scholarly journals Dissecting the Word: The Use of the Lexeme Shit in Selected Performances of Comedian Dave Chappelle’s Stand-Up Routine

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Radosław Dylewski
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
American English ◽  
The Past ◽  
Song Lyrics ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Analytical Section ◽  
Formal Equivalent ◽  
Rap Lyrics

Abstract The paper explores the use of the lexeme shit in the corpus of Dave Chappelle’s stand-up specials released between 2000 and 2019. It consists of two parts: theoretical and analytical. The first one presents theoretical and pragmatic considerations connected with stand-up routines, touches upon slang semantics, and depicts the links between Dave Chappelle’s stage persona and the hip hop community. Lastly, it presents the reader with the past and present-day status of the lexeme at issue. In the analytical section of the paper the use of shit in the aforesaid corpus is scrutinized from the semantic angle. The discussion is supplemented with the results culled from the corpus of rap lyrics compiled at the Faculty of English at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. The paper argues that (i) shit has lost its taboo status and is mainly used in both corpora as a less formal equivalent of stuff, anything and something and (ii) Chappelle’s stage use of shit, even though present in a different context and serving context-specific purposes, corresponds to the use of African American rappers in their song lyrics (assuming that rap lyrics depict African American English, this conclusion can be extended to the sociolect of African Americans).

Eighteenth-Century Sierra Leone English

1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Montgomery
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Nova Scotia ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nova Scotian

This essay examines the language of an expatriate community as found in letters and petitions written by African Americans who migrated to Sierra Leone by way of Nova Scotia in 1792. These documents provide some of the earliest first-hand evidence of African American English and contribute to debates about the history of that variety. The paper compares selected grammatical features in that variety to modern-day African Nova Scotian English for insights to the history of African American English and develops a case for the principled use of manuscript documents for reconstructing earlier stages of colloquial English.

‘Where all my bad girls at?’

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyhanna Yoo Garza
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
Gender And Race ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Performance Challenges

This article examines the polyvalence of racial(ised) representations in K-pop performances. The analysis of K-pop star CL’s (2013) song and video ‘Nappeun gijibae’ (‘The bad girl’) demonstrates how the artist projects an assertive femininity by embodying and localising the Bad Bitch: a sexually agentive figure of womanhood from US hip hop. CL’s use of African American English and conventionalised hip hop tropes helps resignify gijibae, a pejorative Korean term for women. By shifting between decontextualised styles invoking a different time and place, CL is able to build a kind of chronotopic capital that transforms fragmented styles into an empowered cosmopolitan femininity. However, although CL’s performance challenges Korean gendered norms in its use of local linguistic resources, her selective appropriations of US Black and Chicanx cultural signifiers reproduce narrow images of racialised femininities and reify a hierarchy of valuation along lines of gender and race.

scholarly journals How 'Afro-Americanophilia' became Polyphilia: Joachim-Ernst Berendt’s Journey from Jazz to “Weltmusik”

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Wright Hurley
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
World Music ◽  
West Germany ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Stuart Hall ◽  
1960S And 1970S

This article contributes to our understanding of the continuities and disconnects in the way that ‘race,’ and in particular African-American culture, were conceived of in the long postwar era in West Germany. It does so by examining some salient racial aspects in the writings and production activities of West-German ‘jazz pope,’ Joachim-Ernst Berendt, between the late 1940s and the mid-1980s. I demonstrate that the late 1960s brought about a sharpening in talk concerning the racial ‘ownership’ of jazz, and that in these circumstances, Berendt proceeded beyond his earlier, liberal elaborations about jazz, race, and African-Americans to advance an inclusive, ecumenical model of ‘Weltmusik’ (world music). Germany’s National Socialist history figured in important ways in his conception of both jazz and then Weltmusik. Whilst he initially saw jazz as an antidote to National Socialism, by the late 1960s and 1970s, he regarded certain traits of jazz discourse to be, themselves, proto-fascist.  Far from being a boon, Afro-Americanophilia—or at least one strain of it—now became something from which to distance oneself. What was important for Berendt, as for others of his generation, was distance from the past, as much as seeking out racial Others in Germany, engaging with them on their own terms, and yielding to a new racial ‘relationships of representation’ (Stuart Hall). 

scholarly journals Folk Perception of African American English Regional Variation

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Mitchell ◽  
Marivic Lesho ◽  
Abby Walker
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
American English ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Uniform Structure ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Map Labeling ◽  
Perceptual Dialectology ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
The Us

Contrary to previous “sociolinguistic folklore” that African American (Vernacular) English has a uniform structure across different parts of the US, recent studies have shown that it varies regionally, especially phonologically (Wolfram, 2007; Thomas & Wassink, 2010). However, there is little research on how Americans perceive AAE variation. Based on a map-labeling task, we investigate the folk perception of AAE variation by 55 participants, primarily African Americans in Columbus, Ohio. The analysis focuses on the dialect regions recognized by the participants, the linguistic features associated with different regions, and the attitudes associated with these beliefs. While the perceived regional boundaries mostly align with those identified by speakers in previous perceptual dialectology studies on American English, the participants consistently identified linguistic features that were specific to AAE. The participants recognized substantial phonological and lexical variation and identified “proper” dialects that do not necessarily sound “white”. This study demonstrates the value of considering African Americans’ perspectives in describing African American varieties of English.

Talking Black in America

English Today ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Walt Wolfram ◽  
Kellynoel Waldorf
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
The United States ◽  
Language Diversity ◽  
Language Differences ◽  
African American Language ◽  
Global Status ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The 1960S

African American Language (AAL) is the most widely recognized – and controversial – ethnic variety of English in the world. In the United States national controversies about the speech of African Americans have erupted periodically for more than a half-century now, from the difference-deficit debates in the 1960s (Labov, 1972) to the Ebonics controversy in the 1990s (Rickford, 1999) and linguistic profiling in the 2000s (Baugh, 2003, 2018). Further, the adoption of performance genres from AAL into languages other than English, such as hip-hop and rap, has given the speech of African Americans even wider international recognition and global status (Omoniyi, 2006). The curiosities and controversies about African American speech symbolically reveal (1) the depth of people's beliefs and opinions about language differences; (2) the widespread level of public misinformation about language diversity; and (3) the need for informed knowledge about language variation in public life and in education.

Lessons from the Past: Developing Allegiances for the Future

2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Linda S. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
African American ◽  
Social Work ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Shared Resources ◽  
Settlement House ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
African American Leaders

This article analyzes linkages among the 60 Settlement House workers and other white and African-American leaders of the Progressive Era who signed “The Call,” a media statement calling for aid for African Americans in 1908 that eventually led to development of the NAACP. The analysis demonstrates the value of linkage and shared resources for success of social movements during the Progressive Era. This article applies the discussion to issues facing social work today.

Behind Beats and Rhymes: Working Class from a Hampton Roads Hip Hop Homeplace

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aisha S. Durham
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Public Housing ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Bell Hooks ◽  
Race Riots ◽  
Hip Hop Culture ◽  
Hampton Roads ◽  
Virginia Beach

The film documentary titled Hip Hop: beyond beats and rhymes captures ongoing conversations among scholars, cultural critics, and hip hop insiders about the state of African Americans by interrogating distinct expressive forms associated with hip hop culture. Durham draws from two scenes to describe her memories as the researched underclass and as the graduate researcher returning to her childhood public housing community to explore the shifting discursive terrain of hip hop as a struggle over meaning waged through class performances. Class is articulated through taste values and notions of respectability. Durham connects the hip hop mantra emphasizing lived, embodied culture with bell hooks' description of a homeplace to recount her researcher/ed self during the Virginia Beach Greekfest race riots and her visit home where she talks about hip hop feminism with a group of African American women from the Norfolk public housing community. By recalling autoethnographic encounters of hip hop at home, Durham calls attention to the politics of class that echoes behind beats and rhymes.

scholarly journals Dee-jay drop that deadbeat : hip-hop's remix of fatherhood narratives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jessie L. Sr. Adolph
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Drug Addiction ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Black Adolescents ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Male Engagement ◽  
Underground Economies ◽  
Rap Lyrics

This dissertation examines hip-hop fatherhood narratives from 2010-2015 influenced by drug addiction, mass incarceration, underground economies, trauma, and dysfunctional co-parenting. Explicitly, the paper explores how marginalized, urban African American dads are imagined as protectors, providers, and/or surrogates in hip-hop lyricism. Additionally, the research pays attention to hip-hop artists' depiction of identity orchestration and identity formation of black adolescents and patriarchs by utilizing David Wall's theories on identity stasis. Moreover, the dissertation critically analyzes hip-hop lyrics that reflect different concepts of maleness such as hyper-masculine, the complex cool, biblical, heroic, and hegemonic masculinities. In sum, the paper examines rap lyrics use of mimicry calling into question representative black male engagement with American patriarchy.

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