Who You Callin' a Bitch?
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Who You Callin’ a Bitch? Contextualising Sexist Language Use in Hip-Hop Ella Glover The University of Salford | Dr. Margaret Scott Word Count: 10, 239 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 3 SECTION 1: Sexist Language .................................................................................. 3 1.1 Grammatical Sexism ............................................................................................... 5 1.2 Lexical Sexism ......................................................................................................... 5 1.2.1 Semantic Derogation ....................................................................................................................... 6 1.3 Linguistic Reclamation ........................................................................................... 7 SECTION 2: Context and Meaning .......................................................................... 9 SECTION 3: Political Correctness......................................................................... 11 4.1 The Semantic Derogation of Bitch............................................................................. 13 4.2 The Coexistent Variations of Bitch ............................................................................ 15 SECTION 5: Sexist Language Use in Hip-Hop ..................................................... 15 5.1 Kanye West ................................................................................................................... 17 5.1.1 Famous ............................................................................................................................................ 17 5.1.2 That’s My Bitch ............................................................................................................................... 19 5.1.3 Ho (I Love It) .................................................................................................................................... 21 5.1.4 Jesus is King ................................................................................................................................... 22 5.2 Eminem ......................................................................................................................... 23 5.2.1 Medicine Man .................................................................................................................................. 24 5.2.2 Low Down Dirty ............................................................................................................................... 26 5.2.3 As the World Turns......................................................................................................................... 27 5.2.4 Marsh ............................................................................................................................................... 28 5.3 Nicki Minaj .................................................................................................................... 29 5.3.1 Boss Ass Bitch (Remix) ................................................................................................................. 29 5.3.2 Anaconda ......................................................................................................................................... 32 5.3.3 Miami ................................................................................................................................................ 35 5.4 Iggy Azalea ................................................................................................................... 37 5.4.1 New Bitch ......................................................................................................................................... 37 5.4.2 Murda Bizness ................................................................................................................................ 39 5.4.3 D.R.U.G.S ........................................................................................................................................ 41 SECTION 6: Discussion & Conclusion ................................................................. 42 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 47 Azalea, I., 2011. D.R.U.G.S. [Digital Download] Souncloud. ............................... 47 Appendix ................................................................................................................. 58 Lyrics ....................................................................................................................... 58 Famous ...................................................................................................................................................... 58 That’s My Bitch ......................................................................................................................................... 62 Ho (I Love It) ............................................................................................................................................. 65 Selah .......................................................................................................................................................... 67 Follow God ................................................................................................................................................ 70 On God....................................................................................................................................................... 72 Water .......................................................................................................................................................... 73 Medicine Man ............................................................................................................................................ 74 Low Down Dirty ......................................................................................................................................... 79 As the World Turns .................................................................................................................................. 83 1 Marsh ......................................................................................................................................................... 88 Anaconda ................................................................................................................................................... 92 Boss Ass Bitch (Remix) ........................................................................................................................... 96 Miami ........................................................................................................................................................ 100 My N*gga ................................................................................................................................................. 103 YG, My Krazy Life (2014) ...................................................................................................................... 103 New Bitch ................................................................................................................................................. 107 Murda Bizness ........................................................................................................................................ 110 D.R.U.G.S ................................................................................................................................................ 113 Iggy Azalea Ft. YG, DRUGS (2011) .................................................................................................... 113 2 INTRODUCTION “The words we use to describe people and events have consequences” (Mooney, 2019, p. 3). That is, the language we use, dependant on context, can have both individual implications (about a speaker’s own ideology) and larger social implications (the perpetuation of such ideologies on a larger scale). The way we think about and use language can “assist in resisting oppression, protecting the powerless and building a good society,” (Mooney, 2019, p. 4) or, importantly, it can do the opposite. This paper looks to establish whether performance (of a certain genre), intent and gender influence the reception of politically incorrect – specifically sexist – language by contextualising the use of bitch in hip-hop by four artists – Kanye West, Eminem, Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea – and their reception in the media. To effectively discuss the use of sexist language in hip-hop, three key concepts must be understood: 1. Sexism and sexist language 2. Linguistic reclamation 3. The contribution of context to meaning 4. Political Correctness SECTION 1: Sexist Language 3 There is ample discourse surrounding sexist language and the interaction of language and gender. Although it was later criticised for its lack of empirical evidence and introspective nature (Coates, 2004; Mooney, 2019), Robin Lakoff’s Language and Woman’s Place (1975) is considered “symbolic” (Coates, 2004, p. 5) in that it was one of the first works that focused on gender; or more specifically, women. Following Lakoff, more works surrounding women and gender in linguistics surfaced in the late 1970s, during the second wave of feminism. This relatively late start can be attributed to that, previously, gender was