Why Do Cartoon Villains Speak in Foreign Accents?

Children’s shows often use non-standard dialects to voice the “bad guys,” sending a dangerous message to kids about diversity. 兒童節(jié)目常常用非標(biāo)準(zhǔn)語言的方言來表達(dá)“壞蛋們”的聲音，其傳遞的信息給孩子們接納多樣性帶來隱患。

When the sociolinguist Calvin Gidney sawThe Lion Kingin theaters two decades ago, he was struck by the differences between Mufasa and Scar. The characters don’t have much in common: Mufasa is heroic and steadfast,while Scar is cynical and power-hungry.But what Gidney noticed most was how they each spoke: Mufasa has an American accent, while Scar, the lion of the dark side, roars in British English.In a climactic1climactic高潮的。scene in which Scar accuses Simba of being the “murderer!”responsible for Mufasa’s death, the fi nal“r” in his declaration fl oats up into a sky bursting with lightning, and it’s hard to imagine it sounding quite as monstrous in another tone.

20年前，社會(huì)語言學(xué)家卡爾文·吉德尼在劇院看《獅子王》時(shí)，他被木法沙和刀疤之間的差異所震撼。這兩個(gè)角色沒有多少共同之處：木法沙英勇、堅(jiān)定，而刀疤憤世嫉俗、渴望權(quán)力。但最引起吉德尼注意的是他們的說話方式：木法沙擁有美國(guó)口音，而反派刀疤則用英式英語咆哮。在刀疤指控辛巴是殺死木法沙的“兇手！”的那場(chǎng)高潮戲中，隨著刀疤喊出的最后一個(gè)音r沖上云霄，天空頓時(shí)電閃雷鳴，其聲音之可怕，很難想象它在另一種語調(diào)中也能傳達(dá)出同樣的效果。

[2] Gidney, an associate professor in child study and human development at Tufts University who specializes in sociolinguistics, saw Scar’s accent as part of a disturbing pattern in the film:Foreign accents and non-standard dialects were being used to voice all of the “bad”characters. Gidney also noticed that Scar’s minions, the hyenas, spoke in either African American English or English with a Spanish accent. Gidney found this trend concerning, especially since the theme of the movie could be described as“the ‘natural order of things,’” he said. “I thought it was really disturbing that it was necessary to ‘take back the jungle’ from the British-sounding evil lion, plus the African American-sounding and Latinosounding hyenas.”

[3] Gidney was inspired to embark on a study of language patterns in animated kids’ entertainment, teaming up with Julie Dobrow, a senior lecturer at Tufts who specializes in issues of children and media, to study how these trends play out on kids’ television shows.They’ve since analyzed about 30 shows and 1,500 characters, and they’re still at work on the project.

[2]吉德尼是塔夫茨大學(xué)從事兒童研究和人類發(fā)展學(xué)研究的副教授，專攻社會(huì)語言學(xué)。他將刀疤的口音看作電影中令人不安的套路的一部分：所有“壞”角色都操著異域口音和非標(biāo)準(zhǔn)語的方言。吉德尼還注意到，鬣狗作為刀疤的爪牙，說的要么是非洲裔美式英語，要么就是帶西班牙口音的英語。吉德尼發(fā)覺這種趨勢(shì)頗令人擔(dān)憂，特別是因?yàn)楸酒黝}可以說是表現(xiàn)“自然法則”的，他說：“我覺得有個(gè)問題很讓人不安，即必須要從英國(guó)口音的邪惡獅子及非裔美國(guó)口音和拉丁口音的鬣狗手中‘奪回叢林’?！?/p>

[3]于是，得到啟發(fā)的吉德尼開始著手研究?jī)和瘎?dòng)畫節(jié)目中的語言模式，他與塔夫茨大學(xué)專門研究?jī)和兔襟w問題的高級(jí)講師朱莉·多布羅合作，共同研究這些趨勢(shì)如何影響兒童電視節(jié)目。自那時(shí)起，他們分析了大約30個(gè)節(jié)目和1500個(gè)角色，如今他們?nèi)匀辉谧鲞@個(gè)項(xiàng)目。

[4]在1998年的初步研究中，吉德尼和多布羅讓一組程序員分析了323個(gè)電視動(dòng)畫角色，采用了諸如種族和性別識(shí)別、外貌、英雄/惡棍身份和語言學(xué)標(biāo)記等量度。程序員測(cè)試了隨機(jī)抽樣的12個(gè)節(jié)目，這些節(jié)目體裁各異，取自不同的電視臺(tái)和廣播電臺(tái)，包羅各種體裁。研究結(jié)果表明，許多兒童節(jié)目都用語言來標(biāo)記某個(gè)給定角色的某些特征。除兩個(gè)節(jié)目以外，所有節(jié)目中的方言（這里指的是一種語言的任何特殊變體）都在某種程度上體現(xiàn)了人物的個(gè)性特征。

[4] For their initial study in 1998,Gidney and Dobrow had a team of coders analyze 323 animated TV characters using measures such as ethnic and gender identification, physical appearance, hero/villain status, and linguistic markers. The coders tested a random sample of 12 shows, which spanned a variety of networks, air-times2air-time廣播時(shí)間。,and genres. Their fi ndings suggested that lots of kids’ shows use language to mark certain traits in a given character. All but two of the shows studied correlated dialect (a term that refers here to any particular variety of a language) with characters’ personality traits in some way.

[5] The kicker: In many of the cases studied, villains were given foreign accents. A modern-day example is Dr.Heinz Doofenshmirtz, the bad guy inPhineas and Ferbwho speaks in a German(ish) accent and hails from the fictional European country Drusselstein.Meanwhile, the study found that most of the heroic characters in their research sample were American-sounding; only two heroes had foreign accents. Since television is a prominent source of cultural messaging for children, this correlation of foreign accents with “bad” characters could have concerning implications for the way kids are being taught to engage with diversity in the United States.

[6] The most wicked foreign accent of all was British English, according to the study. From Scar to Aladdin’s Jafar,the study found that British is the foreign accent most commonly used for villains.German and Slavic accents are also common for villain voices. Henchmen or assistants to villains often spoke in dialects associated with low socioeconomic status,including working-class Eastern European dialects or regional American dialects such as “Italian-American gangster” (like when Claude in Captain Planet says ‘tuhraining’ instead of ‘training.’) None of the villains in the sample studied seemed to speak Standard American English; when they did speak with an American accent, it was always in regional dialects associated with low socioeconomic status.

[5]值得注意的是：在許多案例中，反派都操異域口音。一個(gè)現(xiàn)代的例子是海因茨·多芬希姆茨博士，他是《菲尼亞斯和費(fèi)爾布》中的壞蛋，說話帶有德國(guó)口音，他來自虛構(gòu)的歐洲國(guó)家德魯斯坦。同時(shí)，研究樣本中大多數(shù)英雄人物的發(fā)音都是美式的，只有兩位英雄有外國(guó)口音。由于電視是向兒童傳遞文化信息的主要來源，外國(guó)口音與“壞”角色之間的這種相互關(guān)聯(lián)可能會(huì)對(duì)美國(guó)兒童受教接納多樣性產(chǎn)生不良影響。

[6]根據(jù)這項(xiàng)研究，最邪惡的異域口音當(dāng)屬英式英語。從“刀疤”到《阿拉丁》的“雅法爾”，惡棍最常使用的異域口音都是英式英語。德語和斯拉夫語的口音也常見于反派的聲音。惡棍的親信或手下經(jīng)常說著社會(huì)經(jīng)濟(jì)地位低下地區(qū)的有關(guān)方言，包括代表工人階層的東歐方言或美國(guó)地區(qū)方言，如“意大利裔美國(guó)幫派方言”（就像克勞德在《地球超人》中說的tuh-raining，而不是training）。在研究樣本中，似乎沒有一個(gè)壞蛋說標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的美語；當(dāng)他們操美國(guó)口音時(shí)，也總是一口社會(huì)經(jīng)濟(jì)地位低下階層的地區(qū)方言。

[7] Some shows also gave foreign accents to comic characters, though British English was almost never used in this way. “Speakers of British English are portrayed dichotomously3dichotomous兩分的。as either the epitome of re fi nement and elegance or as the embodiment of effete4effete軟弱的；女人氣的。evil,”the study concludes. “What general sociolinguistic theory would suggest,”Gidney added, “is that American adults tend to evaluate British dialect… as sounding smarter.” Funny characters, on the other hand, often speak in German or Slavic accents (Dobrow offered as an example the associates of the evil Dr.Claw inInspector Gadget), as well as in regional American dialects associated with the white working class.

[7]有些節(jié)目也賦予喜劇人物異域口音，不過英式英語幾乎從未以這種方式使用過。研究報(bào)告總結(jié)道：“講英式英語的人要么被描繪成精致和優(yōu)雅的典范，要么被描繪成衰敗邪惡的化身。”吉德尼補(bǔ)充說：“普通社會(huì)語言學(xué)理論認(rèn)為，美國(guó)成年人傾向于認(rèn)為英國(guó)口音……聽起來更聰明。”另一方面，滑稽的角色經(jīng)常使用德語或斯拉夫語口音（多布羅舉了一例——《G型神探》中邪惡的克勞博士的同僚）以及代表白人工人階層的美國(guó)地區(qū)方言。

[8] Gidney and Dobrow’s findings suggest that the use of German, Eastern European, and Russian accents for animated villains is likely reflective of America’s hostility toward those countries during World War II and the Cold War. They have continued to find these same accent trends through the past few decades, even as the political and social climate changes and the nation’s zeitgeist is marked by different ethnic and global tensions. Rosina Lippi-Green,a linguist who has written on the uses of language in Disney movies, said that these tendencies likely have to do with the“age and training” of the show runners themselves. In other words, show runners may be making decisions on the basis of what was popular and successful in the shows they grew up watching.

[9] Research has shown that kids use TV as a key source of information about other ethnic groups, as well as about their own ethnic and racial identities.Linguists have also found that not only do people make judgements about their peers’ intelligence and education levels based on language characteristics (with those who speak standard dialects usually being viewed as smarter and betterlooking), but also that those judgments often shape how a person or group of people is treated. These patterns imply that when children see a correlation between evil and foreignness5foreignness異源性。foreign非典型的；陌生的。, or between evil and low socioeconomic status, there’s a good chance they are internalizing negative perceptions of themselves or other groups.

[8]吉德尼和多布羅的種種發(fā)現(xiàn)表明，使用德語、東歐語和俄羅斯語口音為動(dòng)畫片中的反派配音，很可能反映了美國(guó)在二戰(zhàn)和冷戰(zhàn)期間對(duì)這些國(guó)家的敵視態(tài)度。在過去幾十年里，盡管政治和社會(huì)氛圍在變化，且如今美國(guó)的時(shí)代精神有著不同種族和全球緊張局勢(shì)的烙印，口音使用的這些趨勢(shì)仍在繼續(xù)。羅西娜·利皮-格林是研究迪士尼電影語言用法的語言學(xué)家，她說，這些傾向很可能與節(jié)目運(yùn)營(yíng)者本身的“年齡和教育”有關(guān)。換句話說，節(jié)目運(yùn)營(yíng)者做決定時(shí)可能會(huì)參考他們從小看的節(jié)目中流行和成功的元素。

[9]研究表明，電視是孩子們用來了解其他族群和本族并形成種族認(rèn)同的關(guān)鍵信息源。語言學(xué)家還發(fā)現(xiàn)，人們會(huì)根據(jù)語言特征（說標(biāo)準(zhǔn)語言的人通常被認(rèn)為更聰明、更漂亮）判斷同齡人的智力和教育水平，而且，這些判斷往往決定了一個(gè)人或一群人將如何被對(duì)待。這些模式意味著，當(dāng)孩子看到邪惡和異質(zhì)性之間的聯(lián)系，或邪惡和低社會(huì)經(jīng)濟(jì)地位之間的關(guān)聯(lián)時(shí)，他們很有可能正在內(nèi)化對(duì)自己或其他群體的負(fù)面觀念。

[10] Even civilization’s earliest storytellers likely used accents as markers of the “foreign,” Lippi-Green said. From the beginning, “people who were the best storytellers changed their voices”—doing so is, after all, one of the easiest ways to effectively mark an outsider.

[11] So what are parents to do with the knowledge that many kids’ TV shows and movies are brimming with cultural biases? Dobrow points to intentional,collaborative TV-watching. “What’s really important is to be able to make your children into media-literate viewers,” she said. “If a parent or sibling or caregiver is there with a child watching television or a film, this... can make anything into an educational experience.” ■

[10]利皮-格林說，即使在文明初期，最早開始講故事的人也很可能用不同口音為角色帶上“異域”標(biāo)記。從一開始，“最會(huì)講故事的人改變了他們的聲音”——畢竟，要有效地標(biāo)記一個(gè)局外人，這樣做是最簡(jiǎn)單的方法之一。

[11] 那么，在認(rèn)識(shí)到許多兒童電視節(jié)目和電影中充斥著文化偏見以后，家長(zhǎng)該怎么做呢？多布羅提出要有目的性地跟孩子一起看電視。她說：“真正重要的是讓你的孩子能夠成為了解媒體的觀眾。如果父母、兄弟姐妹或看護(hù)者中的某一個(gè)和孩子一起看電視或電影，那么這樣……可以將任何內(nèi)容變成一種有教育意義的體驗(yàn)。” □