Susan Ervin- Tripp

June 29, 1927 - Nov. 13, 2018

Susan Ervin-Tripp, a noted psycholinguist and UC Berkeley professor emerita of psychology, died on November 13 in Oakland from complications of an infected cut. She was 91.

Acclaimed for her pioneering studies of bilingualism and language development in children, Native Americans and immigrants, and for her sociolinguistic studies of conversation, Ervin-Tripp was an early advocate for gender equity in academia. She remained intellectually, socially and politically active after she retired in 1999. Among other notable achievements, ErvinTripp, demonstrated how people can reveal different personality characteristics depending on the language they are speaking. For example, a French-English bilingual may focus on family affiliation while taking a personality test in French, while focusing on personal achievements in response to the same test in English. A study of Japanese women married to American men in San Francisco found, similarly, that each language carries with it a collection of cultural values. Her research provided new insights into the cognitive psychology of bilingualism.

Ervin-Tripp was a pioneer in the use of emerging technologies in the study of language behavior. She was one of the first to take audio recorders to children’s homes; to use computer analysis on transcribed and coded data (in the 1960s); and to bring the first video recorders into homes and preschools (in the 1970s) to document patterns of conversation, gesture, gaze direction, and ongoing activities. She was a founder of the fields of sociolinguistics and linguistic pragmatics, serving as President of the International Pragmatics Association.

She was a voice of conscience on the Berkeley campus from the 1960s until her death. Her investigations of gender pay inequity at American universities led the Academic Senate in 1971 to create a Standing Committee on the Status of Women and Ethnic Minorities, of which Ervin-Tripp was chair. Later she served as a campus Ombudsperson. She continued to document pay inequity for both faculty and staff, and frequently represented the statewide UC system to legislative committees in Sacramento. Throughout her career she advocated for policies on equity and sexual harassment that remain relevant.

Ervin-Tripp was born on June 29, 1927, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the youngest of two children born to Kingsley Ervin Sr. and Marian Moore Ervin. She and her older brother, Kingsley Jr., spent many summers swimming and fishing on a lake near Saint Cloud, Minnesota.

After obtaining an undergraduate degree in art history from Vassar in 1949 and a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan in 1955, she was teaching at Harvard in 1958 when she was offered a visiting assistant professorship at UC Berkeley. She drove across the country alone from Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a Rambler convertible, camping in fields and abandoned farmhouses along the way. A year later, she obtained a tenured position. In 2016 she recorded an oral history, appropriately titled, “A Life of Research in Psycholinguistics and Work for the Equity of Women.” It is available from the Oral History Center of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

In 1963, at the Clair Tappaan Lodge on Donner Summit, she met Robert Tripp, a professor of physics at UC Berkeley. They married in 1964 in Geneva, Switzerland. Their eldest son, Alexander, was born in 1965, daughter, Katya, in 1966 and son Nicholas in 1970.

Ervin-Tripp is survived by her husband, Robert Tripp, of Berkeley; sons, Alexander Tripp of New York, and Nico Tripcevich, of Berkeley; daughter, Katya Tripp of Portland, Oregon; daughters-in-law Suzanne Murray and Cheyla Samuelson; and granddaughters Clara Tripp, Iva Borrello and Sofia Tripcevich.

A campus memorial to celebrate the life and legacy of Ervin-Tripp will be held on the UC Berkeley campus in the spring. For more details about the event, email ervin. tripp.memorial@gmail.com.

On the bright and beautiful morning of Sunday, December 2, 2018, Mike joined his father, Charlie, and his treasured blackand-white cat, Spooky, in a pain-free world where, blessedly, there are no more battles for this courageous warrior to face. Mike was born in Mobile, Alabama, raised in Pascagoula, Mississippi and graduated with a B.S. from Mississippi State University in 1968. Upon graduation, he received his commission into the U.S. Army, serving in Vietnam for one combat tour of duty, and was awarded a Bronze Star. After discharge, Mike settled in Dallas and was recruited and trained by Xerox Corp. in professional sales. Mike’s Southern charm, his quick wit and great sense of humor, together with his moviestar good looks, served him well at Xerox and later when he worked for Baxter-Travenol in Houston in medical sales. He was always in the top tier of sales producers and earned many much-enjoyed luxury European trips. He loved traveling and, with his keen sense of observation and tremendous people skills, it was a joy to travel with him. In his last years closer to home, he was entranced by the incomparable beauty of Yosemite Valley and the Monterey Peninsula.

He leaves a cathedralfull of grieving family and friends behind: his beloved “Scoot” Leslie, his sister Melanie, niece Shelsea, great-nephew Miles, lifelong friends along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in Texas, and those who loved