Why TikTok is poised to change how we speak

Is TikTok changing how we speak? A linguist weighs in on the platform’s effect on language trends.

Nicole Holliday (@mixedlinguist on Twitter) co-hosts the Slate podcast “Spectacular Vernacular,” where she recently discussed the “TikTok language rabbit hole.”

“Linguistic change doesn’t tend to be top down…”

Largely characterized as a Gen Z phenomenon, TikTok is a social app with more than 100 million active users in the United States alone—almost one-third of the country’s population. As a network that builds community while offering users a peek into other people’s lives, the app can turn a regional trend into a global phenomenon.

Holliday is assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on speech patterns who has studied the speech of both everyday people and politicians such as Kamala Harris. She’s interested in how people use language to construct their identity, especially among people who cross racial and ethnic boundaries and how those markers show up in speech.

Here, Holliday talks about how TikTok is different from other mediums, who initiates the trends, and how the video-sharing app is changing the way we speak, 15 seconds at a time:

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