Cecelia Cutler works on language and identity, particularly among young people in the U.S. who affiliate with hip-hop culture. Some of her current work explores multilingualism and alignment in computer mediated communication among Mexican-American youth and language attitudes towards Scottish English on YouTube. She is also working on a three-year collaborative NSF-funded project on variation and change in New York City English with Christina Tortora, Michael Newman, and Bill Haddican. Supervisors: John Victor Singler
Global linguistic flows: hip hop cultures, youth …, 2009
... iin] Eyedea lines Ø the only way you'll eve [ә] sell a reco [rr] d. 4. So why&am... more ... iin] Eyedea lines Ø the only way you'll eve [ә] sell a reco [rr] d. 4. So why'd you do that? 5. You don't wanna be (()). ... Representing the real: Exploring appropriations of hip hop culture in the Internet and Nairobi.(Senior undergraduate thesis, Lewis and Clark University, 1996). ...
... and presuppositions are indirect ways of instantiating identity, involving the use of coded o... more ... and presuppositions are indirect ways of instantiating identity, involving the use of coded or indirect language (eg, the word 'hood'or 'ghetto ... hip-hop history, focusing on its African American roots in the Bronx and some of its male founders (Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, Melle ...
Linguists and other social scientists have identified school curriculum, teacher education, langu... more Linguists and other social scientists have identified school curriculum, teacher education, language policy and testing as pedagogical domains in which to address issues and develop tools that foster greater academic achievement of African American English-speaking students, and nonstandard English speakers more generally. This article focuses on the intersection between teachers’ attitudes toward African American English and language policy, or lack
In an article published in this journal 15 years ago, Vivian Cook argued that it was time to ques... more In an article published in this journal 15 years ago, Vivian Cook argued that it was time to question the time-honoured view that the native language (NL) should be avoided in the classroom by teachers and students. The justifications for this perspective hinged on a questionable compartmentalization of the two languages in the mind. The conventional wisdom has been that the NL has no place in the second language (SL) or foreign language (FL) classroom and that teachers should focus on getting students to think and interact exclusively in the target language (TL). In Linguistic Imperialism, Phillipson debunks five fallacies that are foundational in the field of applied linguistics, among them, the monolingual fallacy or the idea that a second or foreign language is best taught monolingually. Questioning monolingual pedagogies is at the heart of the investigations assembled in this Special Issue
... White (2006) is a further exploration of Eminem's authenticity, from the perspective of ... more ... White (2006) is a further exploration of Eminem's authenticity, from the perspective of mediastudies/cultural studies. ... White claims that Eminem establishes a relationship to constructions of authenticity within hip-hop culture through his self-projection as 'White trash' (a ...
This article focuses on change in the “short-a system” of New York City English (NYCE). Recent re... more This article focuses on change in the “short-a system” of New York City English (NYCE). Recent results suggest that a complex set of tensing rules traditionally described for NYCE are being replaced by several simpler systems. This article reports on a study of this change using a recently developed large audio-aligned parsed speech corpus (CoNYCE). This change is similar to the simplification reported for Philadelphia by Labov et al. (2016). Unlike in the Philadelphia case, however, our results do not show evidence of a single abstract process of change. Our findings, rather, suggest at least two separate changes in the community—one affecting short-a in prenasal contexts and a second affecting pre-oral obstruent contexts. In addition, the results suggest an additional independent process of lowering and retraction affecting short-a sounds in contexts not targeted by the process of phonological reorganization, that is, “trap-backing.”
Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA)
Within hip-hop, MC (Master of Cermonies) battles are one of the most visible and potentially humi... more Within hip-hop, MC (Master of Cermonies) battles are one of the most visible and potentially humiliating venues for demonstrating one’s verbal skill. Competitors face each other in front of an audience. Each has a minute to “diss” his or her opponent against a backdrop of rhythms produced by a DJ. Each participant’s performance generally consists of “freestyle” or spontaneously generated rhymes designed to belittle some aspect of the opponent’s appearance, rhyming style or place of origin, and ritual insults directed at his or her mother, sister, or crew. Opponents show good will by embracing afterwards. Ultimately the audience decides who wins by applauding louder for one opponent than the other at the end of the battle. Using the framework of interactional sociolinguistics (Goffman 1974, 1981), I will analyze clips from a televised MC battle in which the winning contestant was a White teenager from the Midwest called “Eyedea.” I will show how Eyedea and his successive African Amer...
Global linguistic flows: hip hop cultures, youth …, 2009
... iin] Eyedea lines Ø the only way you'll eve [ә] sell a reco [rr] d. 4. So why&am... more ... iin] Eyedea lines Ø the only way you'll eve [ә] sell a reco [rr] d. 4. So why'd you do that? 5. You don't wanna be (()). ... Representing the real: Exploring appropriations of hip hop culture in the Internet and Nairobi.(Senior undergraduate thesis, Lewis and Clark University, 1996). ...
... and presuppositions are indirect ways of instantiating identity, involving the use of coded o... more ... and presuppositions are indirect ways of instantiating identity, involving the use of coded or indirect language (eg, the word 'hood'or 'ghetto ... hip-hop history, focusing on its African American roots in the Bronx and some of its male founders (Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, Melle ...
Linguists and other social scientists have identified school curriculum, teacher education, langu... more Linguists and other social scientists have identified school curriculum, teacher education, language policy and testing as pedagogical domains in which to address issues and develop tools that foster greater academic achievement of African American English-speaking students, and nonstandard English speakers more generally. This article focuses on the intersection between teachers’ attitudes toward African American English and language policy, or lack
In an article published in this journal 15 years ago, Vivian Cook argued that it was time to ques... more In an article published in this journal 15 years ago, Vivian Cook argued that it was time to question the time-honoured view that the native language (NL) should be avoided in the classroom by teachers and students. The justifications for this perspective hinged on a questionable compartmentalization of the two languages in the mind. The conventional wisdom has been that the NL has no place in the second language (SL) or foreign language (FL) classroom and that teachers should focus on getting students to think and interact exclusively in the target language (TL). In Linguistic Imperialism, Phillipson debunks five fallacies that are foundational in the field of applied linguistics, among them, the monolingual fallacy or the idea that a second or foreign language is best taught monolingually. Questioning monolingual pedagogies is at the heart of the investigations assembled in this Special Issue
... White (2006) is a further exploration of Eminem's authenticity, from the perspective of ... more ... White (2006) is a further exploration of Eminem's authenticity, from the perspective of mediastudies/cultural studies. ... White claims that Eminem establishes a relationship to constructions of authenticity within hip-hop culture through his self-projection as 'White trash' (a ...
This article focuses on change in the “short-a system” of New York City English (NYCE). Recent re... more This article focuses on change in the “short-a system” of New York City English (NYCE). Recent results suggest that a complex set of tensing rules traditionally described for NYCE are being replaced by several simpler systems. This article reports on a study of this change using a recently developed large audio-aligned parsed speech corpus (CoNYCE). This change is similar to the simplification reported for Philadelphia by Labov et al. (2016). Unlike in the Philadelphia case, however, our results do not show evidence of a single abstract process of change. Our findings, rather, suggest at least two separate changes in the community—one affecting short-a in prenasal contexts and a second affecting pre-oral obstruent contexts. In addition, the results suggest an additional independent process of lowering and retraction affecting short-a sounds in contexts not targeted by the process of phonological reorganization, that is, “trap-backing.”
Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA)
Within hip-hop, MC (Master of Cermonies) battles are one of the most visible and potentially humi... more Within hip-hop, MC (Master of Cermonies) battles are one of the most visible and potentially humiliating venues for demonstrating one’s verbal skill. Competitors face each other in front of an audience. Each has a minute to “diss” his or her opponent against a backdrop of rhythms produced by a DJ. Each participant’s performance generally consists of “freestyle” or spontaneously generated rhymes designed to belittle some aspect of the opponent’s appearance, rhyming style or place of origin, and ritual insults directed at his or her mother, sister, or crew. Opponents show good will by embracing afterwards. Ultimately the audience decides who wins by applauding louder for one opponent than the other at the end of the battle. Using the framework of interactional sociolinguistics (Goffman 1974, 1981), I will analyze clips from a televised MC battle in which the winning contestant was a White teenager from the Midwest called “Eyedea.” I will show how Eyedea and his successive African Amer...
This chapter considers how practices such as passing, styling, crossing, and stylization can info... more This chapter considers how practices such as passing, styling, crossing, and stylization can inform our understanding of L2 pronunciation from the speaker’s perspective. Drawing on data from adolescents who have learned English as a second language or who are second generation immigrants, it explores how they draw on stylistic features from different varieties of the target language in order to construct their identities and alignments in interaction, as well as the motivations and limits of doing so.
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