This article examines the attitudes of a group of middle-class African Americans toward varieties that are available to them for helping to project the attitudes, stances, and affiliations that they perceive as effective in negotiating social and professional environments where vastly distinct linguistic norms may prevail. The research uses subjective reaction tests, interviews, and an online survey to ask questions about the significance of "sounding black" in judgments the participants make about standardness, social class, and appropriateness of speech styles for various environments. The research also examines linguistic features that contribute to the social judgments. Results show a correlation between the perception of African American identity and judgments that occur in other areas; the consultants value AAVE as their heritage language, but see standard African American English as the one variety that can meet the demands of all environments.

In narratives prepared for primarily African American audiences, African American comedians highlight and exaggerate linguistic features that index traits they attribute to the African American community as well as to the white middle-class establishment. Most prominent among the segmental features that the comedians emphasize is the diphthongal variable /ai/. They produce a monophthongal [A] variant when constructing African American characters and a highly fronted [ai] when portraying the establishment middle class. Characters from both groups appear in situations where their attitudes and behavior highlight the traits attributed to them. African American characters are cast as humanly and culturally rich survivors whose common sense and resilience allow them to "make a way out of no way." In contrast, establishment characters appear as narrowly logical, ethnically bland, and ineffectual. The positive portrayal of African Americans is itself a tool of survival that stems from a self-empowering community ideology that serves as a buffer against the effects of perceived racism.

Despite the general societal ban on use of forms of nigger, a variant finds continued acceptance among some members of the African American community for intragroup self-reference. The present research employs quantitative and qualitative analysis of data from narratives by African American comedians to show that a variant of nigger that developed in the early African American community persists in the lexicon of African American English because it conveys a social meaning that is foundational in the identity of many African Americans. Use of this form allows a speaker to construct an identity representing awareness of the history of African Americans and practical knowledge of the nature and implications of the diaspora experience. The form has been productive in its capacity to convey a range of attitudinal stances related to its basic meaning, including solidarity, censure, and a proactive stance that seeks to bring about positive change.

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Professional female comedians frequently face harassment from male fellow performers and from male audience members who take a sexist attitude, essentializing women as psychologically and temperamentally unsuited to the profession of comedy. This paper examines a strategy that African American female comedians employ to overcome the obstacles they face in performing before mixed gender African American audiences. While implementing features that emphasize their African American and female identity, the comedians direct their performances toward women in the audience, employing features and practices comparable to those researchers associate with close female friends in conversation. Intensive use of a strategy that includes taking stances such as confidence sharing and using gendered terms to directly address female audience members establishes solidarity with the women who are listening. Having a large portion of the audience as allies discourages the occurrence of sexist harassment.