Dialektas ir identitetas britų ir amerikiečių subkultūrinėje muzikoje
Dialect and identity in British and American subcultural music

Summary/Abstract: Even though sociolinguistic studies have addressed a considerable variety of social factors which influence language use, the cultural significance of music has not received sufficient attention. From the early years of rock and roll to the present day, singers have been modifying their language to subscribe to genre conventions and construct distinctive identities. The present paper focuses on sung pronunciation and the role of slang in establishing a subcultural identity in the music of street punk / Oi!. The principal aim is to analyse the dialect models which are chosen both by British and American bands, in order to relate their linguistic behaviour to broader interpretations of identity goals and group affiliations. The scope of the study is limited to 80 songs, while both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed to analyse the tendencies, with a maintained focus on the Cockney vernacular of the British working class. The results revealed that Oi! bands tend to index such a working-class identity by adopting some of its pronunciation features and specific slang, as well as articulating the values of the skinhead subculture and distancing undesirable groups.

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