A Pragmatic Analysis of Slang and Catchy Phrases Used in Some Selected Nigerian Hip-Hop Songs
Chapter One
PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH.
The purpose of this essay is to justify the deliberate insertion of slangy expressions and catchy phrases in the composition and rendition of Nigerian hip-hop songs. The study aims at asserting the fact that the singers’ intended meanings of these songs would not have been realizable without these slangy expressions and catchy phrases used in them. It therefore pragmatically analyses these slangy forms and catchy phrases with reference to the overall meanings of the songs.
CHAPTER TWO
This chapter consists of a review of literature on the following topics:
- Pragmatics
- Goals of pragmatics and its theories
- Theories of pragmatics
- Elements of pragmatics
- Slang
- Hip-hop
PRAGMATICS
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. It studies how utterances are interpreted, taking special note of the situation(s) surrounding such utterances. Levinson (1983, p.24) asserts that “it is a branch of study concerned with the ability of language users to pair sentences with the context in which they would be appropriate”. It is a term coined out of a Greek word “pragma” meaning action. Adegbite (2000, p.60) is of the view that “the term pragmatics originated in philosophical studies”, it has however been used in several disciplines both scientific and humanistic. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pragmatics opines that pragmatics was a reaction to structural linguistics as outlined by Ferdinand de Saussure. The structural linguists believe that language has an analyzable structure composed of parts that can be defined in relation to others. Hence, they believe that the meaning of an utterance is solely determined by its structure (surface arrangement of words). Conversely, scholars interested in pragmatics believe that language use is of crucial importance and they draw attention to the fact that, the occasion of an utterance is important and that the specific context of such occasion must be fully understood before the meaning of an utterance can be fully grasped. Adegbija (1999, p.89)
Pragmatics is atimes studied as part of semantics (the general study of meaning). Udofot(1998, pp.126-146) states that while nominal theories, conceptual theories and contextual theories are the early theories of semantics, componential analysis and truth conditional semantics are its later theories, while pragmatics falls into the category of the theory of semantics which evolved as a result of further advances in the in the study of meaning. However, Adegbite (2000, p.60) asserts that pragmatic can be studied atimes, as part of semantics, only “if semantics is considered with the wider consideration of meaning as cognitive meaning plus social meaning and contextual meaning”. But if semantics is considered in the narrow sense of cognitive meaning alone, then pragmatics will function alone to cater for the remaining aspects of meaning.
In summary and conclusively, in the context of this research work, pragmatics is the study and analysis of language use, meaning encoding and decoding, utterance understanding and interpretation in particular communicative situation (specifically the hip-hop genre of music), which specially takes cognizance of the message being passed, the singer’s intention, the object being referred to in the song and also the relevant aspects of the physical or social setting of the song.
GOALS OF PRAGMATICS AND ITS THEORIES
According to Levinson (1983,pp.35-43), the goals of pragmatics are;
- to serve as a reaction or antidote to Chomsky’s treatment of language as an abstract device, dissociable from the uses, users and functions of language.
- to erect a radical simplification of semantics
- to bridge the very substantial gap between semantics (including syntax and phonology), and a complete theory of linguistic communication.
- to offer a significant functional explanation for linguistic facts.
- to establish the effect(s) of the uses of language on language structures.
- to build up ideas about which aspect(s) of the context of utterances that are likely in general to exert functional pressure on language.
GOALS OF PRAGMATIC THEORIES
The Webster’s Universal Dictionary and Thesaurus (2007,p.683) defines a theory as “assumption, conjecture, hypothesis, idea, plan, postulation, principle, scheme, speculation, surmise, system, doctrine, philosophy…” Considering the goals of pragmatics, Olukoya (2010,p.7) believes any of the pragmatic theories serves as a guideline for the analysis of language use and understanding of utterance meaning(s) in different communicative contexts. Adegbija (1998, p.198) states the principal goals of pragmatic theories as;
- to explain how utterances convey meaning in context
- to explain how meaning is decoded from utterances in contexts and in particular situations
- to explain how context contributes to the encoding and decoding of meaning.
- to explain how speakers and hearers of utterances perceive them as conveying the meaning they are considered as conveying in particular utterances.
- to explain how speakers can say one thing and mean something else, and
- to explain how deductions are made in context with respect to what meaning has been encoded in a particular utterance.
“undoubtedly, these different goals are related” (ibid), but as far as we are aware in this research work, no full blown pragmatic theory that independently caters for all the above goals has been developed.
CHAPTER THREE
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
The main focus of this chapter is to present and analyze slangy expressions that are used in each of the songs A, B, C, D identified below. However in places where ‘‘catchy phrases’’ are used instead of slangy forms, we are still focusing on slang but with a slight difference. Catchy phrases, for the purpose of this research work are words that are used exactly like slangy forms but cannot be appropriately tagged slangy forms. These words occur mostly when native languages are being used in utterances, songs, and so on. They usually specially attract listeners’ attentions and for this reason, we name them ‘‘catchy phrases’’. The songs are presented one after the other with;
(A). A short summary of each of them
(B). A list of Identified slang forms/catchy phrases
(C). Analysis of slang forms/catchy phrases identified.
SONG A MARYJANE by Vector Da Viper
SHORT SUMMARY
The singer, through a careful use of symbol and imagery, talks about his (the singer’s) act of smoking ‘‘Indian hemp’’ also known as ‘‘marijuana’’. The song describes a pretty young lady named Maryjane, who normally wears a white tight dress with a hot rear view and goes around with every male. The song further says that this lady, despite everything she does, is not bad and that she has a lot of good behaviours in her.
The song ends by stating that the singer has signed a life contract with the lady and that eternal damnation awaits anyone who intends to come between the singer and the lady Maryjane (marijuana)
CHAPTER FOUR
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we intend to summarize all that has been done from chapters one to three. Attempts will be made to bring out findings, and a reasonable conclusion will be offered for the research work.
SUMMARY
The major preoccupation of this research work has been to apply pragmatics to the analysis of slang forms used in some selected Nigerian hip-hop songs; such that the meanings of these slang forms with reference to the overall meanings of the song will be identified. The work is divided into four (4) chapters.
Chapter one begins with the general introduction, the purpose and justification of the study, and also states the research hypothesis and questions .This chapter also defines the scope and limitation as well as the methodology of the study.
Chapter two carries out a review of related literatures in order to establish a foundation on which the study is based. Areas such as pragmatics, its goals and theories, slang, and hip-hop are discussed.
Chapter three carries out a pragmatic analysis of slang forms that are extracted from certain Nigerian hip-hop songs using pragmatic elements such as intention, reference, presupposition, context, inference, and also by identifying the illocutionary act each slang form performs.
Finally, chapter four gives the summary, the findings and the conclusion of the study.
FINDINGS
From the analysis of twenty-one (21) slang forms/catchy phrases used in some selected Nigerian hip-hop songs, it can be found that no slang form has a conventionally static meaning. This is because meaning in slang, changes according to context of use. An example is ‘‘blow’’ which can either mean (i), accomplishment or success in a particular internet transaction or business, as in ‘‘I don blow o’’-(I have a financial breakthrough), or (ii) an act of spending lavishly in another sense as in ‘‘come blow with us eh’’-(come and spend lavishly with us).
We also found that hip-hop music is in no way just an art for art sake that is meant just for aesthetics alone. We found that it is generally captioned under ‘‘entertainment ’’ and people therefore generally limit its essence within the scope of entertainment, and that when they appraise it (hip-hop music) form the surface level, it look so trivial, but we found that there a lot more meanings embedded within it ,when one goes deep to access its implicit meaning(s). In order words, we found that hip-hop music is functional and its essence cannot be underestimated, as it is didactic in nature, that is, it informs about the situation of things in people’s lives, in a nation, and so on, and also teaches about societal correction and development, and youth morality.
Furthermore, we found that slang forms and catchy phrases are inevitable in Nigerian hip-hop songs, as they are the best method a hip-hop singer uses, to carefully structure certain vulgar utterances and also to euphemize certain embarrassing and unpleasant utterances. We also found that slang forms and catchy phrases are deliberately used by Nigerian hip-hop singers to enable them to avoid direct stating of a referent being criticized, especially in satirical hip-hop songs. An example is‘‘Atilaawi’’-(the one, whom we are talking about), which is used to refer to a particular sit-tight politician in Nigeria, instead of mentioning his name.
In addition, we found that no hip-hop singer chooses slang forms and catchy phrases arbitrarily. They consider factors such as, currency and relevance of slang forms and catchy phrases to the subject matters of the songs, the general beliefs and norms which are both known to the singers and the listeners, the purposed goal for singing such songs, the social status of the target listeners in terms of age and exposure, and the interpretability and accessibility of slang chosen.
Finally, we found that hip-hop singers usually take for granted certain factors about the totality of the target listeners. Singers believe the target listeners all share these qualities, and that these factors aid their (listeners’) inferences and identification of the singers’ intended meanings. These factors include the belief that all the target listeners know the singer and the kind of song he sings, the belief that they all know the person(s) or object(s) being referred to in the song, and the belief that the language of rendition used in the song is understood by almost all, if not all target listeners.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this research work has been able to analyze slang forms and catchy phrases used in some selected Nigerian hip-hop songs by applying some elements of pragmatics to them. This has enabled us to point out the reasons why these slang forms and catchy phrases were used, and their contributions to the overall meanings of the songs. It is on this note that we say, the knowledge of pragmatics makes hip-hop music and other genres of music, to be easily accessible to all and sundry.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES
- Akande, A. (2010) “Petepete “on Tradition (CD).Lagos: Alapomeji Records
- Idibia, I. (2010) ‘‘Enter the Place” on Unstoppable (CD).Lagos: Hypertek Records
- Oguntimefun, V. (2010 ‘‘Maryjane” on State of Surprise (CD).Lagos: YSG Records
- Olonitola, J. (2010) ‘‘Otiyanyan” on Otiyanyan Reloaded (CD).Lagos: Foxtrox Records
SECONDARY SOURCES
- Adegbija ,E.(1999)“Titbits On Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics “in Adegbija, E,.(ed.)The English Language and Literature in English: An Introductory Handbook.(pp.186-205).Ilorin: Department of European Languages.
- Adegbite, W. (2000) “Pragmatics: Some Basic Principles and Procedures “in Babajide, O,. (ed.)Studies in English Language. (pp.60-75). Ibadan: Enicrownfit publishers.
- Adeoye, A. (2003) “Meaning Change and Slang Usage in Entertainment Magazines” An Unpublished B.A. Research Work, Department of European Languages, Faculty of Arts University of Ilorin, Ilorin .
- Bach, K. & Harnish, R. (1976) Linguistic Communication and Speech Act. London: MIT Press