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It's a serious business: The lingui...

Rahman, Jacquelyn.

It's a serious business: The linguistic construction of middle-class white characters by African American narrative comedians (Richard Pryor, Adele Givens, Steve Harvey).

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	It's a serious business: The linguistic construction of middle-class white characters by African American narrative comedians (Richard Pryor, Adele Givens, Steve Harvey).
Author:	Rahman, Jacquelyn.
Description:	232 p.
Notes:	Adviser: John R. Rickford.
Notes:	Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-09, Section: A, page: 3363.
Contained By:	Dissertation Abstracts International65-09A.
Subject:	Language, Linguistics.
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3145601
ISBN:	0496045997

It's a serious business: The linguistic construction of middle-class white characters by African American narrative comedians (Richard Pryor, Adele Givens, Steve Harvey).
Rahman, Jacquelyn.

It's a serious business: The linguistic construction of middle-class white characters by African American narrative comedians (Richard Pryor, Adele Givens, Steve Harvey). - 232 p.

Adviser: John R. Rickford.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2004.

Data for the project come from fifteen narratives selected for their socially significant content. Based on the attitudes and behavior of characters in the narratives, five social groups emerge, including the middle-class establishment. Logistical regression shows relationships between the social groups and the comedians' use of linguistic variants. For example, a highly fronted diphthongal [ay] indexes membership in the middle-class establishment, along with the conservative, ethnically bland demeanor that Kantor (1993: 155--157) and Eckert (2001: 19--20) associate with establishment ideology. Monophthongal [a], on the other hand, indexes identity with the African American community. Similarly, other linguistic features index alignment with the two groups.

ISBN: 0496045997Subjects--Topical Terms:

212724
Language, Linguistics.

It's a serious business: The linguistic construction of middle-class white characters by African American narrative comedians (Richard Pryor, Adele Givens, Steve Harvey).
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245 1 0 $a It's a serious business: The linguistic construction of middle-class white characters by African American narrative comedians (Richard Pryor, Adele Givens, Steve Harvey).
300 $a 232 p.
500 $a Adviser: John R. Rickford.
500 $a Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-09, Section: A, page: 3363.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2004.
520 # $a Data for the project come from fifteen narratives selected for their socially significant content. Based on the attitudes and behavior of characters in the narratives, five social groups emerge, including the middle-class establishment. Logistical regression shows relationships between the social groups and the comedians' use of linguistic variants. For example, a highly fronted diphthongal [ay] indexes membership in the middle-class establishment, along with the conservative, ethnically bland demeanor that Kantor (1993: 155--157) and Eckert (2001: 19--20) associate with establishment ideology. Monophthongal [a], on the other hand, indexes identity with the African American community. Similarly, other linguistic features index alignment with the two groups.
520 # $a This dissertation examines works of African American comedians such as Richard Pryor, Adele Givens, and Steve Harvey as they portray members of the white middle-class establishment in their narratives performed before primarily African American audiences. With language, attitudes and behavior as their only tools, the comedians construct characters that their audiences recognize as middle-class whites. Since the characters are constructed, in part, through contrast with African American personae that the comedians project, the research identifies and analyzes the phonological, grammatical, and lexical features that the comedians employ to distinguish middle-class white characters from their African American personae. Beyond that, the dissertation examines the ways in which comedians distinguish middle-class whites characters from whites characters of other social groups, as well as the associations African American audiences make with various social groups.
520 # $a This project, which is the first major work in the variationist tradition to examine comedic narratives, provides insight into community perceptions of features used by northern middle-class whites and other groups of whites, along with the attached social meanings. As Rickford notes (2001: 230), performances before large audiences may be highly stylized. Examining the clear and deliberate construction of personae by comedians increases understanding of the more subtle shifts that occur in everyday life as individuals project personae that express various facets of their identity. While contributing to the study of African American English, the research also shows how humor, by enhancing group identity and collective self-esteem, has contributed to the psychological survival of African Americans.
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650 # 0 $a Anthropology, Cultural. $3 212460
650 # 0 $a Black Studies. $3 212637
650 # 0 $a Theater. $3 212696
650 # 0 $a Language, Rhetoric and Composition. $3 212535
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710 0 # $a Stanford University. $3 212607
773 0 # $g 65-09A. $t Dissertation Abstracts International
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