And the Injun goes "How!": Representations of American Indian English in white public space

Abstract

This article describes linguistic features used to depict fictional American Indian speech, a style referred to as "Hollywood Injun English," found in movies, on television, and in some literature (the focus is on the film and television varieties). Grammatically, it draws on a range of nonstandard -features similar to those found in "foreigner talk" and "baby talk," as well a formalized, ornate variety of English; all these features are used to project or evoke certain characteristics historically associated with "the White Man's Indian." The article also exemplifies some ways in which these linguistic features are deployed in relation to particular characteristics stereotypically associated with American Indians, and shows how the correspondence between nonstandard, dysfluent speech forms and particular pejorative aspects of the fictional Indian characters subtly reproduce Native American otherness in contemporary popular American culture. © 2006 Cambridge University Press.