Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

Gough distinguish, but that did not occur in our interviews, or at least not
frequently enough. Most of the times it concerns pretty specific sentence
constructions, such as the use of ‘the most thing’ for ‘the thing I [verb] most’ or ‘X’s
first time’ for ‘the first time that X …’ (de Klerk and Gough: 363).
Based on our data we can distinguish another grammatical feature that is not really
named by these authors. It concerns the mistakes that are made regarding to plural
and singular verb forms.
There’s (are) chicks involved. (Bad Luck)
There was (were) gangstas here too. (Shaun)
In hip hop there is (are) rooms as well. (Full Stop)
At this point it is important to note that de Klerk and Gough think “it is important
not to treat all of these grammatical features monolithically and as all equally
representative of a uniform BSAE. There is in this respect a considerable variability
with regard to the relative acceptability and utilisation of this features and
structures.” (de Klerk and Gough: 364)
3.2. Hip hop slang
Introduction
We will consider slang as “(…) the non-standard or non-dialectical use of words in a
language of a particular social group, (…).” (Wikipedia 16 ) Slang consists partly of
neologisms, but most of the time it is standard words that are attributed a new and
uncommon meaning. Through “(…) a process of creative and informal use and
adaptation, (…)” (Wikipedia) a new language is created, or at least a new usage for
certain words from a language. In the end, some kind of ‘secret’ language originates,
that is only understood by members of that certain group who use the slang, and
that excludes non-members from the conversation. Slang functions as a means to
recognise members of the same group, and to be able to differentiate that particular
group from the society at large (Wikipedia). Consequently, slang is often linked to
certain subcultures, ranging from music genres to drug users. Yet, slang differs
from jargons, because the latter are rather related to specific fields or professions
(Wikipedia). For example, in conversations concerning their profession, computer
specialists use amongst each other very specific words to refer to the actions they
perform and the material that they use. This rather technical vocabulary consists of
16
http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Slang