This shit gonna get real heavy - A quantitative study on the use of African-American Vernacular English in The Wire and The Princess and the Frog. : This shit gonna get real heavy - En kvantitativ studie om hur afroamerikansk engelska används i The Wire o

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the spoken variety African-American VernacularEnglish (AAVE) is used in entertainment. This is performed by comparing the spoken language oftwo fictional characters from two different sources of entertainment who are depicted as AAVEspeakers. The characters selected for the study are Stringer Bell from the TV-series The Wire andMama Odie from the movie The Princess and the Frog. Since the aim of this study is to compare andmeasure frequency of use of AAVE features amongst the two characters, a quantitative analysis hasbeen conducted. The findings show that the characters use similar features of AAVE but not to thesame extent. The results show that both characters use verb phrases, negations, and nominals. Theresults show that the characters have 6 grammatical features and 5 phonological features in commonin the selected material, where Stringer Bell uses more grammatical features and Mama Odie usesmore phonological features. Moreover, the results show that the depiction of the characters’ spokenlanguage varies due to the aim of the specific production and that the spoken language of the twocharacters is also affected by regional differences.