ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with scripted data has focused on the use of African American English (AAE) in the media and, in particular, on filmic representations of the variety. It focuses on representations of AAE in film; one strategy was to obtain original screenplays for the films under consideration. Several screenplays were available through university libraries. One of the main challenges in working with scripted data is thus determining how best to analyze speech that ultimately reflects the influence of multiple linguistic sources. If handled properly, scripted data are a potentially rich and largely untapped source of sociolinguistic investigation. Another strategy that some researchers have used to get a sense of the full linguistic range of actors involved in scripted productions, and thus their potential contribution(s) to a given script, is to consider their speech across a variety of films, filmic genres, or media genres, as well as their unscripted speech.
