“wuz good wit u bro”: Patterns of Digital African American Language Use in Two Modes of Communication

Extending previous research (Cunningham, 2014), which investigated social network site (SNS) comments composed in digital African American Language (DAAL), this research analyzes text messages composed among three, male DAAL interlocutors. This study draws from grounded theory, content analysis, digital language (DL) research, and linguistics scholarship on African American Language (AAL) in order to examine the patterns and frequencies of AAL and DL features found among 380 text messages. Comparing the text message results to Cunningham (2014)'s SNS findings, this study suggests significant ways that DAAL follows predictable, identifiable, and similar linguistic and paralinguistic patterns.