Event Title
From the African American Oral Tradition to Slam Poetry: Rhetoric and Stylistics
Presentation Type
Oral and/or Visual Presentation
Presenter Major(s)
Writing
Location
Kirkhof Center 2201
Start Date
10-4-2013 12:00 AM
End Date
10-4-2013 12:00 AM
Abstract
Slam poetry is one of African Americans most recent cultural innovations. The artistry of slam poetry is undervalued while its entertainment appeal is overvalued. This research project focuses on selected verbal features of slam poetry and seeks to balance the artistic and entertainment appeal of contemporary slam poetry by demonstrating that its verbal features derive from a linguistic heritage in early forms of Black English vernacular oral storytelling and from performance poetry produced by African Americans in the mid-twentieth century. Sociolinguistics, specifically descriptive linguistics and discourse analysis, will be used as methodologies to isolate and describe artistic and rhetorical features that slam poetry shares with texts in the Black vernacular oral tradition. This research will also answer questions about slam and hopefully produce contemporaries who are better informed of slam poetry's cultural legacy.
From the African American Oral Tradition to Slam Poetry: Rhetoric and Stylistics
Kirkhof Center 2201
Slam poetry is one of African Americans most recent cultural innovations. The artistry of slam poetry is undervalued while its entertainment appeal is overvalued. This research project focuses on selected verbal features of slam poetry and seeks to balance the artistic and entertainment appeal of contemporary slam poetry by demonstrating that its verbal features derive from a linguistic heritage in early forms of Black English vernacular oral storytelling and from performance poetry produced by African Americans in the mid-twentieth century. Sociolinguistics, specifically descriptive linguistics and discourse analysis, will be used as methodologies to isolate and describe artistic and rhetorical features that slam poetry shares with texts in the Black vernacular oral tradition. This research will also answer questions about slam and hopefully produce contemporaries who are better informed of slam poetry's cultural legacy.