Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The linguistic and cultural influence of hip-hop and rap: findings of the Oxford Dictionary of African American English project
Cultural manifestations such as hip-hop and rap tend to generate specific language, and these words and expressions are frequently adopted more widely, constituting significant cultural and linguistic influences.
Hip-hop and rap cultures are an important source of evidence for the Oxford Dictionary of African American English (ODAAE) project, and many interesting examples have emerged so far.
This panel discussion covered:
• A brief overview of the ODAAE project
• The main sources of evidence for the project, and why hip-hop and rap are particularly important among those
• Some interesting examples that have emerged
• How this type of language is monitored, and how editors and researchers decide what should be included or not, and why
• The influence hip-hop and rap terms have on African American English
The ODAAE project (oed.com/discover/odaae) is a collaboration between Oxford University Press and Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research (https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/). It is spearheaded by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Editor-in-Chief), Director of the Hutchins Center and Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard, and is funded in part by grants from the Mellon (mellon.org/) and Wagner (wfound.org/) Foundations.
The linguistic and cultural influence of hip-hop and rap: findings of the Oxford Dictionary of African American English project
Cultural manifestations such as hip-hop and rap tend to generate specific language, and these words and expressions are frequently adopted more widely, constituting significant cultural and linguistic influences.
Hip-hop and rap cultures are an important source of evidence for the Oxford Dictionary of African American English (ODAAE) project, and many interesting examples have emerged so far.
This panel discussion covered:
• A brief overview of the ODAAE project
• The main sources of evidence for the project, and why hip-hop and rap are particularly important among those
• Some interesting examples that have emerged
• How this type of language is monitored, and how editors and researchers decide what should be included or not, and why
• The influence hip-hop and rap terms have on African American English
The ODAAE project (oed.com/discover/odaae) is a collaboration between Oxford University Press and Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research (https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/). It is spearheaded by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Editor-in-Chief), Director of the Hutchins Center and Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard, and is funded in part by grants from the Mellon (mellon.org/) and Wagner (wfound.org/) Foundations.
