Sociolinguistics of Hip-hop as Critical Conscience

This book adopts a sociolinguistic perspective to trace the origins and enduring significance of hip-hop as a global tool of resistance to oppression. The contributors, who represent a range of international perspectives, analyse how hip-hop is employed to express dissatisfaction and dissent relating to such issues as immigration, racism, stereotypes and post-colonialism. Utilising a range of methodological approaches, they shed light on diverse hip-hop cultures and practices around the world, highlighting issues of relevance in the different countries from which their research originates. Together, the authors expand on current global understandings of hip-hop, language and culture, and underline its immense power as a form of popular culture through which the disenfranchised and oppressed can gain and maintain a voice. This thought-provoking edited collection is a must-read for scholars and students of linguistics, race studies and political activism, and for anyone with an interest in hip-hop.

Andrew S. Ross is a lecturer at Southern Cross University, Queensland, Australia. He has published in the area of emotions and motivation in language learning, and language and new media.  Damian J. Rivers is an associate professor at Future University Hakodate, Hokkaidō, Japan. He has co-edited several books, including Resistance to the Known: Counter-Conduct in Language Education (2015, Palgrave Macmillan).