Sociolinguistic Artifacts

This is a Fox "News" segment in which Kamala Harris is criticized/mocked for style-shifting in a speech at a political rally. The host argues that Harris switches rapidly from "a San Francisco elite to a Southern belle." It's not clear that the shift Harris performs is really into what some people call "Southern English," but the hosts use this claim to argue that Harris is artificially pandering to voters. Arguably, the r vocalization "four" and absence of copula could also be features of AAL, which the hosts are ignoring, deliberately or not, to characterize Harris as deceitful/unauthentic. Whose speech is most stringently policed? Why? See this book for an examination of President Barack Obama's language use and the public's response: Alim, H Samy and Smitherman, Geneva. 2012. Articulate While Black. See this paper for an analysis of (ing) and released /t/ in the campaign speeches of Obama, Romney, and McCain. D’Onofrio, A., & Stecker, A. (2022). The social meaning of stylistic variability: Sociophonetic (in)variance in United States presidential candidates’ campaign rallies. Language in Society, 51(1), 1–28