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ABSTRACT
The usage of slang is inevitable, as it tends to simplify the message being passed across by the singer (artiste) to his audience (listeners) with the notion of aiding better understanding of the songs. Slangy forms and expressions give linguistic aesthetics to songs and most importantly, they enable singers to pass across a whole lot of messages, even while they utter just a few of these messages.
Slangy forms and expressions are deliberately used in hip-hop songs in order to reduce the degree of vulgarity in the content of the song and to increase the rate of acceptability of such song amidst listeners and also for the singers to create a landmark worth discussing even while the song is no longer in vogue. There are hidden messages in slang forms and expressions used in hip-hop songs and for these hidden messages to be known to listeners, a particular level of language analysis has to be done, which is pragmatics. It is therefore to this end that this study sets out to undertake a pragmatic analysis of slangs used in the selected Nigerian hip-hop songs.
The aim of this study is to identify the actual meanings of slang forms and expressions that are used in Nigerian hip-hop songs with reference to the overall meanings of the songs themselves. This identification will help state the reasons why these slang forms are used in songs and their contributions to the singer’s intended meanings of these songs. Haven achieved this objective, we conclude that, for real hip-hop songs to be known to all and sundry, a pragmatic analysis is necessary.
