Some linguistic peculiarities of the English and Russian rap texts: a comparative study drawing on the material of texts of grime microgenre

Abstract

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the linguistic characteristics of the English- and Russian-language song discourse of the late XXth – early XXIst centuries drawing on the material of music works of rap genre. Today, rap is one of the most popular music genres around the world. This musical genre is developing dynamically, comprehending various aspects of modern life, people’s problems, and therefore it has a fairly wide audience. The topicality of the research is determined by the need to deepen the linguistic understanding of creolized texts, the lacunarity of the concept of genres of polycode texts, as well as a high degree of intertextuality of the studied texts. The English and Russian-language texts of rap music works by such artists as Skepta, Oxxxymiron hae served as the material for the research. The Genius website was the source of the texts. Special attention is paid to the classification of subgenres and microgenres of rap with the allocation of the grime microgenre, which has been taken as the key genre for the study. On the basis of the results of the empirical analysis of the discursive material, the authors claim that the Russian- and English-language grime microgenres have some common and differential features. Common features include the use of precedent names, explicit citations, the use of metaphors, antitheses, repetitions, pun, slangisms, obscene lexis, and edlibs. In the English-language grime, there are no allusions to mythology, biblical text, or other literary works that are frequently present in the tracks of the Russian-speaking artist. The authors conclude that various ways of implementing intertextuality are represented in a wider spectrum in the Russian-language grime than in the English-language grime