AAVE in the courtroom: Speaker role influences speaker perceptions

A growing body of work on the study of AAVE and its role in legal outcomes shows that speakers’ whose voices are recognized as Black in such contexts are negatively evaluated. AAVE speakers are heard as less educated, comprehensible, and believable and are considered more likely to have been involved in a gang (Dunbar, King & Vaughn 2024; Rickford & King 2016). Related work has also shown effects of dialect on housing opportunities (Wright 2023; Purnell, Idsardi, & Baugh 1999) and job prospects (Hoffman, Kalluri, Jurafsky, & King 2024). Within the courtroom context, prior work has focused on AAVE speakers as witnesses and defendants. The current study examines how the specific legal role that a speaker fills alters perceptions of Black speech. A 35-year-old African American professor recorded 2-minute “role” passages—a mock closing argument (“attorney”) and a mock testimony (“expert witness”)—in both AAVE and Mainstream American English. Listeners linked AAVE to decreased clarity, increased identifications as Black, decreased education (especially in the expert witness role), and increased ratings of involvement in organized crime. Listeners identified the speaker as Black less often in the “attorney” role, shedding light on how dialect and courtroom status mitigate perceptions of Black speech.