The Rhetoric of Rap: A Challenge to Dominant Forces? David Caldwell The University of Sydney Abstract For more than a decade, hip-hop culture and rap music has been of particular interest to scholars in the social sciences. One noteworthy contribution is Potter’s (1995) analysis of hip-hop culture which draws on postmodern social theory to argue for rap music’s status as a model resistance; a challenge dominant forces. For Potter, the African- American vernacular is a fundamental part of this ‘resistance’. Unfortunately, given his orientation towards cultural studies, Potter does not provide any empirical linguistic evidence to support his claims. As a contribution to Potter’s research, this paper performs a linguistic analysis of a small corpus of African-American rap songs. From Systemic Functional Linguistics, the Appraisal system of Engagement is used to investigate the ways in which rappers ‘engage’ with the values expressed in their lyrics. Drawing on Bahktin’s dialogics, the Engagement findings are also interpreted as intersubjective devices used by African-American rap artists to align themselves with a particular community, and at the same time, distance themselves from others. In this way, it is expected the findings will help reveal the extent to which rap lyrics do, or do not, ‘challenge’ dominant forces. 1 Introduction Since the emergence of rap music in the late-1970s, scholars have become increasingly interested in not only rap music, but also the hip-hop culture from which it derives (Rose 1994, Walser 1995, Krims 2000, Keyes 2002, Mitchell 2002). Watkins suggests that hip-hop culture and rap music are of particular interest because they lend themselves to a variety of disciplines: “[it] intersects with many aspects of contemporary life–technology, pop culture, linguistics, globalisation, geography, race…” (Watkins 2005: 244). A key contribution to this growing interdisciplinary canon is Potter’s (1995) book-length publication Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism. Potter draws on cultural studies to investigate the extent to which rap music may model the kinds of processes described in postmodern social theory. Potter basically argues that hip-hop is representative of postmodernism “for its ability at breaking, fragmenting, or ‘signifying’ on time” (Keyes 1999: 179- 180). Potter is particularly interested in the role of language: If there is a field in which hip-hop’s revolution will be fought, it will be first and foremost that of language, a fact which is underlined by the recurrent metaphoric mixture of rappers’ own technologies (microphones, pencils and tongues) with those of armed struggle (guns, hand grenades, artillery)... Can linguistics provide a kind of model for the tactics and effectivity of the kind of cultural resistance staged by hip-hop? (Potter 1995: 64) In short, Potter argues that the ‘hip-hop vernacular’ as part of the African-American vernacular, is a tool of resistance; something that can not only subvert, but transform the ‘hegemonic utterance’ of the dominant forces. Krims summarises Potter’s work as follows: Bridging Discourses: ASFLA 2007 Online Proceedings 1