Black talk on television: A constructivist approach to viewers’ perceptions of Bev in Roots II.

Abstract

Viewers’ perceptions of characters and their use of Black English Vernacular (BEV) in the American television series, Roots II, were examined. Thirty‐three college students watched an episode of Roots II, developed a set of personal constructs, and completed a role repertoire test. There were three research questions: (1) How does the language of the characters correspond to the language of black speech communities as described by socio‐linguists? (2) Do white viewers perceive language as an important construct in their perceptions and assessments of these characters? (3) Are white viewers more likely to identify with and admire speakers of standard rather than non‐standard language varieties? The results indicated that (a) only older characters and low socio‐economic status characters used BEV and the dialect was limited to two syntactic variants, copula and auxiliary deletion; (b) white viewers did not explicitly perceive language as an important construct in assessing the characters; and (c) white viewers were more likely to identify with and admire speakers of Standard English.

Notes

Carolyn Anderson is a Lecturer and Fern L. Johnson an Associate Professor in Communication Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003. Marlene G. Fine is a Senior Partner with Communication Education Associates, 16 Harvard Ave., Amherst, MA 01002. Reprints requests should be addressed to the second author.