistic biases begin at a very young age.
76 — Accent-based discrimination is widespread and widely accepted.
87 — Growing up bilingual can make you sharper and more perceptive.
98 — Final summary

How You Say It Summary & Overview

How You Say It (2020) examines the role that speech plays in structuring society. Through research and intelligent analysis, it shows how our accents, word choices, and other linguistic quirks become part of our identity and change how we see others.

Who Should Listen to How You Say It?

Social scientists wanting to learn more about language
Big talkers curious about the hidden meaning of their accents
Anyone interested in unpacking their unconscious biases

About the Author: Katherine D. Kinzler

Katherine D. Kinzler is professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, specializing in the relationship between language and socialization. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Quartz, and numerous academic journals.