African-American Vernacular English within American ‘Gangsta Rap’

Term Paper , 2009 , 25 Pages , Grade: 2,7

American Studies - Linguistics

This abstract shall give another piece of the puzzle to what is considered to be African-American Vernacular English. With scientific aid of well-known concepts by linguists such as Green in particular but also Wolfram, Schilling-Estes, Mufwene and Poplack we want to focus on specific grammatical features of AAVE and to what extend these can be recovered in the Hip-Hop subgenre of American West Coast Gangsta Rap. A small but significant text corpus of four representative songs (added to the appendix in the shape of lyrics) cover the source for a quantitative and qualitative evaluation. The given text shall give a short overview about the origin and different theories on AAVE first and will further on primarily adapt the characteristic linguistic features L. Green and Wolfram & Schilling-Estes worked out and apply them to our little song text corpus.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

2 What is African-American Vernacular English?
2.1 The Question of Origin
2.2 Linguistic Characteristics of AAVE
2.2.1 Absence of copula for contracted forms of isand are
2.2.2 be indicating recurring activity or state
2.2.3 aint’t for isn’t or didn’t
2.2.4 Third person -s absence in present tense
2.2.5 done indicating completed activity

3 Data Analysis
3.1 The Nature of Gangsta Rap
3.2 AAVE represented in American Gangsta Rap
3.2.1 Copula absence of is and are
3.2.2 be indicating recurring activity or state
3.2.3 aint’t for isn’t or didn’t
3.2.4 Third-person –s absence in present tense:
3.2.5 done indicating completed activity

4 Conclusion

5 Works Cited

6 Appendix

• College: University of Münster (Anglistik/Amerikanistik)
• Course: Proseminar American English
• Grade: 2,7
• Author: Jan Skordos (Author)
• Publication Year: 2009
• Pages: 25
• Catalog Number: V167287
• ISBN (eBook): 9783640840960
• ISBN (Book): 9783640840250
• Language: English
• Tags: african, american, vernacular, english, gangsta, rap, hip-hop, grammatic, otherness