Highlights
Introduction. The epigraphs above serve as entrée to the central themes of this article. The first is from Rachel Jeantel, the nineteen-year-old African American ‘star witness’ for the prosecution in the 2013 trial of George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon
* This is a revised version of John R. Rickford’s Presidential Address at the 2016 LSA annual meeting, significantly improved by collaboration and coauthorship with Sharese King, and by suggestions and critiques from referees Walt Wolfram and Anne H. Charity Hudley. We thank them and Language editor Greg Carlson, and are honored to be included in his final issue. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at Cornell, Stanford, Stony Brook, Florida International University, and the University of the West Indies, Barbados, and at NWAV and American Dialect Society meetings. We acknowledge feedback received there, although we cannot thank individuals who offered helpful comments. We must single out for recognition, however, our army of dedicated undergraduate research assistants: Carra Rentie, Aurora Martinez Kane, Jonathan Kim, Marly Carlisle, Habib Olapade, Angelica Previte, Mia Melissa Mathias, Mysia Anderson, Ellie Redding, Avery Young, Gabrielle John, Alexander Wade, Kenneth Smith, and Rachel Crovello. Our article also benefited greatly from the assistance of graduate students Keith Cross, Katherine Hilton, Taylor Jones, Andrea Kortenhoven, Quentin Sedlacek, and Janneke Van Hofwegen.
Question 1 (the role of interpreters)
According to Rickford and King, “…speech perception and evaluation are significantly influenced by listeners’ attitudes, often by biases from factors such like race, ethnicity, geography and social status” (2016, p. 976). One of the strategies they suggest to combat the impact of these biases on judicial proceedings is the use of interpreters for African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and other vernaculars in the courtroom.
If listener perception is the key issue, to what extent would the addition of an interpreter be both helpful and limiting in these kinds of proceedings?
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