Associations with African American Vernacular English

Abstract: The current study examines the effect of dialect for a Black speaker, paying particular attention to the implications for criminal justice processing. Participants in this study heard an audio clip of a Black man describing his weekend and were randomly assigned to hear the account spoken in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) or Mainstream American English (MAE). For half of each sample, the audio clip was described as an alibi. Participants then evaluated the speaker across dimensions related to character and criminality, as well as his race (sic), education, and socio-economic status. 

Results indicate that the speaker was viewed as having worse character and a greater criminal propensity if he spoke using the AAVE guise rather than the MAE guise. Additionally, participants perceived the AAVE speaker to be more stereotypically Black, less educated, and lower socio-economic status. These findings raise questions about contemporary forms of bias in criminal justice processing. (Dunbar, King & Vaughn, 2024)

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- Dunbar, King & Vaughn (2024). Dialect on Trial: An Experimental Examination of Raciolinguistic Ideologies and Character Judgments. Sage Journals, link

- photograph by John H. White via

The Many Changing Meanings of "Snowflake"

In the early 1860s, the term "Snowflake" was used in Missouri to refer to a person who was opposed to the abolition of slavery. The so-called Snowflakes hoped that the civil war would not put an end to slavery and were contrasted with two other groups, the Claybanks (who wanted a gradual transition out of slavery) and the Charcoals (who demanded immediate emancipation for Black people). 

In the 1970s, snowflake became "a disparaging term for a white man or for a black man who was seen as acting white".

Chuck Palahniuk used the expression in his book "Fight Club" published in 1996 in a different context. A member of an anti-consumerist project tells another member: "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone, and we are all part of the same compost pile." In its 1999 movie adaptation, the line goes like this:

Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not the beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. We are all part of the same compost heap.

Palahniuk was probably not the first person to use this metaphor, of each of us being a unique snowflake, uniquely beautiful and each worth treasuring (via). Now snowflake is a slang term for a young person (the generation that became adults in or after the 2010s) with "an inflated sense of uniqueness", a rather extreme sense of entitlement and who is easily offended and shows little resilience. Snowflake became "the defining insult" in 2016 (via and via).

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photograph by Garry Winogrand via

Welsh Language, Its Survival and the Role of Broadcasting

The first BBC broadcast from Cardiff took place in 1923. Since - more or less - then, the broadcasting industry has included Welsh elements. A national broadcasting sector in Wales emerged, with Welsh channels and BBC Cymro Wales (two televistion channels, three radio stations) being the main public service broadcaster there. There is also S4C, the only Welsh-language TV channel.

The public service broadcasting (PSB) model is built on channels with "a distinctive and strong Welsh flavour" and is "an important asset for the Welsh population". Welsh broadcasting is vulnerable to the changing patterns of media consumption taking place on a global level. The PSB's decline (due to the changes in broadcasting and the tougher environment) threatens the foundations of Welsh broadcasting. Digital platforms, video-on-demand, more choice and competition but also developments in audience patterns have changed the media landscape. Some criticise streaming services for hardly offering local content and point out the lack of cultural references and regional accents in Netflix programmes that are produced in the United Kingdom. As a consequence, Welsh lives and experiences are not represented. And the more the global perspective of streamers dominates, the more Welsh-language broadcasting will be marginalised (via). 

Quoting The Guardian:

One of Europe’s oldest languages will only thrive if its place on radio and TV is retained and its online presence greatly expanded. (...) Welsh has largely been a success story over the past 40 years, greatly helped by the launch in 1982 of S4C – a free-to-air television channel aimed at Welsh speakers. S4C was crucial in revitalising the language and making it relevant to a rapidly changing Wales. But how much longer will that be the case? (via)

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photographs of Richard Burton (The Villain, 1971) via

Language Decolonisation and the Radio

Approaches to language decolonisation vary but are all actions taken "to undo the social, political, and cultural effects of dominance of colonial languages" and to fight against language shift, endangerment, extinction and death. Languages and identities suppressed by linguistic imperialism are legitimated, revitalised, and maintained, linguistic inequality, manipulation, repression and cultural oppression are redressed.

Media is a strong tool for language decolonisation. In Ghana, for instance, radio record most of the programmes in Ghanaian languages. Mass media becomes "a mechanism for the storage of expressions, reservoirs and reference points for the circulation of words, phrases and discourse".

Linguistically, African language programmes on radio and TV have immensely contributed in African societies. Listeners learn a lot of things on language such as new vocabularies for modern concepts in politics, medicine, health, education, administration, economics and science from African programmes. They get new terms, idiomatic expressions, etymologies of words, proverbs, archaisms, appellations, etc. of indigenous languages (see Agyekum 2010 on radio). 

One of the major functions of the African language programmes on radio and TV talk-shows is language modernization, development and elaboration of terms to cater for most aspects of human life. Radio is one of the most powerful tools in the dissemination, interpretation and recontextualisation of discourse (see Agyekum 2000, 2010). Coined terms and phrases commonly used on African language radio programmes are picked up by the people and accepted for use outside radio.

Oral literature genres are less available in urban spaces and appear more and more on radio which somewhat replaces the "traditional village oral traditions" once provided by the elders. Both radio and television become repositories for African languages particularly when it comes to orality which was the main feature of African laguages before the advent of missionaries (Agyekum, 2018).

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-- Agyekum, K. (2018). Linguistic imperialism and language decolonisaiton in Africa through documentation and preservation. In J. Kandybowicz, T. Major, H. Torrence and P. Duncan (eds.) African Linguistics on the Prairie: Selected papers from the 45th annual conference on African linguistics. Berlin: Language Science Press, pp. 87–104.

- photograph by Pierre Verger via

Asylum Seekers vs Refugees vs War Refugees vs Economic Refugees

Language matters. In their study, Kotzur, Forsbach and Wagner (2017) asked university students to share their thoughts associated with the group labels "asylum seekers", "refugees", "war refugees" and "economic refugees": “When you hear the term [label], whom do you think of? Please write down everything that comes to your mind. Please also indicate where you think [label] come from and why they’ve come to Germany. To do so, please complete the following sentence: When I think of [label], I think of…”

Refugees were more often associated with fleeing due to war and the intention to escape from persecution than asylum seekers were. The results for war refugees mostly echoed the results for refugees. When it came to economic refugees, however, a different pattern emerged. They were significantly more often categorised as well educated and comparably little need of help and experiences of loss and trauma.

[…] It makes me angry that the majority of refugees are economic refugees and now share our wealth, and will not give anything back to the state in the future (asylum seekers condition)

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- Kotzur, P. F., Forsbach, N. & Wagner, U. (2017). Choose Your Words Wisely. Stereotypes, Emotions, and Action Tendencies Toward Fled People as a Function of the Group Label. hogrefe, link

- photograph by Magnum photographer Enri Canaj via

"Sounding Black": Speech Stereotypicality and Ethnic Stereotypes

Language is an important marker of social category and social category information can activate stereotypes which again depend heavily on the listener. In their first experiment, the authors of the study had participants listen to twenty audio recordings of Black North American (14) and Black British (6) speakers and rate how stereotypical they found them, guess the likely ethnicity and nationality, and indicate which adjectives (from a list of thirty adjectives) people would associate them with (e.g. athletic, criminal, lazy, poor, rhythmic, uneducated, unintelligent, loud, dirty, aggressive, inferior). 

In the second experiment, the sample listened to (weakly or strongly) stereotypical Black American speakers and was asked to choose one of two faces (weakly or strongly phenotypical) associated with the voice. Results showed that "speakers whose voices were rated as more highly stereotypical for Black Americans were more likely to be associated with stereotypes about Black Americans (Experiment 1) and with more stereotypically Black faces (Experiment 2)".

Given the interconnectivity between language, social categorization, and stereotypes, it is likely that individuals who “sound Black” are more likely to be identified as Black Americans and therefore more likely to be associated with stereotypes about the group. One way individuals may be thought to “sound Black” is through their use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). AAVE is a non-standard dialect of American English closely associated with and spoken predominantly (but not only) by Black Americans (Cutler, 2003; Rickford, 1999). Often denigrated as slang or improper English, AAVE is in fact a valid language system, with regular phonological and grammatical features such as -ing dropping (e.g., “goin”’ vs. “going”), r-lessness (e.g., “fo”’ vs. “four”), negative concord (e.g., “He ain’t seen nothin”’), and the use of habitual be (e.g., “She be workin”’ indicates “She’s often working”) (Pullum, 1999; Thomas, 2007; see Jones, 2015 for more on regional variations in AAVE). Like speakers of other non-standard dialects, speakers of AAVE are seen less favorably than speakers of the more standard General American English in most contexts (Payne et al., 2000; Koch et al., 2001; Dent, 2004; Rodriguez et al., 2004; Billings, 2005). Speakers of AAVE are seen as less competent, less sociable, less professional, less educated, and of poorer character than speakers of more standard American English (Payne et al., 2000; Koch et al., 2001; Dent, 2004; Billings, 2005). As with the Southern U.S. dialect, many of the traits associated with AAVE are also associated with its dominant speakers: Black Americans (Devine and Elliot, 1995; Maddox and Gray, 2002). For instance, individuals show a greater implicit association between weapons and AAVE speakers than more standard speakers (Rosen, 2017), suggesting that stereotypes about criminality and violence, often associated with Black Americans, are also linked to AAVE speakers. Further, AAVE’s close association with Black Americans has also led to linguistic profiling, or discrimination against those who speak a certain way due to their assumed membership in a social group. Discriminating against someone for their way of speaking can allow for anti-Black bias to circumvent legal protections, leading to worse outcomes and fewer opportunities in areas such as housing for those who use AAVE and are assumed to be Black (Purnell et al., 1999; Massey and Lundy, 2001).

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- Kurinec, C. A. & Weaver III, C. A. (2021). Frontiers in Psychology, 12, link
- photograph by John H. White (Chicago, Illinois, August 1973, copyright Documerica Photography Project), via

Falling Over versus Having a Fall

In her article written for The Guardian, Zoe Williams describes the different terminology used for identical incidents, differences that are based on age (and ageism) alone and what impact language has on her stepmother's feelings.

"It’s the terminology that’s getting her down. When a young person falls over, they “fell over”, or more commonly “FOWT” (fell over while texting). Over 70 and you’ve “had a fall”. The nurses audibly describe patients as “breakfasted” when they have had breakfast, she says. It sounds quite cute, though, doesn’t it? A bit bucolic, as if they are little lambs. Nope, apparently this is not cute. She used to hate the word “sprightly”, but now it’s been so rudely, suddenly excised from her CV that she has changed her mind. Someone in her notes calls her “quite alert for her age”. I find this difficult to believe – call her “quite alert” if you like, doc, but I’d love to see you try to give her the wrong change."
Zoe Williams

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photograph by Jane Brown via

Ladies turning into women. Figure skating in 2022.

Figure skating was the first sport in the Winter Olympics that allowed women to compete. That was  in 1924 and back then they competed under "ladies". Figure skating is also the last winter sport to let women compete as "women", not "ladies" ... for the first time in the Winter Olympics 2022 (via).

photograph (figure skater Peggy Fleming, Grenoble Olympics, 1968; photo Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock) via

F***ing Nerve (Lamont Humphrey, 2000)

When I'm born I'm black 

When I grow up I'm even more black 

When I'm in the sun I'm still black 

When I'm cold, guess what: I'm black 

And when I die I'm f*cking black too 

But you: When you are born you're pink 

When you grow up you are white 

When you're sick, man look at yourself, you're green 

When you go in the sun you turn red 

When you are cold you turn blue 

And when you die you look purple 

And you got the f*ing nerv to call me colored (...)

(lyrics via)

::: Tongue Forest ft. Lamont Humphrey on YouTube: LISTEN/WATCH

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photograph by John Vachon (1938) via

APA Guidelines: Bias-Free Language for Age

"Avoid using terms such as “seniors,” “elderly,” “the aged,” “aging dependents,” and similar “othering” terms because they connote a stereotype and suggest that members of the group are not part of society but rather a group apart (see Lundebjerg et al., 2017; Sweetland et al., 2017). Do not use these stigmatizing terms in your research even if your participants use them to refer to themselves (also see guidance regarding disability). Likewise, avoid negativistic and fatalistic attitudes toward aging, such as age as being an obstacle to overcome (Lindland et al., 2015). Do not use “senile”; it is an outdated term with no agreed-upon meaning. Use “dementia” instead of “senility”; specify the type of dementia when known (e.g., dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease). Be sure your language conveys that aging is a normal part of the human experience and is separate from disease and disorder." 

::: More: APA Guidelines



photograph by Lee Friedlander via

Special Needs: From Euphemism to Dysphemism.

Generally speaking, euphemisms are believed to protect both speaker and hearer, allowing them to think about issues that are otherwise avoided, at the same time making sure that neither speaker nor hearer lose face. There is, however, also the notion that euphemisms mostly tend to save the producer's face rather than the recipient's face. Furthermore, they can avoid but also cause offence, can be effective or ineffective.



There are a great many euphemism for disability, such as "special needs". According to disability advocates, this euphemism is inappropriate, unacceptable, offensive, patronising, distancing. This and a range of campaigns to remove it have not yet managed to convince parents of children with disabilities and professionals working with people with disabilities not to use it since they feel it sounds more positive than disability.

In their study, Gernsbacher et al. (2016) constructed vignettes describing different envisioned situations (being a university freshman living in the dormitories who chooses a roommate, being a second-grade teacher teaching a full-to-capacity class who chooses a new student, being a middle-age employee completing an important project who has to choose a co-worker). The person to be chosen was described to "have a disablity", "have a certain disability", "have special needs" (and no label for the control group). The characters that were most frequently chosen last were the ones with "special needs". When asked about associations, participants reported more negative ones with "special needs". The authors come to the conclusion that "special needs" is an ineffective euphemism and that it connotes segregation.

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- Gernsbacher, M. A., Raimond, A. R., Ballinghasay, M. T. & Jaxon, J. (2016). "Special needs" is an ineffective euphemism. Cognitive Research Principles and Implications, 1(1), 1-13. LINK
- image (Ironside) via

The Blonde Cave Dweller: Two Explorers, Similar Experiences, Different Media Coverage.

There have been several experiments to study the effects of isolation on humans (biological rhythms, eating and sleeping patterns, etc.), some of them carried out in caves, and one of them in the French Alps in 1965. That time, Antoine Senni (male record of 126 days) and Josie Laures (female record of 88 days) spent a long time in different caves, each in complete isolation and loneliness (via and via).



While their experiences were rather similar, media coverage made a difference. Antoine Senni became "the forgotten man", media focused on "pretty Josy Laures" who "got all the publicity". In an article, they were described as "a blonde, dark-eyed girl of 26 and a 35-year-old furniture". manufacturer." One article was titled "Blonde Cave Dweller Out of Hospital". A video news report comes to the conclusion: "If the resulting data helps astronauts, Josie will be proud to have been a guinea pig in space exploration. Her boyfriends hope it’ll be for the last time." (via)

After Laures spent some time in Paris getting medical tests, the Tribune reported that she had “fully recovered from her ordeal, tho she has not yet lost extra weight she put on while in the cave.” And if you’re thinking “Well, that’s rude, but maybe it’s relevant, since the experiment was to test the physical and mental effects of isolation,” another article reveals that the “extra weight” she put on was a mere four pounds. No word on the fluctuation of Senni’s weight in the cave.

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photograph via

Does the Fork Have a Woman's or a Man's Voice? And the Bed's Voice?

The fork, a feminine la fourchette in French, a masculine el tenedor in Spanish; the bed, masculine le lit in French, feminine la cama in Spanish... In their study, Sera et al. asked French and Spanish speakers to help prepare a film in which everyday objects come to life, hence need voices.



Participants were shown pictures of different objects and asked to choose a man's or a woman's voice for each. French speakers chose a woman's voice (la fourchette) for the fork, Spanish speakers a man's voice (el tenedor). In the case of the bed, it was exactly the other way round(le lit vs la cama). A series of studies shows the tendency to consider the grammatical gender of inanimate objects when associating characteristics (Deutscher, 2010).

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- Deutscher, G. (2010). Through the Language Glass. Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. London: arrow books.
- image of the amazing Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren via

Nigga: Reappropriated as a Term of Endearment?

Abstract: It is commonly believed that nigga has been reappropriated as a term of endearment. Perhaps this perception persists incorrectly because public conversations on this word are often dominated by nonlinguists. In contrast, linguists lack comparative studies of nigga’s historical and modern-day use. ...



... Addressing this misperception requires a multilayered approach, employed here. This study begins with a qualitative inquiry into the historical, linguistic, and social factors that have fueled the current perception of the nigger/nigga two-word dichotomy and of how nigga was used by blacks in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The second part is a quantitative study that examines the current apportionment of nigga by speaker race and gender, and linguistic context, as observed in computer-mediated conversations. Multivariate analysis reveals differences among black and white speakers, males and females, and in various linguistic contexts. Comparative analysis uncovers that many of nigga’s current meanings, referents, and uses have existed since at least the nineteenth century and that any changes to the meanings occurred gradually and not through abrupt reanalysis. This fnding lends no support to the reappropriation hypothesis. And crucially, the data show that the epitomized example of reappropriation, my nigga, does not function primarily as a genuine term of endearment but as a masculinizing marker of social identity. (Smith, 2019)

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- Smith, H. (2019). Has nigga been reappropriated as a term of endearment? (A qualitative and quantitative analysis). American Speech, 94(4), 420-477.
- image of Shaft/Richard Roundtree via

The C*nt Cheerleaders

"Students in the early feminist programs, such as the Cal-Art Feminist Art Program, were taught to say the word cunt until it lost its derogatory nature and female sexuality was revalued, and yet just a few years ago, at the "F-Word" symposium, an event organized to honor their legacy, its organizers were so tentative that they were unable to even spell out the word that defined the movement. (...) At the very end of the symposium, Faith Wilding got up and did the Fresno "cunt cheer". Give me a C... The audience's embarrassment, discomfort, but perhaps also awe could scarcely have been more palpable if she had peed on the floor!"
Schor (2009)



"To contemporary readers the use of the crude slang term cunt will generally be understood in a derogatory way, but this is not necessarily how Rowbotham understood it at the time. Like the reclamation of the negative term queer in the gay and lesbian community and the sitll controversial use of the term nigger by blacks, there was a (now decisively failed) feminist effort made to reclaim the word cunt in positive terms. A great U.S. example of this would be the "cunt cheerleaders," students from Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro's Feminist Art Program at Cal Arts, who would turn out at the local airport in cheerleading costumes that spelled out the word cunt to greet feminists visiting the program."
Wilson (2015)



- Schor, M. (2009). A Decade of Negative Thinking. Essays on Art, Politics, and Daily Life. Durham & London. Duke University Press.
- Wilson, S. (2015). Art Labor, Sex Politics. Feminist Effects in 1970s British Art and Performance   Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
- photographs via and via and via

Irish English Stereotypes in Cinematographic Representations

"In general terms, we can observe that basic stereotypes about IrE pragmalinguistic norms and communicative style—for example, implicitness, evasiveness, downtoning and conventional pessimism—correspond to “salient and distinctive elements” of Irish sociocultural norms (Kallen 2005: 142–143). However, with respect to the specil c pragmalinguistic realizations of Irish sociocultural norms we can observe a stark contrast between pragmalinguistic stereotypes, i.e. the features that are perceived to characterize Irish conversational style and the actual linguistic realizations of a variety of speech acts as well as the functional spectrum and distribution of even the most salient pragmatic markers."



Pragmatic markers:
The stereotypical use of "like" in Irish English in cinematographic representations is said to be typically associated with Irish tentativeness or uncertainty, for instance, "Ah, I'm only having a bit of fun, like." or "Submarines they've built themselves, like." Another pragmatic marker used stereotypically is "sure". While it is used as a feedback signal or affirmative answer in British and American English, in Irish English, it has "a whole range of interpersoanl and disocurse-organizational functions" such as emphasis, reinforcement, epistemic stance, and mockery, e.g.: "I'm Irish, sure. Racism's part of my culture."

Request strategies:
Cinematographic representations of Irish English request strategies differ from pragmalinguistic forms used in natural settings insofar as a stereotypical request is highly indirect, e.g.: "You couldn’t confirm this in writing, could you?"

Compliment responses:
Responding to compliments means a dilemma since speakers need to decide to respond somewhere between accepting and appearing immodest and not accepting and contrasting one's opinion to the complimenter's one. Irish English speakers seem to use more non-agreement micro compliment responses while American English speakers clearly prefer strategies of acceptance. However, in sum, modesty and agreement maxims are distributed more evenly in Irish English than in American English. Neverheless, in "the cinematographic representations of IrE under scrutiny the macro strategy of non-acceptance appears to be stereotyped".

Responses to thanks:
Reactions to thanks can vary and either express pleasure at performing the action ("great pleasure", "anytime") or miminise the favour or effort invested by using negative politeness ("no problem", "don't mention it"). Irish English speakers seem to invest more creativity into minimising thanks. In cinematographic representations of Irish English speakers, strategies of avoidance, topic shift, and credit shift are found.

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- Furkò, B. P. (2013). Irish English Stereotypes. A Variational Pragmatic Analysis. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 5(2), 123-135. LINK
- photograph of Peter O'Toole via

Elderspeak

Elderspeak is a register of speech similar to "babytalk" with the difference that it is used with older adults. Typical characteristcs are: slow speech rate, exaggerated intonation, elevated pitch and volume, simple vocabulary, reduced grammatical complexity, diminutives, repetition, and collective pronoun substitution (Corwin, 2017).

There are at least four possibilities: an inclusive we, an exclusive we, a "royal we" and a "patronizing we." (...) In a "patronizing" form, we might function more like you and not include the speaker (as in an interaction where a doctor asks a patient "how are we feeling today?") (...)
Wortham & Reyes (2015:48)

Not only is elderspeak linked to communication problems and decreasing communicative competency triggering negative self-assessments of compunicative competence. It is also associated with increased dependence, increased restiveness to care, social isolation, cognitive decline, negative behaviours, and negative social and psychological health outcomes. Older adults consider it to be disrespectful and patronising (Corwin, 2017).

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- Corwin, A. I. (2017). Overcoming Elderspeak. The Gerontologist, 58(4), 724-729.
- Wortham, S. & Reyes, A. (2015). Discourse Analysis beyond the Speech Event. London & New York: Routledge.
- photograph by Vivian Maier via

Evil, Sophisticated, British: The British Accent in Animated Films

"So a disturbing pattern begins to emerge. In the casting of big budget Hollywood movies the rule is clear: bad guys British, good guys anything but. (...) British actors have turned up regularly, predictably, even inevitably, as sophisticated bad guys in Hollywood movies" (Barry Norman), symbolising an "evil genius that can charm your mother over dinner then blow up the world after dessert" (Arwa Mahdawi).

It is a depiction or representation of language, not a sample of it. It is a depiction of what the director/write/producer ‘thinks' about language use in the real world, Hollywood view of the linguistic world.
Schiffman (1998)

Accents establish settings and convey elements of characterisation. They are, in fact, a tool for constructing characters (Azad, 2009), stereotypical characters:

Accent is a potent cue to social categorization and stereotyping. An important agent of accent-based stereotype socialization is the media. (...) Results provide clear evidence that American media’s portrayals of different accents are biased, reflecting pervasive societal stereotypes.
Dragojevic, Giles & Sink (2016)

According to Lippi-Green, "animated features teach children to ethnocentrically discriminate by portraying bad characters with foreign accents" (Wenke, 1998). More than in live-action, animated films show the tendency to use language "as a quick way to build character and reaffirm stereotype" (Lippi-Green, 1997). In children's animated television, villains consistently use non-American accents (Dobrow & Gidney, 1998); there has been an "explosion" in the use of British accents in a stereotypcial way (Wenke, 1998).

It is first observably true that somehow, children learn not only how to use variation in their own language, but also how to interpret social variation in their own language, but also how to interpret social variation in the language of others. They do this with or without exposure to television and film, but in the current day, few children grow up without this exposure.
Lippi-Green (1997)

A specific example of a Disney character who portrays an accent obvious to the viewing public through the use of markers and stereotypes is Scar in the movie The Lion King. Scar is the brother to Mufasa, the strong and noble Lion King. Scar's character stands in direct contrast to that of Mufasa's noble character as he is an envious, scheming lion who plans the murder of his brother and exile of his nephew Simba, the heir to the throne. Scar is drawn to be skinnier and darker than his brother. Differences in animation are thus our first clue into the nature of the two characters. The story takes place in Africa, and the lions are brothers. It would appear then that both brothers should speak with the same accent, and that it should be derived from some African dialect, but this is distinctly not the case. The voice over for Mufasa is provided by James Earl Jones, who speaks with what Lippi-Green calls a mainstream US English (MUSE) accent. In contrast, Jeremy Irons voice over for Scar character speaks with a distinctly British accent. This British accent is very different from the standard English accents of the other characters in the movies, and helps children to distinguish his character.
Wenke (1998)

Based on Lippi-Green's analysis of 24 animated Disney films (i.e. all availabe full-length films available at the time) and their 371 characters, general/standardised American has increased at the expense of British accents, and Received Pronunciation has decreased clearly (from 22% to 14.2%), so has regional British accent (from 11% to 3.5%). In other words, "General American has gained a significantly (sic) amount of ground, whereas the other accent groups have decreased accordingly" leading to a reduction of diversity of accents and enhancing US-American standardisation. Correlations between the traits of the characters and the accents they speak can be observed. Heroes speak general American (even Robin Hood spoke American English in Disney's animated film), Received Pronunciation - which as "a long history of being used with sinister characters" -  is used by characters playing a peripheral role, a villain, an aide to a villain or an unsympathetic character. The very reason may be that Received Pronunciation is associated with posh, cold, distant persons and hence seen as "suitable to sophisticated villainous characters". Interestingly, Americans at the same time see British English positively (Sønnesyn, 2011).

Since early as 1959, sociolinguists have tended to regard as almost a truism the notion that speaker of a perceived prestige dialect such as Received Pronunciation in Great Britain are judged by nonprestige dialect speakers to be on the one hand educated, intelligent, competent, industrious, and of a higher class socioeconomically yet on the other hand less trustworthy and kind, as well as less socially attractive, sincere, and good-humored.
Davis & Houck (1992)

Scar using a British accent, for instance, highlights "his snobbish mannerism and his feelings of intellectual superiority", representing intelligence, breeding and refinement, but also class-envy on the part of US-Americans towards the British or English. Similarly, Jaffar (in Aladdin) speaks with a British accent (Wenke, 1998).

"speakers of British English are portrayed dichotomously as either the epitome of refinement and elegance or as the embodiment of effete evil." This crystallizes the love-hate part of the two nations’ special relationship. Considering other studies have shown that American speakers might have a mild inferiority complex about their own dialects compared to British English, this is telling. (via)

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- Azad, S. B. (2009). Lights, Camera, Accent. Examining Dialect Performance in Recent Children's Animated Films. Washington: Thesis, link
- Davis, L. M. & Houch, C. (1992). Can She Be Prestigious and Nice at the Same Time? Perceptions of Female Speech in Hoosierdom. American Speech, 67(2), 115-122.
- Dobrow, J. R. & Gidney, C. L. (1998). The Good, the Bad, and the Foreign: The Use of Dialect in Children's Animated Television. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 557, Children and Television, 105-119.
- Dragojevic, M., Mastro, D., Giles, H. & Sink, A. (2016). Silencing nonstandard speakers: A content analysis of accent portrayals on American primetime television. Language in Society, 45, 59-85.
- Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London & New York: Routledge, link
- Reinacher, L. (2016). Discrimination in a Land Far, Far Away - Stereotyped Dialects in Animated Children's Films. Kiel: Thesis, link
- Sønnesyn, J. (2011). The use of accents in Disney's animated feature films 1995-2009: a sociolinguistic study of the good, the bad and the foreign. Thesis: University of Bergen, link
- Wenke, E. (1998). Accents in children's animated featiures (sic) as a device for teaching children to ethnocentrically discriminate. Language and Popular Culture, link
- photographs of Jeremy Irons by Michel Comte, 1990 via and via

An Abstract. A Nice One. On Populism.

This paper posits four possible reasons there may exist a fundamental, non-incidental connection between populism and the rhetoric of bullshit, as defined by Frankfurt as speech whose truth value its speaker is indifferent towards:



1) “Bullshit as Sincerity”: Populists’ claim to authentically represent “the people” and their “folk” values, combined with their wholesale rejection of the intellectual class and their values, makes them value sincerity over accuracy, leading them to construct statements with little regard for their veracity;
2) “Bullshit as Symbolism”: populist communication is frequently primarily meant to convey symbolic, unarticulated messages, leading literal meaning to be overlooked;
3) “Bullshit as Partisanship”: populists’ audiences are likely to assess their claims as true regardless of content, giving populists incentive to be construct statements without regard for the truth;
4) “Bullshit as Unfalsifiability”: Populists regard as unfalsifiable a central claim – the exclusivity of their claim to popular representation - and will thus tend to bullshit whenever contradicting evidence arises.
Based on these connections, possible strategies for combatting bullshit propagated by populists is discussed.
(Green, 2019)

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- Green, A. (2019). Speaking Bullshit to Power: Populism and the Rhetoric of Bullshit; link
- photograph of preacher with bible in London's Speaker's Corner taken by Philip Wolmuth in 1993 via

One Tweet Every 20 Seconds

"These results back up what women have long been saying – that Twitter is endemic with racism, misogyny and homophobia."
Kate Allen



228.000 tweets sent to 778 women journalists and politicians in the UK and US in 2017 were studied. That year alone, 1.1 million abusive tweets were sent to women which equals an average of one tweet every 20 seconds. Black women were "disproportionally targeted" as they were 87% more likely than white women to be mentioned in problematic tweets (via).

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photograph of "Lois Lane" Margot Kidder (1948-2018) via