Valerie Fridland 

Valerie Fridland 

Sociolinguist, Professor, and Author

Woman with long, curly brown hair wearing a purple sweater, smiling at the camera against a plain dark background.

Valerie Fridland is the author of Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English, and a professor of linguistics in the English Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. She writes a popular language blog on Psychology Today called "Language in the Wild," and is a professor in The Great Courses series.

Split image: left side shows a pencil sketch of a person's lower face, while the right reveals a painted portrait's lower face and neck with a red beaded necklace and ruffled collar—capturing hints of why we talk funny.
Long before today's debates, immigration was already transforming the American accent into something distinctively its own.