Is the Mouse Sensitive? A Study of Race, Gender, and Social Vulnerability in Disney Animated Films

Abstract

Linguistic evidence from popular children's animated movies demonstrates that there is a consistent attempt in these movies to present non-standard varieties of English as isomorphous with lower cultural and socio-economic status. Constraints on lexical choice in children's movies reflect and sustain prejudice towards various dialects of English. Data is analyzed within the socio-cognitive discourse framework proposed by van Dijk (1984, 1988) and is grounded in the linguistic frameworks of power and ideology proposed by theorists in the area of critical linguistics such as Fairclough (1989), Kress (1982, 1985), Sykes (1985), and Thompson (1984).[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]