Globalization of African American Vernacular English in popular culture

Abstract

This study examines crossing (Bucholtz 1999;Cutler 1999;Rampton 1995) in Korean hip hop Blinglish as a case study of globalization of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in popular culture. Blinglish in Korean hip hop can be understood as a prime example of "English from below" (Preisler 1999) to informally express subcultural identity and style. The findings of the study suggest that AAVE features appear at different linguistic levels including lexis, phonology, and morpho-syntax in Korean hip hop Blinglish but do not demonstrate the same degree of AAVE penetration, with a frequency-related hierarchy emerging among these linguistic components. The area of Korean hip hop Blinglish with the heaviest crossing influence from AAVE is found to be lexis followed by phonology. The presence of AAVE syntactic features is somewhat restricted in type and occurrence, indicating that the verbal markers in AAVE are considerably varied and intricate, and syntactic elements are not as easily crossed by non-AAVE speakers as lexical items.

Modelling the Englishization of vocabulary in contemporary Korean

“…Since then, the influence of English on Korean has grown noticeably. For example, Song (, p. 19) suggests that ‘almost 90% of loanwords used in Korean originate from English’ and many other commentators have noted that English loanwords tend to dominate in the domains of science, technology, pop culture, economics, sports and notions of a western and luxurious lifestyle (Baik, , ; Kiaer, ; Lawrence, ; Lee, , , ; Pae, ; Park, ). Like the Sino‐Korean or Sino‐Japanese words used in Korean, English loanwords also go through several localization processes, such that their use in Korean is not identical to their use in English.…”

Global reggae and the appropriation of Jamaican Creole

“…One major finding is that hip‐hop artists tend to either use African‐American Vernacular English (AAVE) features (see Alim, and Morgan, for African American hip‐hop artists) or local features, such as broad Australian features (O'Hanlon, ). Akande () and Lee () show that Korean and Nigerian hip‐hoppers ‘cross’ (Rampton, ) into AAVE to enhance their international credibility (Akande, , p. 238). Eberhardt and Freeman () who analysed white Australian rapper Iggy Azalea's hip‐hop performances find that her use of AAVE features is similar to a native speaker, which enables her to successfully commodify African American culture in language performances (Eberhardt & Freeman, , p. 310).…”

Teaching and learning English in the Arabic‐speaking world. Kathleen M. Bailey and Ryan M. Damerow (eds.). 2014. New York: Routledge, ix + 199 pp.

“…Such an investigation might be fruitful not only in the Inner and Outer Circles but also in the Expanding Circle, where parts of the local youth heavily borrow African American slang expressions into their local language. Moreover, such an approach might neatly complement ongoing research into the Americanization of world Englishes and serve to illustrate how a culturally strong minority variety, being pushed by the media industry, can have linguistic influence world-wide, especially on the lexical level (Pennycook 2003;Kachru 2006;Lee 2011).…”