Skip to content
Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter March 15, 2014

“Red mal deutsch, Hundesohn, ich halt nicht viel vom Spitten”: Cultural Pressures and the Language of German Hip Hop

  • Axel Bohmann

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study analyzing the discourse of two German rap formations with regard to questions of cultural and linguistic creolization.1 It investigates the ways in which German rappers position themselves vis-à-vis American hip hop culture and some of its most salient concepts. In this process, which is far from being a smooth act of creative localization of the global, (African American Vernacular) English becomes a source of prestige as well as a site for contestation. The different indexicalities connected to it can account for a variety of uses of English in German rap. The resulting discourses at times develop forms that contradict assumptions about the enabling nature of cultural hybridization and localization

Online erschienen: 2014-03-15
Erschienen im Druck: 2010-07

© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.

Downloaded on 28.3.2024 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zaa.2010.58.3.203/html
Scroll to top button