ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what performed media are, the ways in which performed media can be a good source of data about language, and some of the places where performed media represent special challenges. Working with performed media differs from working with other kinds of sociolinguistic data, first in terms of how the researcher theorizes the data and second how the researcher selects and organizes the data, including managing matters linked to copyright and “fair use.” The chapter presents some of the challenges and many of the benefits of working with data from the performed media, particularly music, television, and video. It provides a language that occurs in mass media productions that are primarily scripted and emerge, at least initially, from a writer’s imagination. The three major types of media in which this kind of performed language occurs are in music, television, and film.
