INTERDISCURSIVITY AS A FACEWORK IN WRITTEN RAP BATTLES

Abstract

In recent years, a new modality of verbal exchange known as ‘written battles’ has aroused special interest in the cultural scenario. In these poetic controversies, rhymes are not spontaneous but have been previously composed. Framed in the ethics and aesthetics parameters of Hip Hop culture, they reveal a series of rhetorical skills, both written and oral. In the light of a broad sociolinguistic approach, which includes contributions from interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 1982), ethnography of communication (Hymes, 1972), discourse analysis (Authier-Revuz, 1984) and sociocultural pragmatic (Bravo, 2017; Hernández Flores, 2013), this article aims to investigate their discursive transversality (Albaladejo, 2005) and facework (Goffman, 1967). Academic literature on Spanish rap (Deditius, 2015, Checa and Camargo, 2022; Checa, 2023) and in the variety of Buenos Aires Spanish (Arias, 2023) are also considered for the consideration of ritual insults (Labov, 1972) and the creation of images and social identities. In terms of methodology, an integrated corpus of two iconic battles is formed: one of an international nature and the other of a national nature. Preliminarily, it can be observed that 1) it is a rising phenomenon, which represents a vacant area in the panoramic of studies related to our approach 2) intertextual practices display a varied profusion in linguistic and face terms that allow us 3) to advance in the knowledge and study of the intersection between language and society.