Home Linguistics & Semiotics “Yo I am Superman, You Kiddo Go Home”: ritual impoliteness in Chinese freestyle rap battles
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

“Yo I am Superman, You Kiddo Go Home”: ritual impoliteness in Chinese freestyle rap battles

  • Mian Jia

    Mian Jia is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include (im)politeness, persuasion, and message effects. His recent work appears in Lingua and International Journal of Communication.

    ORCID logo EMAIL logo
    and Shuting Yao

    Shuting Yao is a doctoral student from The University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include conflict communication, romantic relationships, and interpersonal intercultural communication. Her recent work appears in Journal of Intercultural Communication Research.

    ORCID logo
Published/Copyright: December 17, 2021

Abstract

Introduced by African American communities, Chinese rap battle features an intensive ritual exchange of impoliteness, aggression, and vulgarity, but its linguistic realizations have not been systematically examined. Taking Iron Mic as a case study, this paper explores how advanced and novice rappers perform ritual impoliteness in Chinese underground rap battle competitions. Using mixed methods of discourse analysis and content analysis, we analyze the ritual impoliteness strategies in 51 rounds of Chinese freestyle rap battles. The findings show that advanced and novice rappers employed comparable instances of taboo language, threatening, and insults on their opponents’ superficial qualities and rap skills. Moreover, advanced rappers performed significantly more boasting and ritual insults on the others’ moral qualities. Their use of ritual impoliteness is warranted by hip-hop community norms of authenticity and creativity as well as Chinese social values of reciprocity, filial piety, and moral educators. This paper contributes to the research on Chinese ritual impoliteness and rap battle competitions.


Corresponding author: Mian Jia, Department of Communication Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, 2504A Whitis Ave. (A1105), 78712, Austin, USA, E-mail:

About the authors

Mian Jia

Mian Jia is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include (im)politeness, persuasion, and message effects. His recent work appears in Lingua and International Journal of Communication.

Shuting Yao

Shuting Yao is a doctoral student from The University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include conflict communication, romantic relationships, and interpersonal intercultural communication. Her recent work appears in Journal of Intercultural Communication Research.

References

Alim, H. Samy, Jooyoung Lee & Lauren Mason Carris. 2010. “Short fried‐rice‐eating Chinese MCs” and “good‐hair‐havin uncle Tom niggas”: Performing race and ethnicity in freestyle rap battles. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20(1). 116–133. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1395.2010.01052.x.Search in Google Scholar

Alim, H. Samy, Jooyoung Lee & Lauren Mason Carris. 2011. Moving the crowd, ‘crowding’ the emcee: The coproduction and contestation of black normativity in freestyle rap battles. Discourse & Society 22(4). 422–439. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926510395828.Search in Google Scholar

Alim, H. Samy, Jooyoung Lee, Lauren Mason Carris & Quentin E. Williams. 2018. Linguistic creativity and the production of cisheteropatriarchy: A comparative analysis of improvised rap battles in Los Angeles and Cape Town. Language Sciences 65. 58–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2017.02.004.Search in Google Scholar

Amar, Nathanel. 2018. “Do you freestyle?”: The roots of censorship in Chinese hip-hop. China Perspectives 16(1/2). 107–113. https://doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.7888.Search in Google Scholar

Bacon, Eli T. 2018. Between live performance and mediated narrative: Contemporary rap battle culture in context. In Justin D. Burton & Jason Lee Oakes (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Music, 1–18. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190281090.013.36Search in Google Scholar

Bargiela-Chiappini, Francesca, Ora-Ong Chakorn, Grace Chew Chye Lay, Yeonkwon Jung, Kenneth C. C. Kong, Shanta Nair-Venugopal & Hiromasa Tanaka. 2007. Eastern voices: Enriching research on communication in business: A forum. Discourse & Communication 1(2). 131–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481307071983.Search in Google Scholar

Barrett, Catrice. 2012. Hip-hopping across China: Intercultural formulations of local identities. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 11(4). 247–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2012.706172.Search in Google Scholar

Bax, Marcel. 1981. Rules for ritual challenges: A speech convention among medieval knights. Journal of Pragmatics 5(5). 423–444. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(81)90027-8.Search in Google Scholar

Bax, Marcel. 2010. Rituals. In Andeas H. Jucker & Irma Taavitsainen (eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics (Historical Pragmatics 8), 483–519. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110214284.6.483Search in Google Scholar

Blazin_Assassin. 2011. Rasta. In Urbandictionary.com dictionary. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rasta (accessed 17 April 2020).Search in Google Scholar

Bradley, Adam. 2009. Book of rhymes: The poetics of hip-hop. New York: Basic Civitas Books.Search in Google Scholar

Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511813085Search in Google Scholar

Chang, Jeff. 2007. It’s a hip-hop world. Foreign Policy 163. 58–65.Search in Google Scholar

Chen, Xinren. 2019. “You’re a nuisance!”: “Patch-up” jocular abuse in Chinese fiction. Journal of Pragmatics 139. 52–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.10.015.Search in Google Scholar

Cheuk, Michael Ka-chi. 2021. The politics and aesthetics of featuring in post-2017 Chinese hip hop. Cultural Studies 35(1). 90–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2020.1844260.Search in Google Scholar

Croom, Adam M. 2013. How to do things with slurs: Studies in the way of derogatory words. Language & Communication 33(3). 177–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2013.03.008.Search in Google Scholar

Culpeper, Jonathan. 1996. Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics 25(3). 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(95)00014-3.Search in Google Scholar

Culpeper, Jonathan. 2011. Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511975752Search in Google Scholar

Cutler, Cecelia A. 2007. The co-construction of whiteness in an MC battle. Pragmatics 17(1). 9–22. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.17.1.01cut.Search in Google Scholar

Gao, Ge & Stella Ting-Toomey. 1998. Communicating effectively with the Chinese. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.10.4135/9781452220659Search in Google Scholar

Gu, Yueguo. 1990. Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics 14(2). 237–257. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(90)90082-o.Search in Google Scholar

Hisama, Ellie M. 2016. Improvisation in freestyle rap. In George Lewis & Piekut Benjamin (eds.), The Oxford handbook of critical improvisation studies, 250–257. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199892921.013.24Search in Google Scholar

Holtgraves, Thomas. 1997. Styles of language use: Individual and cultural variability in conversational indirectness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73(3). 624–637. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.3.624.Search in Google Scholar

Hughes, Geoffrey. 1998. Swearing: A social history of foul language, oaths and profanity in English. London: Penguin UK.Search in Google Scholar

Hwang, Kwang-kuo. 1987. Face and favor: The Chinese power game. American Journal of Sociology 92(4). 944–974. https://doi.org/10.1086/228588.Search in Google Scholar

Jay, Kristin L. & Timothy B. Jay. 2015. Taboo word fluency and knowledge of slurs and general pejoratives: Deconstructing the poverty-of-vocabulary myth. Language Sciences 52. 251–259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2014.12.003.Search in Google Scholar

Jay, Timothy. 2009. The utility and ubiquity of taboo words. Perspectives on Psychological Science 4. 153–161. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01115.x.Search in Google Scholar

Jay, Timothy & Kristin Janschewitz. 2008. The pragmatics of swearing. Journal of Politeness Research 4(2). 267–288. https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2008.013.Search in Google Scholar

Jia, Mian & Guoping Yang. 2021. Emancipating Chinese (im) politeness research: Looking back and looking forward. Lingua 251. 103028. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2020.103028.Search in Google Scholar

Johnson, Joseph D. & Natalie Schell-Busey. 2016. Old message in a new bottle: Taking gang rivalries online through rap battle music videos on YouTube. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology 4(1). 42–81. https://doi.org/10.21428/88de04a1.5e39c23c.Search in Google Scholar

Jucker, Andrea H. & Irma Taavitsainen. 2000. Diachronic speech act analysis: Insults from flyting to flaming. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 1(1). 67–95. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.1.1.07juc.Search in Google Scholar

Kádár, Daniel Z. 2017. Politeness, impoliteness and ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781107280465Search in Google Scholar

Kádár, Daniel Z. & Marcel Bax. 2013. In-group ritual and relational work. Journal of Pragmatics 58. 73–86.10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.011Search in Google Scholar

Kádár, Dániel Z. & Puyu Ning. 2019. Ritual public humiliation Using pragmatics to model language aggression. Acta Linguistica Academica 66(2). 189–208. https://doi.org/10.1556/2062.2019.66.2.3.Search in Google Scholar

Kádár, Daniel Z. & Andrea Szalai. 2020. The socialisation of interactional rituals: A case study of ritual cursing as a form of teasing in Romani. Pragmatics 30(1). 15–39.10.1075/prag.19017.kadSearch in Google Scholar

Kádár, Daniel Z., Juliane House, Fengguang Liu & Yulong Song. 2021. Admonishing: A paradoxical pragmatic behaviour in ancient China. Pragmatics 31(2). 173–197.10.1075/prag.20022.kadSearch in Google Scholar

Labov, William. 1972. Language in the inner city: Studies in the black English vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Search in Google Scholar

Lee, Wendy & Alice Su. 2019. Chinese reality show ‘The Rap of China’ comes to L.A. to seek its next star. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-fi-ct-rap-of-china-seeks-rap-star-in-la-20190510-story.html (accessed 12 April 2021).Search in Google Scholar

Lee, Jooyoung. 2009. Escaping embarrassment: Face-work in the rap cipher. Social Psychology Quarterly 72(4). 306–324. https://doi.org/10.1177/019027250907200405.Search in Google Scholar

Lu, Karen. 2021. ‘The Rap of China’ shows how Chinese rap has strayed from the genre’s roots. https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/chinese-rap/ (accessed 12 April 2021).Search in Google Scholar

Ma, Ringo. 2011. Social relations (guanxi): A Chinese approach to interpersonal communication. China Media Research 7(4). 25–33.Search in Google Scholar

Mavima, Shingi. 2016. Bigger by the dozens: The prevalence of Afro-based tradition in battle rap. The Journal of Hip Hop Studies 3(1). 86–105.Search in Google Scholar

McLeod, Kembrew. 1999. Authenticity within hip-hop and other cultures threatened with assimilation. Journal of Communication 49(4). 134–150. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1999.tb02821.x.Search in Google Scholar

Mills, Sarah. 2005. Gender and impoliteness. Journal of Politeness Research 1(2). 263–280. https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.2.263.Search in Google Scholar

Morgan, Marcyliena. 2009. The real hiphop: Battling for knowledge, power, and respect in the LA underground. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.10.1515/9780822392125Search in Google Scholar

Newman, Michael. 2005. Rap as literacy: A genre analysis of hip-hop ciphers. Text 25(3). 399–436. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2005.25.3.399.Search in Google Scholar

Pagliai, Valentina. 2010. Conflict, cooperation, and facework in Contrasto verbal duels. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20(1). 87–100. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1395.2010.01050.x.Search in Google Scholar

Perkins, William E. 1996. The rap attack: An introduction. In William E. Perkins (ed.), Droppin’ science: Critical essays on rap music and hip hop culture, 1–48. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Ran, Yongping & Daniel Z. Kádár. 2019. Chinese impoliteness. Panel organized at the 16th International Pragmatics Association Conference, 9–14 June. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.Search in Google Scholar

Ran, Yongping & Linsen Zhao. 2018. Building mutual affection-based face in conflict mediation: A Chinese relationship management model. Journal of Pragmatics 129. 185–198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.01.013.Search in Google Scholar

Ran, Yongping, Linsen Zhao & Daniel Z Kádár. 2020. The rite of reintegrative shaming in Chinese public dispute mediation. Pragmatics 30(1). 40–63. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.19019.ran.Search in Google Scholar

Sullivan, Jonathan & Yupei Zhao. 2021. Rappers as knights-errant: Classic allusions in the mainstreaming of Chinese rap. Popular Music and Society 44(3). 274–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2019.1704476.Search in Google Scholar

Sykäri, Venla. 2019. Interactive oral composition: Resources, strategies, and the construction of improvised utterances in a Finnish freestyle rap battle. The Journal of American Folklore 132. 3–35.10.5406/jamerfolk.132.523.0003Search in Google Scholar

Tinajero, Robert. 1997. Hip hop Kairos. Rhetoric Review 16. 22–44.10.1080/07350199709389078Search in Google Scholar

Wald, Elijah. 2018. Taboo language used as banter. In Keith Allen (ed.), The Oxford handbook of taboo words and language, 334–352. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198808190.013.18Search in Google Scholar

Williams, Justin A. 2013. Rhymin’ and Stealin’: Musical borrowing in hip-hop. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.10.3998/mpub.3480627Search in Google Scholar

You, Chenghong. 2014. Analysis on the generalization of the address term “teacher” in Chinese from the perspective of sociolinguistics. Theory & Practice in Language Studies 4(3). 575–580. https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.4.3.575-580.Search in Google Scholar

Zhang, Alexander. 2019. Keep it “Skr”: The incorporation of hip-hop subculture through Chinese talent shows and the online battle for authenticity. Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs 5. 73–93.Search in Google Scholar

Zhao, Linsen. 2020. Mock impoliteness and co-construction of hudui rituals in Chinese online interaction. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics 43(1). 45–63. https://doi.org/10.1515/cjal-2020-0004.Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2020-05-29
Accepted: 2021-12-02
Published Online: 2021-12-17
Published in Print: 2022-09-27

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 24.1.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/text-2020-0097/html
Scroll to top button