Yorkville Crossing: White teens, hip hop and African American English

Cutler, Cecilia

doi:10.1111/1467-9481.00089

Cited by 246 publications

(99 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Such cases are different from most of the examples of "crossing" available in the literature. More typical cases of crossing, let us remember, are of an upper-middle-class New York City white teenager who employs some features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in order to identify with the Black youth subculture he seeks out (Cutler 1999 ); impromptu use of German among adolescents in a multilingual school in inner London (Rampton 1999b ); or a white boy in a California high school who uses AAVE for much the same reasons as the New Yorker (Bucholtz 1999 ). In such cases the target identity indexed with a certain kind of stylization of speech remains elusive and one remains inauthentic.…”

Section: B I O G R a P H I C A L G L I M P S E S O F T H E L I V E S mentioning

confidence: 99%

Language ideology, identity and the commodification of language in the call centers of Pakistan

Rahman¹

2009

Lang. Soc.

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A B S T R A C TThis article relates the language ideologies of Pakistan in general, and its call centers in particular, with the language policies and practices of the latter. The specifi c policy focused upon is the commodifi cation of English with a near-native (American or British) accent as linguistic capital. These accents are indexed to the desired foreign identities which the workers of call centers perform in telephonic interaction with clients as part of their sales strategy. This crossing over to native-speaker linguistic identities is not always successful. When successful, however, some workers in the call centers pass as native speakers in certain contexts and for certain purposes. Such practices and the policies upon which they are contingent are consequences of language ideologies that entail language discrimination against the workers of the call centers by the Pakistani English-using elite, and vice versa. (English, commodifi cation of language, accent, linguistic capital, language policy, identity, passing, crossing, call centers, Pakistan)

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Section: B I O G R a P H I C A L G L I M P S E S O F T H E L I V E S mentioning

confidence: 99%

Language ideology, identity and the commodification of language in the call centers of Pakistan

Rahman¹

2009

Lang. Soc.

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“…In addition, race-based ethnic groups are often less homogeneous linguistically than is assumed (Baugh, 1996:410, 412;Hinton & Pollock, 2000;Horvath & Sankoff, 1987:184;Labov, 1972:299) and in situations of frequent interethnic contact, it is not uncommon for racial groups to converge (e.g., Ash & Myhill, 1986;Wolfram, 1974) or to make use of linguistic features from the other group (e.g., "crossing" [Rampton, 1995]; cf. Cutler, 1997;Jacobs-Huey, 1997). For groups without the "hard" boundaries of language or race, religion is often invoked as a criterion (e.g., Benor, 2001;Knack, 1991;Labov, 1966;Laferriere, 1979;McCafferty, 2001;Meechan, E T H N O L E C T S A N D T H E C I T Y 39 1999).…”

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confidence: 99%

Ethnolects and the city: Ethnic orientation and linguistic variation in Toronto English

2010

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A B S T R A C TFollowing recent work that questions traditional social categories, this paper examines the role of ethnicity in conditioning linguistic variation. Reporting on a large-scale project in the multicultural context of Toronto, we argue for combining emic and etic approaches to social categorization. Focusing on the Chinese and Italian communities, our analysis of two sociolinguistic variables shows that speakers may vary in overall rate, but linguistic conditioning remains largely constant across and within ethnic groups. Whereas there is evidence for language transfer in the first generation, differences between generations suggest that transfer does not persist. Some speakers appear to use overall rates to express ethnic identity. Differences between communities may be explained in terms of different timelines of settlement and visible-minority status.A fundamental question of sociolinguistics is how social differences among speakers are reflected in their linguistic behavior. In the study of sociolinguistic variation and change, this question has been approached predominantly through "social grouping" (Horvath & Sankoff, 1987:179): that is, assign speakers to previously defined categories, and then correlate those categories with quantitative differences in linguistic behavior. A small set of social categories has been correlated with linguistic variables: sex, age, social class, and ethnicity. All of these categories featured in Labov's pioneering work on Martha's Vineyard (1963) and in New York City (1966) and have been replicated in many studies. As a result, we now have a good descriptive understanding of how each of these categories is implicated in linguistic variation: to Walker. We thank Walt Wolfram, whose invitation to participate in a panel discussion prompted Walker to start thinking systematically about ethnicity (Walker, 2001), our fieldworkers and research assistants for their hard work, Bryn Greer-Wootten for his advice on statistical techniques, and most of all the people of Toronto for sharing their time, reminiscences, opinions, and stories with us. Previous versions of different parts of this paper were presented between 2005 and 2007 at various international conferences. We thank the audiences for their comments and several anonymous reviewers for their feedback. We especially thank Barbara Johnstone for helping to clarify the discussion of the results. Any remaining errors are our own responsibility. Authors' names are listed alphabetically.

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“…(Cutler, 1999a(Cutler, , 1999bPennycook 2003Pennycook , 2007 Are White Hip-Hoppers in America, such as Eminem, or in the U.K., such as Plan B, inauthentic? Eminem addresses this in Yellow Brick Road, where there is recognition of the stereotype with the line "he looked at me like I'm out my mind, shook his head like white boys don't know how to rhyme.…”

Section: Ethnicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hip-Hop and Country artists are very aware of their language and self-consciously construct their lexical production when performing, often changing their speech to build solidarity with their intended interlocutor and to exclude those not members of the group (Bell, 1984;Cutler, 1999b;Alim, 2004). An example of this linguistic self-awareness is Nelly's Country Grammar (2000) with the lyrics "My grammar be's Ebonics, gin tonic and chronic, F---bionic it's ironic..."…”

Section: Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Musical Cultures: To What Extent is the Language Used in the Song Lyrics of Hip-Hop and Country Music Reflective of and Shaped by Cultural Beliefs and Experiences?

Engh¹

2013

IJEL

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Hip-Hop and Country musicians concurrently create culture while being affected by the specific subculture of their sociolects and communities. Within these specific speech communities, language is a vital part of constructing reality; of showing class values; and of defining who is 'in' and who is not -often in terms of being in opposition to and standing apart from mainstream society. Inclusion in the Hip-Hop and Country subcultures indicates a delineating boundary of authenticity, which clearly suggests that there are others who are therefore not 'authentic' and must be excluded. Members view their group as separate and work to maintain the boundary from the other, from the majority. In the sociolinguistic exploration of Hip-Hop and Country communities, there are five major themes that will be considered: Legitimacy, Commodification & Globalization, Boundary Margins, Sexuality, and Rebellion -giving prominence to the social context of language use rather than to purely lexical considerations within the two communities.

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Yorkville Crossing: White teens, hip hop and African American English

Cited by 246 publications

References 20 publications

Language ideology, identity and the commodification of language in the call centers of Pakistan

Language ideology, identity and the commodification of language in the call centers of Pakistan

Ethnolects and the city: Ethnic orientation and linguistic variation in Toronto English

Musical Cultures: To What Extent is the Language Used in the Song Lyrics of Hip-Hop and Country Music Reflective of and Shaped by Cultural Beliefs and Experiences?

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