Assessing hip-hop discourse : Linguistic realness and styling
Faculty/Professorship: | English and Historical Linguistics |
Author(s): | Werner, Valentin ![]() |
Title of the Journal: | Text & talk : an interdisciplinary journal of language, discourse & communication studies |
ISSN: | 1860-7349 |
Publisher Information: | Berlin [u.a.] : Mouton de Gruyter |
Year of publication: | 2019 |
Volume: | 39 |
Issue: | 5 |
Pages: | 671-698 |
Language(s): | English |
DOI: | 10.1515/text-2019-2044 |
Abstract: | This study provides a corpus-linguistic take on hip-hop discourse (as represented in rap), relating to one of the most influential cultural mass movements to date. To this end, a custom-built corpus of lyrics by US-American rap artists (LYRAP) was compiled, containing performed hip-hop discourse over a 25-year period. This material is used to test the alignment of hip-hop discourse with African American English in terms of morphosyntax, and to determine the amount of styling present in the lyrics. In addition, a comparative perspective with pop lyrics (as represented in the LYPOP corpus) is established, and highly characteristic lexical and discourse features of hip-hop discourse are identified. The analyses suggest that “linguistic realness” (in terms of conveying a street-conscious identity) is created on multiple structural levels, but that different artists style their lyrics to various extents to achieve this realness, and that a complete congruence of African American English with hip-hop discourse cannot be traced. |
GND Keywords: | Hip-Hop ; Sprache ; Black English ; Korpus <Linguistik> |
Keywords: | hip-hop, rap, lyrics, pop culture, style, African American English, AAE |
DDC Classification: | 420 English |
RVK Classification: | HF 991 |
Peer Reviewed: | Ja |
International Distribution: | Ja |
Type: | Article |
URI: | https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/48444 |
Release Date: | 13. August 2020 |
Awards: | Habilitationspreis des Deutschen Anglistenverbands |

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University of Bamberg
University of Bamberg