Varijeteti engleskog jezika u ulogama heroja i zlikovaca u animiranim filmovima

An individual’s speech patterns most often reveal obvious characteristics such as gender, age or place of origin. However, given that language variation carries social meanings, speech patterns can also create stereotypes in the minds of those listening. Even though there is no inherent characteristic or feature that should make one accent or language variety better or worse than others, in practice language varieties are judged and perceived stereotypically. More specifically, it is non-standard varieties and varieties that are not perceived as belonging to higher social classes that are often looked down upon. Given that movies can reflect different societal norms of the time they were made in, they can also reveal hidden stereotypes. Lippi-Green's (2012) analysis of 38 Disney movies showed that 54% of all antagonists spoke British, other English, and foreign-accented English. Lippi-Green (2012) therefore claimed that children learn how to discriminate by watching Disney animated movies which employ stereotypes and a US-centric worldview. Based on her work, this thesis seeks to discover if there is a correspondence between varieties of English and hero and villain tropes in the six top-rated Disney and DreamWorks movies. A comparison with DreamWorks, another major American animation studio, was made, given that Disney has been accused of using accents in a discriminatory manner. After conducting a phonological analysis of the characters’ speech in order to ascertain what variety each hero/villain speaks, the results showed that there is a correspondence between varieties of English and hero and villain tropes in the top-rated Disney and DreamWorks movies. Heroes were predominantly assigned the General American variety, while villains were predominantly either assigned Received Pronunciation, an RP-like variety, or they spoke English with a non-native accent. Between the two studios, DreamWorks was more likely than Disney to assign villains varieties of English based on stereotypes.