Applicaton Of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) In African American Motion Pictures

An important factor leading to social variations in language is differences ofnations. Wherever you are, in Britain or America, especially in America, manydifferent ethnic groups and different cultures mix up, which is a significant socialphenomenon. That is to say, ethnic factors, regional factors and occupational factorsusually are effective in producing social variations in language. With different ethnicbackgrounds, people are bound to be affected by their ethnicity and features of theirnational languages when they speak English. The situation obviously exists amonglow-education people obviously. In the past decades, African-American VernacularEnglish has been a significant social dialect gradually. The main reason is thatAfrican-Americans are a noticeable social-class in their daily life. It is no evidence thatAAVE has been regarded as a kind of inferior or degraded language variety. AAVE isdifferent to SAE (Standard American English), but the difference between them isregular. That is to say, there are regulations to go by in variation of phonetic sound,vocabulary and grammar of AAVE. It is neither changeful nor obscure.On the relevant theoretical basis of the origin and features of AAVE, this thesisreviews the achievements of African-American actors in motion picture industry andanalyzes some movies, then it presents the application of AAVE to movies and itsinfluence from four aspects---character, story, society, and ethnic group. With aconclusion that in the western society, social variations in language reflect the extremedifferences between social classes, and these differences between social classes greatlyaffect people's daily life.This thesis is composed of six parts.The thesis begins with an introduction to some relevant information aboutlanguage variation and dialects.Chapter one introduces the concept of AAVE, confirms that AAVE is not slangbut a complete language system. It is one of the varieties of American English, andgives a brief account of its origin and features, which provides a theoretical basis fordiscussions in the subsequent chapters.Chapter two expounds the history and situation of African American films, andattitudes to American black actors in society. With an introduction to AfricanAmerican's achievements in movie picture industry, quotes many materials about filmsand actors, which foreshadows the analysis in the next chapter.Chapter three focuses on an analysis of relevant films, discusses the application of...