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The Asian American voice: a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach to rap lyrics

Rapping has long been used by people who are from the margin of society as a way to give a voice (Campbell, 2005; Ibrahim, 1999). As a member of the marginalized group and as the first and only Asian who claimed a seven-time victory on Freestyle Friday on Black Entertainment Television (BET), Jin Au-Yeung has received a noticeable amount of attention. At the same time, he has faced a lot of unfavourable experience as an Asian rapper in American society. This study employs Fairclough’s (1989) model of CDA approach to find out how Jin constructs his identity and establishes his ideology through his lyrics, and how his construction of identity and establishment of ideology reflect the social practice in American society. Fifteen songs written by Jin were chosen for the analysis according to the three interrelated stages in CDA: description, interpretation and explanation. Results show that Jin constructs his personal identities as a professional rapper and as a Chinese American and establishes his ideology of having one human nation despite the difference in races through his rap lyrics. These are achieved through the co-occurrence of “I” and “to be”, and promoted through the use of rhyming and code-switching. It was also interpreted that Jin’s personal identities and ideology are shaped through the social ideology on Asian Americans, which is probably reflected through the social practice in American society. / published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

  1. 10.5353/th_b4696023
  2. b4696023
Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:HKU/oai:hub.hku.hk:10722/146089
Date January 2011
CreatorsKo, Wing-shum., 高穎森.
PublisherThe University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong)
Source SetsHong Kong University Theses
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypePG_Thesis
Sourcehttp://hub.hku.hk/bib/B46960235
RightsThe author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works., Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License
RelationHKU Theses Online (HKUTO)

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