1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Journal of Language and Pop Culture
  4. Volume 1, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 1, Issue 1
  • ISSN 2950-578X
  • E-ISSN: 2950-5798
PDF
EPUB

Abstract

Abstract

Previous work has shown that American-influenced singing is common in British pop music (BPM). While the existing largely literature focuses on phonetic analysis, this study investigates grammatical variables. The data are drawn from two 1.5-million-word corpora that contain songs performed by either American or British singers during the years 1953–2009. Four grammatical items that tend to appear more frequently in American English than in British English are extracted (, third-person , multiple negation, and the intensifier ). The frequency of these items is examined, as are genre and diachronic effects, and the patterns in the two corpora are then contrasted. A multivariate analysis through reveals a high level of similarity in terms of the relative strength of these predictor variables and the quantitative tendency of each factor. The results are interpreted within an audience/reference design framework as evidence of the influence of American music on BPM.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company. This work was made publicly available by the publisher.
This work was made publicly available by the publisher.
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jlpop.24010.shi
2024-10-22
2025-04-28

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/jlpop.24010.shi
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/jlpop.24010.shi.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1075/jlpop.24010.shi&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Anderwald, L.
    (2002) Negation in non-standard British English: Gaps, regularizations, and asymmetries. Routledge. 10.4324/9780203167502
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203167502 [Google Scholar]
  2. Barker, H., & Taylor, Y.
    (2007) Faking it: The quest for authenticity in popular music. W. W. Norton.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bell, A.
    (2001) Back in style: Reworking audience design. InP. Eckert & J. R. Rickford (Eds.), Style and sociolinguistic variation (pp.139–169). Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511613258.010
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613258.010 [Google Scholar]
  4. Bell, A., & Gibson, A.
    (2011) Staging language: An introduction to the sociolinguistics of performance. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(5), 555–572. 10.1111/j.1467‑9841.2011.00517.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2011.00517.x [Google Scholar]
  5. Bennet, A.
    (2010) Missing links: Britpop traces, 1970–1980. InA. Bennet & J. Stratton (Eds.), Britpop and the English music tradition (pp.71–85). Routledge. 10.4324/9781315570372
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315570372 [Google Scholar]
  6. Borthwick, S., & Moy, R.
    (2004) Popular music genres: An introduction. Edinburgh University Press. 10.1515/9781474428767
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474428767 [Google Scholar]
  7. Brezina, V., Weill-Tessier, P., & McEnery, A.
    (2020) #LancsBox v. 5.x. [software]. https://lancsbox.lancs.ac.uk/
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Bucholtz, M.
    (2015) The elements of style. InD. N. Djenar, A. Mahboob, & K. Cruickshank (Eds.), Language and identity across modes of communication (pp.27–60). Mouton de Gruyter. 10.1515/9781614513599.27
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614513599.27 [Google Scholar]
  9. Burquest, D. A.
    (2006) Phonological analysis: A functional approach. Summer Institute of Linguistics.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Carlsson, C. J.
    (2001) The way they sing it: Englishness and pronunciation in English pop and rock. Moderna Språk, 95(2), 161–168.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Cooper, L. E., & Cooper, B. L.
    (1993) The pendulum of cultural imperialism: Popular music interchanges between the United States and Britain, 1943–1967. Journal of Popular Culture, 27(3), 61–78. 10.1111/j.0022‑3840.1993.00061.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1993.00061.x [Google Scholar]
  12. Culpeper, J., & Demmen, J.
    (2015) Keywords. InD. Biber & R. Reppen (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of English corpus linguistics (pp.90–105). Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139764377.006
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139764377.006 [Google Scholar]
  13. Duncan, D.
    (2017) Australian singer, American features: Performing authenticity in country music. Language and Communication, 521, 31–44. 10.1016/j.langcom.2016.08.004
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2016.08.004 [Google Scholar]
  14. Eckert, P., & Labov, W.
    (2017) Phonetics, phonology, and social meaning. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 21(4), 467–496. 10.1111/josl.12244
     https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12244 [Google Scholar]
  15. Flanagan, P. J.
    (2019) “A Certain Romance”: Style shifting in the language of Alex Turner in Arctic Monkeys songs 2006–2018. Language and Literature, 28(1), 82–98. 10.1177/0963947019827075
     https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947019827075 [Google Scholar]
  16. Frith, S.
    (2001) Pop music. InS. Frith, W. Straw, & J. Street (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to pop and rock (pp.91–108). Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CCOL9780521553698.007
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521553698.007 [Google Scholar]
  17. Fuhg, F.
    (2021) London’s working-class youth and the making of post-Victorian Britain, 1958–1971. Palgrave Macmillan. 10.1007/978‑3‑030‑68968‑1
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1 [Google Scholar]
  18. Gibson, A.
    (2024) Pop Song English as a supralocal norm. Language in Society, 53(3), 471–498. 10.1017/S0047404523000131
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404523000131 [Google Scholar]
  19. Gibson, A., & Bell, A.
    (2012) Popular music singing as referee design. InJ. M. Hernández-Campoy & J. A. Cutillas-Espinosa (Eds.), Style-shifting in public: New perspectives on stylistic variation (pp.139–164). John Benjamins. 10.1075/silv.9.08gib
     https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.9.08gib [Google Scholar]
  20. Giles, H., & Smith, P. M.
    (1979) Accommodation theory: Optimal levels of convergence. InH. Giles & R. N. St. Clair (Eds.), Language and social psychology (pp.45–65). Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Gourvish, T., & Tennent, K.
    (2010) Peterson and Berger revisited: Changing market dominance in the British popular music industry, c. 1950–80. Business History, 52(2), 187–206. 10.1080/00076791003610717
     https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791003610717 [Google Scholar]
  22. Hesmondhalgh, D., & Melville, C.
    (2002) Urban breakbeat culture: Repercussions of hip-hop in the United Kingdom. InT. Mitchell (Ed.), Global noise: Rap and hip hop outside the USA (pp.86–110). Wesleyan University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Hon, L. Y.
    (2013) The greatest era of the UK pop music industry: An efficiency perspective. Popular Music History, 8(3), 289–306. 10.1558/pomh.v8i3.15854
     https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v8i3.15854 [Google Scholar]
  24. Ito, R., & Tagliamonte, S. A.
    (2003) Well weird, right dodgy, very strange, really cool: Layering and recycling in English intensifiers. Language in Society, 32(2), 257–279. 10.1017/S0047404503322055
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404503322055 [Google Scholar]
  25. Jansen, L., & Westphal, M.
    (2017) Rihanna works her multivocal pop persona: A morpho-syntactic and accent analysis of Rihanna’s singing style. English Today, 33(2), 1–10. 10.1017/S0266078416000651
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078416000651 [Google Scholar]
  26. Konert-Panek, M.
    (2017) Americanization versus Cockney: Stylization in Amy Winehouse’s singing accent. InV. Kennedy & M. Gadpaille (Eds.), Ethnic and cultural identity in music and song lyrics (pp.77–94). Cambridge Scholars. 10.1108/AAM‑03‑2018‑0003
     https://doi.org/10.1108/AAM-03-2018-0003 [Google Scholar]
  27. Kreyer, R., & Mukherjee, J.
    (2007) The style of pop song lyrics: A corpus linguistic pilot study. Anglia, 125(1), 31–58. 10.1515/ANGL.2007.31
     https://doi.org/10.1515/ANGL.2007.31 [Google Scholar]
  28. Le Page, R. B., & Tabouret-Keller, A.
    (1985) Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Meyerhoff, M.
    (2009) Replication, transfer, and calquing: Using variation as a tool in the study of language contact. Language Variation and Change, 21(3), 297–317. 10.1017/S0954394509990196
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394509990196 [Google Scholar]
  30. Milestone, K.
    (2018) Madchester. InB. Lashua, S. Wagg, K. Spracklen, & S. M. Yavuz (Eds.), Sounds and the city: Volume21 (pp.303–319). Palgrave Macmillan. 10.1007/978‑3‑319‑94081‑6
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94081-6 [Google Scholar]
  31. Moore, E.
    (2023) Socio-syntax: Exploring the social life of grammar. Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781108921299
     https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108921299 [Google Scholar]
  32. Morrissey, F. A.
    (2008) Liverpool to Louisiana in one lyrical line: Style choice in British rock, pop, and folk singing. InM. A. Locher & J. Strässler (Eds.), Standards and norms in the English language (pp.193–216). Mouton de Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110206982.1.195
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110206982.1.195 [Google Scholar]
  33. Murphey, T.
    (1992) The discourse of pop songs. TESOL Quarterly, 26(4), 770–774. 10.2307/3586887
     https://doi.org/10.2307/3586887 [Google Scholar]
  34. Nakayama, M.
    (2009) AIN’T and DON’T: A sociolinguistic study of non-standard negation in Victorian novels. Studies in English Literature, 501, 1–23.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. O’Hanlon, R.
    (2006) Australian hip hop: A sociolinguistic investigation. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 26(2), 193–209. 10.1080/07268600600885528
     https://doi.org/10.1080/07268600600885528 [Google Scholar]
  36. Poplack, S., & Tagliamonte, S. A.
    (1991) African American English in the diaspora: Evidence from old-line Nova Scotians. Language Variation and Change, 3(3), 309–339. 10.1017/S0954394500000594
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500000594 [Google Scholar]
  37. Queen, R.
    (2018) Working with performed language: Movies, television, and music. InC. Mallinson, B. Childs, & G. van Herk (Eds.), Data collection in sociolinguistics: Method and applications (pp.218–226). Routledge. 10.4324/9780203136065‑24
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203136065-24 [Google Scholar]
  38. Sankoff, D., Tagliamonte, S. A., & Smith, E.
    (2005) Goldvarb X. [software]. https://individual.utoronto.ca/tagliamonte/goldvarb.html
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Simpson, P.
    (1999) Language, culture, and identity: With (another) look at accents in pop and rock singing. Multilingua, 18(4), 343–367. 10.1515/mult.1999.18.4.343
     https://doi.org/10.1515/mult.1999.18.4.343 [Google Scholar]
  40. Smith, N. R.
    (2016) British top 20 hits (1952–2015). CreateSpace.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. (2017) American top 20 hits of the 1950’s. CreateSpace.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. (2018a) American top 20 hits of the 1960’s. CreateSpace.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. (2018b) American top 20 hits of the 1970’s. CreateSpace.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. (2018c) American top 20 hits of the 1980’s. CreateSpace.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Speers, L.
    (2017) Hip-hop authenticity and the London scene: Living out authenticity in popular music. Routledge. 10.4324/9781315661049
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315661049 [Google Scholar]
  46. Tait, C., Tabain, M., & Sykes, I.
    (2014) Stress-meter alignment in American hip hop. InJ. Hay & E. Parnell (Eds.), Proceedings of the 15th Australasian international conference on speech science and technology (pp.189–192). ASSTA. https://www.assta.org/proceedings/sst/SST-14/8.A.%20PROSODY/2.%20TAIT.pdf
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Trudgill, P.
    (1983) Acts of conflicting identity: The sociolinguistics of British pop-song pronunciation. InP. Trudgill (Ed.), On dialect: Social and geographical perspectives (pp.141–160). Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Wales, K.
    (2000) North and South: An English linguistic divide?English Today, 16(1), 4–15. 10.1017/S0266078400011378
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078400011378 [Google Scholar]
  49. Werner, V.
    (2012) Love is all around: A corpus-based study of pop lyrics. Corpora, 7(1), 19–50. 10.3366/cor.2012.0016
     https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2012.0016 [Google Scholar]
  50. (2019) Assessing hip-hop discourse: Linguistic realness and styling. Text & Talk, 39(5), 671–698. 10.1515/text‑2019‑2044
     https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2019-2044 [Google Scholar]
  51. (2021) Text-linguistic analysis of performed language: Revisiting and re-modeling Koch and Oesterreicher. Linguistics, 59(3). 541–575. 10.1515/ling‑2021‑0036
     https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2021-0036 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/jlpop.24010.shi
Loading
A grammatical analysis of American and British pop music
Journal of Language and Pop Culture 1, 18 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1075/jlpop.24010.shi
/content/journals/10.1075/jlpop.24010.shi
/content/journals/10.1075/jlpop.24010.shi
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Americanization; intensifiers; language performance; negation; variable rule analysis
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error