The Language of Hiphop Culture

Scholars of language, for the most part, have slept on Hip Hop Culture and the
innovative and inventive use of language in the Hip Hop Nation (HHN). In recent years,however, there has been a dramatic increase in sociolinguistic scholarship on the subject.  The 2001 Linguistic Society of America/American Dialect Society annual meetings have show-cased papers on Hip Hop Culture. The NWAV Conference (New Ways of Analyzing Variation) has recently offered an entire panel on, "The Sociolinguistics of Hip Hop: New Ways of Analyzing Hip Hop Nation Language." The American Anthropological Association and the American Popular Culture Society meetings also offer papers on the subject. "Hip Hop" has become a buzzword in academic circles, galvanizing fields as diverse as English, Linguistics, Religious Studies, African American Studies, Anthropology, and Philosophy.

This course focuses on Hip Hop Culture and the verbal virtuosity within the HHN.
We will focus specifically on language use within the HHN, as language is perhaps the rimary tool with which one can gain a thorough understanding of the culture. What is he relationship between language and identity in the HHN? Can we define a language ariety known as Hip Hop Nation Language (HHNL)? How does language use within the HN confirm or challenge our knowledge of Black Language, and how have other global anguages and cultures been impacted by Hip Hop Culture and communication?

This course will also deal with complex questions of racial/ethnic identity, such as: How does HHNL disturb our notions of race and language? How have Hip Hoppers used anguage to navigate and negotiate Blackness, Whiteness, Latinidad and Otherness? mportantly, what can we learn about language, culture, and American society (us!) by examining the communicative modes and codes of this dynamic cultural community? While a background in sociolinguistics is not required (though it may be helpful), a love for Hip Hop and a desire to learn about Hip Hop's culture and language are. We will be examining this Black-street-culture-turned-global-culture through various lenses, from the detailed, micro-analysis of each spoken syllable to the broader macro-analysis of language as discourse, culture, and identity. Students will gain an introduction to various frameworks in the analysis of discourse, and will be expected to apply and expand these frameworks and methodologies in their own work. We will focus on both theory and field
research.

The course is structured in three major sections, each one building upon the previous one:
(1) Examining the diverse scholarship on the Hip Hop Cultural Movement
(2) Introduction to sociolinguistics/linguistic anthropology/discourse analysis and
the study of Black language and discourse
(3) A critical reading of the recent literature on language and language use within
the HHN.