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White Hip‐hoppers
Author(s) -
Cutler Cecelia
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
language and linguistics compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.619
H-Index - 44
ISSN - 1749-818X
DOI - 10.1111/lnc3.12139
Subject(s) - phenomenon , ethnic group , style (visual arts) , linguistics , white (mutation) , cultural phenomenon , sociology , gender studies , variation (astronomy) , psychology , history , anthropology , epistemology , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , archaeology , gene , astrophysics
Adolescence is a time when many young people begin experimenting with and ‘trying on’ different identities. This process manifests itself in the linguistic choices that they make as they try to signal alignments with particular ethnic groups, subcultures, or lifestyles. The phenomenon of European American or ‘White’ youth who style their speech using features of African American English (AAE) and Hip Hop Nation Language (HHNL) to project their orientation to Hip Hop culture illustrates how this process may involve crossing ethnolinguistic boundaries.[Note 1. I have adopted the upper case spelling, Hip Hop ...] This article reviews the dynamics of this phenomenon, how it intersects with sociolinguistic theories of style, and the implications of incorporating discussions about language variation, AAE, and Hip Hop in urban, ethnic minority schools.