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"Keepin' It Real": White Hip‐Hoppers' Discourses of Language, Race, and Authenticity
Author(s) -
Cutler Cecilia
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of linguistic anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.463
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1548-1395
pISSN - 1055-1360
DOI - 10.1525/jlin.2003.13.2.211
Subject(s) - white (mutation) , gender studies , race (biology) , phenomenon , construct (python library) , sociology , cultural phenomenon , middle class , identity (music) , space (punctuation) , class (philosophy) , linguistics , aesthetics , anthropology , art , political science , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , philosophy , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , computer science , law , gene , programming language
This study investigates the discursive construction of authenticity among white middle‐class young people in the New York City area who affiliate with hip‐hop. It explores the ways in which hip‐hop mediates the adoption of African American English‐influenced speech by these young people and how this phenomenon complicates traditional sociolinguistic conceptions of identity. There is a discourse within hip‐hop that privileges the urban black street experience. This forces white middle‐class hip‐hoppers whose race and class origins distance them from this socially located space to construct themselves linguistically as authentic via both form and content.