VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY

THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENT OF LITHUANIAN STUDIES

Ai Vinh Pham Le

CODE-SWITCHING AND STANCE-TAKING IN VIETNAMESE: A CASE

STUDY OF THE RAP VIET TV PROGRAM

Master of Arts Thesis

Joint study programme “Sociolinguistics and Multilingualism”, state code in Lithuania 6281NX001
Study area of Linguistics

Supervisor Dr. Aurelija Tamosinuaite ________ _________

(signature) (date)

Approved by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rūta Eidukevičienė ________ _________

(signature) (date)

Kaunas, 2021
Abstract
This thesis examined and presented the relationship between code-switching and rap
community membership in the Rap Viet TV show from the sociolinguistic perspective.
The language practice encompassed verbal speech and code-switching between English
and Vietnamese. By employing both intra- and inter-sentential code-switching within
their turn, conversational participants were able to create their multiple authentic stances
while communicating their message. Language choice of rap artists and hip-hoppers as
animators represented their belief and allowed them to claim their group membership.
Via constant engaging in code-switching practices, members of Vietnamese rap
community conventionalized its use, hence, code-switching as a practice became a
marker of stance associated with this particular community of practice. The in-group
signaling contextualized their stances as characteristics of group solidarity, projecting
group memberships and specific social identity for the authors of the stances. The
universal code of English was the main resource for constructing “glocal” hip-hop
identities of hip-hoppers. Hip-hop artists paid much attention to adopt linguistic patterns
of African American English to construct and maintain the sense of shared community.
The authentic ideology intertwined the meaning of global hip-hop culture and local
culture language ideology in their speech. It left evidence for the co-authorship and co-
construction acts between hip-hop artists and the urban youth community.

Keywords: code-switching, stancetaking, Vietnamese – English, group solidarity, turn-

taking communication, hip-hop community, glocalization.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 2
2. Globalization, the role of English and emergence of hip-hop culture in Vietnam: An
overview ................................................................................................................... 4
2.1 English as a foreign language in Vietnam ........................................................ 4
2.2 English-Vietnamese code-switching ................................................................. 6
2.3 Hip-hop subculture in Vietnam ......................................................................... 7
3. Theoretical approach ................................................................................................ 9
3.1 Defining code-switching: models, approaches and perspectives ...................... 9
3.1.1 Social factors focus (social function of code choice) ............................ 10
3.1.2 Conversation analysis and pragmatic movements of code-switching ... 11
3.2 Code-switching in rap music .......................................................................... 12
3.3 The language of hip-hop ................................................................................. 13
3.4 Stance .............................................................................................................. 18
4. Methodology .......................................................................................................... 21
4.1 Methodological approach................................................................................ 21
4.2 Data description and data collection ............................................................... 22
4.3 Data analysis ................................................................................................... 23
5. Findings .................................................................................................................. 25
5.1 Formal and structural characteristics of code-switching in Rap Viet show.... 25
5.2 Code-switching as a marker of stance ............................................................ 26
5.3 Code-switching as stancetaking act ................................................................ 26
5.3.1 Code-switching as positioning strategy ................................................. 27
5.3.2 Code-switching as evaluation strategy .................................................. 30
5.3.3 Code-switching as disalignment strategy .............................................. 31
5.4 Stances relating to hip hop identity ................................................................. 33
5.4.1 Code-switching as a marker of keepin’ it real stances .......................... 33
5.4.2 Code-switching as a marker of giving props/respect stances ................ 39
5.4.3 Code-switching as a marker of gangsta stances .................................... 46
6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 55
7. References .............................................................................................................. 58
Appendices
List of Abbreviations
16T 16Typh
AAE African American English
AFTA The Association of Southeast Asian Nations Free Trade Area
APEC The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum
BZ BinZ
CS Code-switching
CA Conversation analysis
GD GDucky
GZ Gonzo
KR Karik
JT JustaTee
RO set The set of rights and obligations
RM Rhymastic
SB Suboi
TL TLinh
TRPs Turn transition-relevance places
TT Tran Thanh
WW Wowy
WTO The World Trade Organization
YunoBB Yuno Bigboi
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1. Introduction
Hip-hop in general or rapping in particular blossomed in the late 1970s in New
York. The term hip-hop referred to the urban youth culture as a cultural production of
graffiti art, slang rapping, break dancing, styles of dress, love of basketball in America.
Originally, the term rap was credited by African American community and alluded to
romantic, sexualized interaction within their speech (Smitherman, 1997). Later on, when
it was spread to the public language in the late 1960s, its meaning was transformed to
“strong, aggressive, highly influential and powerful talk” (Smitherman, 1997: 4). From
the late 1980s, through the history of hip-hop culture development, the presence of hip-
hop culture has left significant sense as an important part in urban African American
culture (Morgan, 2001). Nonetheless, this hip-hop has involved not only the black
underclass youth or minority groups as a New York City phenomenon but also gained its
impact as a cultural movement from the United States to other youth groups around the
world (McGregor, 1998).
This movement under the lens of global linguistic flows was conceived as
“universal language” or ‘global idiom’ (Mitchell, 2011: 12 & 21). The global spread and
local appropriation of hip-hop culture, from Shanghai to Nairobi and São Paulo, hip-hop
was evolving into a global art of communication. The articulated hip-hop discourse of
glocalization has been documented from research outside the United States concerning
how ‘its various local articulations depart from the “original” in significant ways – in rap
music, for example, in terms of language choice, song topics, cultural references, and
sampling practices.” (Androutsopoulos, 2009). Hip-hop culture was introduced to
Vietnamese culture as the influences of foreign culture, the result of globalized economic
process, and the cultural interaction with American Vietnamese after two decades of
independence. Rapping penetrated the hip-hop subculture to the ground of traditional
music by the song “Vietnamese gang” (Thai Minh Ngo and Khanh Nho, 1997), published
in 1997 by American-Vietnamese rappers (Doan, 2018).
Sociolinguistic works centralized rap and hip-hop music as a “source for new
trends of discourse and as a frame for the interpretation of local events and productions”
(Androutsopoulos, 2009: 43-44). Pennycook (2003) argues that the use of English outside
North America was an expression of subculture identity and style. From the notion of
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emergent global Englishes, the language of hip-hop or ‘raplishes’ provided an “overly

simple view that English is for intercultural communication and local languages for local
identities'' (Pennycook, 2003: 83). Rap music is more welcomed and more relevant for
young people during the first two decades of the 21st century as a cultural influence of
American culture. The demand for learning English has increased the number of
bilinguals of young Vietnamese. Androutsopoulos (2009: 45) argued that “English is a
main resource for constructing “glocal” Hip-hop identities, which gain their meaning as
local performances of a global cultural paradigm”. The remarkable influence of English
in Vietnam was proved by the use of code-switching (CS) among youth Vietnamese in
urban areas (cf. Nguyen, 2012; Nguyen, 2014; Grant & Nguyen 2017). This thesis aimed
at examining CS practices among Vietnamese-English rappers and their (potential) role
in enacting specific identity-related stances. Having regard to a number of theoretical
bases of CS and stance-taking, I applied a sociolinguistic approach of conversation
analysis (CA) in this investigation. It may help others understand better the stances which
were immersed in CS practices of rap artists and young adults in the Rap Viet TV show.
During this digitized area where hip-hop music in public media has become a playground
for both artists and young Vietnamese to reflect their local environment, create their
language style, express themselves, and use individual stances – not only to share and call
for the alignment of other team members. The empirical investigations on questioning the
meaning of the youth language choice – their stance while switching between English
and Vietnamese on public media (on television) has not been studied widely in Vietnam.
This thesis first portrays the usage of English in Vietnam, the use of CS in the
Vietnamese context, and its influence on the local music. The next chapter gives a brief
introduction to the theoretical approach CS, including the CS in hip-hop music and the
language use of the hip-hop community. Then after describing the methodology and
introducing my research questions, I analyze and present the concurrence of CS with two
trails: understating of stance-taking linguistic processes according to Du Bois’ stance
triangle (affective and epistemic stance-taking) and the stance relating to hip-hop speech
style in the speech of youth Vietnamese-English bilinguals. The last chapter discusses the
limitations of this thesis and suggests future directions for sociolinguistic research.
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2. Globalization, the role of English and emergence of hip-hop culture in

Vietnam: An overview
2.1 English as a foreign language in Vietnam
Vietnam has experienced a number of foreign languages during its colonized
history, turning from Chinese to French, Russian, and English. Since the early days of
Vietnamese development, the language adopted the Roman alphabet (so-called
Romanized Vietnamese – Chu Quoc Ngu), and the use of French, the tastes of
Europeanized education and culture were introduced to the Vietnamese culture as a result
of the political realities of colonialism in Vietnam. The first two decades of the 20th
century witnessed the rapid change of those cultural and educational tastes in learning
foreign languages, caused by the need for commercial purposes in Vietnam, especially
among the urban intellectual or upper classes.
Foreign language policy in Vietnam committed itself to the dominant nation who
held the power over the country at the time. English only received a significant position
in Vietnam when the Vietnamese government introduced an economic liberalization
called Doi Moi Policy – Renovation Reform (a series of economic and political reforms)
in 1986, quite a long time after the country announced its independence in 1975. The
beginning of influence from the outside forces started with the 1994 lifting of the U.S.
trade embargo by former President Clinton (Olsen, 2008). The focus of Prime Minister
Nguyen Tuan Dung in Decision No. 1400/QD-TTG (2008) for the period of 2006-2010
is on bilingual speakers of Vietnamese and English in the Vietnamese youth community.
The report of the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training in the same year shows
that 67% of students at junior high school, and 86% of students at high school in Vietnam
had more than three hours of English lessons every week (Ministry of Education and
Training, 2006). This group consists of those who were born after the year 1986, who
grew up during the time Vietnam joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Free
Trade Area (AFTA), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), and the
World Trade Organization (WTO). According to this English has become more widely
taught as a foreign language and has been recognized as a means of communication for
Vietnamese citizens in other Asian countries and in the wider world. Vietnam was first
exposed to Western culture during the colonial period, and this exposure has become
stronger with the expansion of social media and increased mobility.
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English in Vietnam, as classified by Kachru’s (1990) assessment of the varieties

of English around the world, is placed in the “Expanding Circle,” out of three categories:
the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle, and the Expanding Circle. The use of English is one of
the most vital tools of ideological and social change in South East Asia in general and in
Vietnam in particular. Denham (1992: 122) claims: “Globally, English has been on the
ascendancy, and this ascendancy now includes Vietnam” and “Vietnam has become part
of the Expanding Circle and so may be added to Kachru’s diagram”. The shift from
Russian (after French medium education in the period of 1860s to 1950s) to English came
from the need for economic development and promising access to scientific,
technological, and cultural information. A decade after Doi Moi, a decree issued by the
Vietnamese Prime Minister in 1994 stated that all government workers must attain an
intermediate level of English proficiency, marking the acknowledgement of the
government about the importance of English. As a result, in Vietnamese society, 90% of
students chose to study English among the foreign languages offered (Do, 1996). In the
same year, Vietnam became an official member of the World Trade Organization, and
this event has increased the importance of English to both the Vietnamese government
and people. Obtaining World Trade Organization membership in 2006 has increased the
importance of English to both the Vietnamese government and people. Enterprises of
both private sectors and state-owned businesses put priority on English qualifications to
hire employees. Students and employees who are advanced or proficient in English are
able to open more job opportunities and to achieve a better standard of life.
The implementation of teaching English at national level was declared in Decree
No. 3321/QĐ-BGDĐT – The Pilot Primary Curriculum (Ministry of Education and
Training, 2010). English-medium education system has become mandatory from grade 3
(age 8), and is optional from grade 1 (age 6) in accordance with the demand of students
and the ability of a school to provide English classes in response to Circular No.
32/2018/TT-BGDĐT – General Educational Curriculum (Ministry of Education and
Training, 2018). Ton & Pham (2010) concluded that English is unquestionably preferred
by students and they can freely decide on their preferred kinds of English, by any means
of learning, at schools, language centers, or social contacts outside of the classroom. The
positive effect of actively participating in learning and using English proves the strong
development of awareness and attitudes toward English of Vietnamese. The popularity
 6

of English language used in daily life of Vietnamese has made impressive progress since
the beginning of the twentieth-first century. English is no longer a strange thing in daily
life – it has spread from the street to academia, from the far north mountainous areas to
the heart of modernized urban areas (Tran, 2017).
English usage is spreading from bustling cities to rural provinces in Vietnam, as
reflected in its “linguistic landscape” (cf. Gorter 2009), from advertising boards to shop
signs. The high demand for learning English raised many types of English classes all over
the country. Besides classes at school or university, students’ parents or learners have a
vast choice to improve their English level in the mushrooming era of language centers
and their English training courses. English is widely applied as a means of communication
not only between foreigners and foreigners, or Vietnamese and English-speaking
foreigners, but also between Vietnamese and Vietnamese in all contexts.
2.2 English-Vietnamese Code-Switching
Ho (2003) researched the Vietnamese-English code-switching forms in Australia
and the behavior of Vietnamese bilinguals, from the perspective of social and cultural
influence. He proved that the practices of intra- and inter-sentential CS are an integral
part of their lives. Data in his research revealed that the patterns of CS are affected by
various aspects of the Vietnamese linguistic and cultural features.
In Vietnam, as a result of second language teaching and economic demands for
English, young Vietnamese people in urban areas code-switch between Vietnamese and
English. Nguyen (2012) became aware that Vietnamese bilinguals tend to use inter-
sentential 66.7% more than intra-sentential CS. There was no evidence that the grammar
structure of English and Vietnamese interact with each other (Nguyen, 2012). In tertiary
educational context, Nguyen (2014) reconfirms that the frequency of inter-sentential is
more than intra-sentential CS. Moreover, the type of school (e.g private vs. public) seems
to affect the frequency of CS among children: students in public schools employ CS more
than in private schools. A number of factors trigger CS at schools, such as the in-class
budget, the students’ English levels, cultural factors, teacher evaluation systems, and the
teachers’ cognition. A pedagogical focus of CS in Vietnamese university EFL teachers’
classroom instruction by Grant & Nguyen (2017). Their study shows that CS is more
commonly practiced in English instruction classes selectively and deliberately. The
practice of teachers using signals that contain both instructional and social functions, due
 7

to their lack of motivation to speak English in the classroom and the proficient level of
their students, partially explains that employing CS is not an automatic habit among
Vietnamese bilingual teachers.
The significant role of English in Vietnam as an international language is proven
by the way that the Vietnamese employ it in both written and spoken forms. English has
a remarkable influence on Vietnamese cultural and social factors, penetrating the
Vietnamese language which is revealed in English code-mixing in the online newspaper
VNExpress (Dao, 2019). A study by Le (2017) found that bilingual students practice inter-
sentential CS more often than intra-sentential one in digital platforms. The purpose of the
students' practice aims to switch for availability, formulate expression, respond to
previous language choice, and alteration of tone, moods, or feelings persistently and
naturally. On the cyber platforms, depending on the interactional needs of speakers, the
process of CS is flexibly customized. The act of mixing English as an alternative
language, used by Vietnamese has been employed widely in various domains of the
society, from outside Vietnam to the educational settings, public spheres, and cyber
platforms.
2.3 Hip-hop subculture in Vietnam
English is not the only influence from the capitalism embracement act of the
Vietnam Government at the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-
first century. So does popular culture, as part of the economic globalized process from
numerous foreign cultures leaves influences on the music and musical taste of many
urbanized Vietnamese youth, especially in the key economic regions like Saigon and
Hanoi. In Vietnam, the product of globalization includes Western homogenization and
the destruction of local traditions is called Vietnamization, which is “apparent within the
right side of the Arc of Culturation” (Olsen, 2008: 23). Vietnamization is the outcome of
people's demand after years of reconciliation between the North and the South Vietnam.
As Onishi (1998: 483) defines “As globalization proceeds, repertoires become unified,
and people need something new. Thus, local music culture is a good spice with which to
revitalize the global music scene”. The intertwinement of economic development and
Western culture influences as globalized realities has blurred the post-war consciousness
among Vietnamese youth. The subculture in Vietnam can be identified as a subdivision
 8

between generations, especially preteen or/and young adults with their parents/older
generations.
Another factor that needed to be mentioned is ‘Viet Kieu’ (Vietnamese who have
left their homeland to live in another country) who contribute their performance to the
(new) local music flow. After the post-war immigrant flow to the US, they have returned
to Vietnam, united themselves with family and friends, and brought back the Western
culture tastes. Specifically in rap music, the new generation of Vietnamese living in the
US has adapted to the American rap subculture and emerged from the Vietnam rap culture
on the internet initially. Vietnamese Rap music has a unique origin, nurtured mostly from
the Vietnam war on American soil, and originated overseas by American-Vietnamese.
Rapper Thai Minh Ngo and rapper Khanh Nho (both from Portland, Oregon) are
considered the official leaders of Vietnamese rap culture after publishing the song
“Vietnamese Gang” online in 1997. The lyrics of this song featured in both English and
Vietnamese lyrics and caused a wave of excitement throughout the Vietnamese
communities from the US to Vietnam (Stanley, 2016). Their song matched the gangsta
rap style by its backdrop of violence and crime but still embraces the pride in his identity
of being Vietnamese (Straight Outta Saigon, 2016).
In addition to the growing spread of rap, the 1990s also witnessed the emergence
of breakdance culture. It was first known to the public in the form of Michael Jackson's
famed dance routine. Gradually, breakdance attracted attention and fascinated a certain
number of students. At first, only a few groups spontaneously, following some videos
sent back from abroad, or under the guidance of people who have lived abroad have the
opportunity to return home. By 1998, when the Vietnam Government officially opened
the way to the internet with the world, a series of latest and most updated information
about the hip-hop world came to Vietnam (Tran, 2010). At the beginning of the 1990s,
the hip-hop trend not only stopped at the dance segment, but clearly divided into different
small areas: breakdancing, graffiti, rapping, DJing, and MCing. Then the world music
wave with performances of foreign hip-hop singers, such as HOT (Korea), Usher, Lauryn
Hill, and 50 Cent (USA) rushed into Vietnam. These artists have made a strong
impression on the fashion style of many famous Vietnamese singers and young people
also raced to dress in that style (Tran, 2010). Lanca (2008) analyzed how urban youth in
Hanoi shared group interests, group nominative values and showed visual markers as their
 9

subculture in-group identity. They positioned themselves as belonging to the newly

arrived Western subculture group and regarded themselves as different from the rest of
the society, so-called ‘the main-stream’. This revealed that subcultural life among urban
youth is “a comparably new phenomenon” and “the scenes have permeable boundaries,
and are characterized by an intuitive knowledge of their group identities rather than by
clear concepts of what defines them as a distinct crowd” (Lanca, 2008: 25). Overall,
breakdancing as part of the hip-hop subculture has been rapidly taken up by Vietnamese
youth and its effects on youth culture are salient.
Like any other Asian country, Vietnamese rappers interact and negotiate their
local cultural identity in their styles, from fashion, gestures, to expressions, in which the
use of local language and English is simultaneously demonstrated. The commercialized
American hip-hop has a strong impact on Vietnamese underground hip-hop, but it only
serves as an inspiration and reference for the Vietnamese rap community. At first,
Vietnamese rappers borrowed beats from American rap music to rap on (Straight Outta
Saigon, 2016). Even though the strong media censorship operated by the government and
the traditional social values have a strong effect on the linguistic creativity of Vietnamese
rappers, which in turn shapes a distinct local identity of this community of practice, yet
the core ideology of hip-hop authenticity of ‘keepin’ it real’ is still maintained (Pham,
2018).

3. Theoretical approach
3.1 Defining code-switching: models, approaches and perspectives
Code-switching of the speech community has attracted attention from various
scholars in linguistics, sociology, psychology, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics. As
both language and social contact phenomenon, CS acted as a reflective and constitutive
tool which represents the social reality and the social processes, where each code got
associated with particular social relationships and ideologies in bilingual situations
(Bailey, 1999). For linguistic anthropology, CS was defined as the basis of co-
membership which is called a language community (Silverstein, 1976). In the linguistic
community, it is a phenomenon of the language of individuals which has long been
investigated within the social context of the community in which it is spoken. From the
very early definition of CS, it has been understood as a speech event when speakers switch
 10

between two or more language varieties in the same context over a short period of time
(Labov, 1966: 4). From that initial definition, modern sociolinguists regarded a new field
of language use in a particular human group, so-called interpersonal communication.
Hymes (1974:70) defined CS as “a common term for alternate use of two or more
languages or language varieties or even speech styles”. Appel and Muysken (1987)
documented three types of switching code textually, which determines whether it is: (1.)
tag-switching (emblematic) – involving exclamation; (2.) inter-sentential – changing
varieties simultaneously across sentences or clauses or (3.) intra-sentential – one variety
is alternated by another within one sentence. CS was defined by Hoffmann (1991: 110)
as “the alternative of two languages within the same utterance or during the same
conversation”. Just as important, Trask (1999) pointed out that, CS occurs in
circumstances where speakers changed back and forth between their language varieties,
whether within a single conversation or sometimes in the middle of an utterance (Trask,
1999).
3.1.1 Social factors focus (social function of code choice)
Sociolinguistic perspective has paid attention to the social motivations behind CS,
the impact of social change to linguistic practices of community members. The nature of
social boundaries, social associations of particular codes are functions of specific
histories of social relationships. In the process of interaction, Blom and Gumperz (1972)
study on the social meaning of CS in verbal communication in Norway community,
revealed the overarching (comprehensive) functions of CS of the individual language
choice. Under the lens of grammatical perspective, speakers chose the language varieties
which they wished to convey meaning reasonably. Blom and Gumperz identified two
types of social motivation behind CS practices: situational switching, “alternation
between varieties redefines a situation, being a change in governing norms”; and
metaphorical switching, “alternation enriches a situation, allowing for allusion to more
than one social relationship within the situation” (Blom and Gumperz, 1972: 409).
Hoffman (1991) conveyed the communicative intent of participants with ten reasons (1.)
talking about a particular topic, (2.) quoting somebody else, (3.) being emphatic about
something (express solidarity), (4.) interjection, (5.) Repetition used for clarification, (6.)
intention of clarifying the speech content for the interlocutor, (7.) expressing group
identity, (8.) to soften or strengthen requests or commands, (9.) because of real lexical
 11

need, and (10.) to exclude other people when a comment is intended for only a limited
audience. The social forces left many factors that affected the performance of CS of
speakers and carry social meaning under different conversation circumstances.
3.1.2 Conversation analysis and pragmatic movements of Code-switching
Ethnographers of communication have pursued many informative and valuable
information of the social meaning in variable speech events, describing its reasons,
functions, and motivations particularly. Gumperz (1982) investigated the metaphorical or
conversational functions of CS under the ethnic boundaries, values, norms of language
usage in particular settings. He stated six conversational functions of CS: (1.) quotation,
a quote is code-switched; (2.) addressee specification, a code-switched message aims at
a particular/different addressee; (3.) repetition, a code-switched message repeats what has
just been said; (4.) interjection, an interjection is code-switched; (5.) message
qualification, i.e. a code-switched message elaborates what has been said; and (6.) facility
of expression. To interpret those functions, he introduced the marked and unmarked CS
theory by tracing the pattern of linguistic forms and generalizing them to the social
structure/meaning in particular conversational settings. Interlocutors tended to employ
the language code to index their social role, by this way, their identities are negotiated
with other participants within the conversation. The notion of the indexicality and style
projecting by the marked code choice was awarded between interlocutors (interpretation
process) (Gumperz, 1982).
On the conversational dimension of CS, Auer (1984) examined language choice
in spontaneous conversation to pursue its local (situated) interpretation, finding the exact
meaning of function of language alternation. He looked at the transitions from one
language to another in the context sensitive procedures and interpreted the value of the
code which interlocutors chose to reconstruct the conceptions of members. It was “much
more than just “one-to-one” relationship between language choice and situation” (Auer,
1984: 104). Myers-Scotton (1993) pointed out that speakers might choose marked code
for a variety of social reasons: showing deference, anger, solidarity, eloquence, or
distance. Speakers chose the form of conversation contribution and indexed the set of
rights and obligations (RO set) which they wished to be in force between them and their
addresses for the current exchange (Myers-Scotton (1993: 113). Their motivation when
they wished to establish a new RO set in the current speech exchange, marked their code
 12

choice as a marked one. The causes of alternation, thereby, were defined depending on
the mutual understanding about the rights and obligations of participants. Of an utterance
(Myers-Scotton,1993: 479), that was, circumstances that “for certain interaction types,
the norm of those having power and prestige – a norm which other groups recognize,
whether they approve of it or not”. Myers-Scotton discussed the function of choice code
as the negotiation of “position” of speakers. She elaborated on the principle of the
markedness theory as
in bilingual and multilingual communities where conversational participants
are competent in the community languages, speakers' choice of language is
determined by their desire to index - i.e. assess or point to” (Myers-Scotton,
1993, as cited in Edwards, 1995: 302).
Participant signaled her/his understanding of the current situation as his/her relevant role
within the context. By using more than one language, speakers may initiate negotiation
over his/her relevant roles. Speakers must share at least some extents, an understanding
of the social meaning of each available code. Speakers made choices with the expectation
that interlocutors will recognize a choice as carrying a particular intention.
Finally, the active construction of position could change the social meanings (i.e.
the current RO set) by their unmarked choice as linguistics choice as link, creating
ambiguity, and ambiguity as confrontational (e.g. the inter-ethnic interaction) (Myers-
Scotton, 1999). Analyzing interlocutors and the purposive behavior under the principle
of the RO set, Myers and Agnes (2001) resumed the rational choice model as the actual
choice of an alternative as unmarked choice was the only choice which is most expected
or the best action. There were three reasons for choice code was raised:
(i) actors consider their desires and values as well as prior beliefs; (ii) they
confirm that these three elements are internally consistent; (iii) finally, they
make sure that their final desires, values, and beliefs take account of available
evidence. Myers and Agnes (2001: 14)
Consequently, CS was marked as mechanism and explanation for their unmarked choice
rationally.
3.2 Code-switching in rap music
Bilingual or multilingual speakers and their language mixing behaviors in song
lyrics or within stanzas have already attracted the attention of sociolinguists and applied
 13

linguists. Discourse-analytic studies of hip-hop language outside of the United States

have documented how the performances of artists and identities of members are
contextualized and negotiated. Investigating the linguistic behavior and sociocultural
identity behind the mixing codes to sense how they interacted to index and enacted a
particular speech community. Hip-hop keywords according to Smitherman (1997) and
Newman (2002), were considered as a subset of African American English (AAE) terms
and being identified as a particular characteristic of hip-hop; therefore, it was a useful
way for performers or rappers to signal their identity in the hip-hop nation or local hip-
hop community (Sarkar, Winer & Sarkar, 2005). For instance, such lexemes or
expressions as rap, MC, underground, crew, respect, keep it real, swag, shout out, etc.,
have become markers of hip-hop register, and as a result they served to identify the
sociocultural identity of speakers in conversation. Androutsopoulos also stated that “Hip-
hop is considered as a source for new trends and a frame for the interpretation of local
production”. (Androutsopoulos, 2009: 43-44). His presumption, from the transnational
perspective, hip-hop English was considered as an universal embed code. This universal
embed code marked the glocal hip-hop identities when hip-hop culture has been
continuously constructed and transformed by the particular purposes of its members and
artists (Androutsopoulos, 2009).
In the case of North African rai and rap, by mixing English in rap songs,
performers casted their Algerian identity while their mixing style of Arabic-English is
similar to that of Arabic-French songs. This related to the conversation switching style of
in-group code for informal interaction only between members of particular groups
(university teachers of English, or pupils of American schools in Morocco, for whom
English represents the language of work). The use of frequent alternation type of
switching was a device for localizing discourse within a specific community. It was
forbye supposed to be a “means of achieving a convincing integration of the genre within
North African culture” (Davies & Bentahila, 2006: 390). CS was interpreted as a local
phenomenon, though the means of highly specific in-group expression target a wide range
of audiences, expressing local consciousness and identity.
Brunstad, Røyneland & Opsahl (2010) looked at Norwegian hip-hop texts from
the ‘diffusion’ perspective as a language globalization process and examined the
relationship between Nordic languages and linguistic flow. In those texts, loanwords
 14

(battle, ‘breaking’, ‘deal’, ‘DJ’, ‘chicks’, ‘writer’, ‘wannabe) and CS (English and
Norwegian) between sentences and between parts of texts were employed. The transition
of English to Norwegian in its hip-hop community explained how performers found
themselves as part of hip-hop through Norwegian language. Equally, English has been
claimed as a medium usage of rap by Norwegian performers. As a result, the mixing
codes of English and Norwegian language illustrated how the global and the local were
blending and co-presenting in rap lyrics. Local hip-hoppers and rappers decided for
themselves “what is ‘real’ to text culture norm and attitudes that are indeed global, e.g.,
by recontextualization” (Brunstad, Røyneland & Opsahl, 2010: 249). Hip-hop did not
transport only American culture or global culture, but its development went beyond that
and transformed to the new local forms.
The hip-hop ideology of authenticity – keepin’ it real – in the South Korean hip-
hop community was subscribed by young Koreans. South Korean artists showed their
concerns on local youth identity by staying true as South Korean commentators on their
social issues. Besides, they utilized hip-hop English features in song lyrics and dressing
in hip-hop-style outfits and accessories in their performance. Those factors conveyed
their understanding of hip-hop culture and practiced it. This study indicated that Korean
hip-hop artists were part of the global ideology of authenticity (Lee, 2010).
Akande (2013) proved that Nigerian hip-hop artists employ different language
varieties in their performed rap lyrics. CS between English (dominantly) and other
languages in Nigeria has left evidence about bilingual competence achievement of hip-
hop artists. Their choice of English, especially American slang, showed the strong bound
and influence of this variety to the rap community of Nigeria, and potentially, in terms of
other English varieties, it may enrich the linguistic repertoire of hip-hop fans. (Akande,
2013).
3.3 The language of hip-hop
African American English has remained a strong bound with the language of hip-
hop. The communicative practices of the Hip-Hop Nation were rooted in the African
American speech community, such as tonal semantics, narrativizing, signification,
Africanized syntax, and so on (Smitherman, 1997). The Black oral traditions and
discursive practices of AAE which conveyed the Black struggle for survival during the
history of American slavery: “The rap music of the Hip-Hop Nation simultaneously
 15

reflects the cultural evolution of the Black oral tradition and the construction of a
contemporary resistance rhetoric” (Smitherman, 1997:21). He added that the rap
artists/rappers of hip-hop employ “language that people know and understand”
linguistically to testify and to perform the idea of “speak the truth to the people''
(Smitherman, 1997:22). Rap music was the principle medium where African Americans
express their voice and their view for all the world to hear, it has become the norm of the
working class (under conditions of joblessness, poverty, and disempowerment)
(Smitherman, 1997).
Morgan (2001) explored the principles of language practices and the social
organization in African American hip-hop community, providing an insight to the
language ideology of hip-hop of young urban African American. The influence of hip-
hop culture to the language choices of urban youth speech reflected their community
linguistic norms. She stated that
The importance of relationship and performance ties in Hip Hop creates and
reflects a speech community that highlights region, ideology, and language
style. The solidification of the Hip Hop crew as a family/business unit
ushered in an era of artistic and cultural stability in the Hip Hop community
(Morgan, 2001: 193).
The speech style associated with hip-hop was rooted in African American language and
communicative practices. It has been widely spoken and transformed by other hip-hop
communities outside the US. Hip-hop artists paid a great attention to their speech and
considered it as a way to maintain their street credibility as part of their language
ideology. Her conclusion on their language ideology as:
...urban African American life is not simply represented in relation to in-
group intersubjectivities, but through cultural symbols and sounds, especially
linguistic symbols, which signify membership, role, and status so that, as
Rossi-Landi (1983: 49) argues, “words, expressions, messages circulate as
commodities’’. In this respect, the Word in Hip Hop is at once the realization
of Foucault’s The Discourse on Language (1972), Bakhtin’s Dialogic
Imagination (1981), and Labov’s Language in the Inner City (1972).
(Morgan, 2001: 205)
 16

The language use of their community represented their urban youth culture and identity,
which indexed their membership and has consequences on the affiliation of other
members such as understanding or realizing the social role or status of sender. The in-
group social identity was projected and created within hip-hop as identity performance –
the semiotic resources such as language styles or gestures, gait, clothing, hairstyles,
accessories was considered as performance of social ‘selves’.
The expression ‘keepin’ it real’ has become practically a mantra in hip-hop and
an indicator of authenticity. It urged individuals to be true to their roots and not to “fronts”
or pretend to be something they are not” (Rickford & Rickford, 2000: 23). Perry (2004:
87) outlined some of the different possible meanings of ‘keepin’ it real’, from
'celebrations of the social effects of urban decay and poverty' to 'assertions of a paranoid
vigilance in protecting one's dignity'. He stated that it was
an 'authenticating device responding to the removal of rap music from the
organic relationship with the communities creating it' and 'an explicitly
ideological stand against selling one's soul to the devils of capitalism or
assimilation' (Perry, 2004; cited by Pennycook, 2006: 99).
Furthermore, Morgan (2005: 212) suggested:
Similarly, the hip-hop mantra "keepin' it real": represents the quest for the
coalescence and interface of ever-shifting art, politics, representation,
performance and individual accountability that reflects all aspects of youth
experience.
Or as statement of Mitchell (2001: 1-2):
Hip-hop and rap cannot be viewed simply as an expression of African-
American culture; it has become a vehicle for global youth affiliations and a
tool for reworking local identity all over the world.
The study of Newman (2005) about language use in hip-hop cyphers (informal gathering
of hip-hoppers) from diverse backgrounds (races, classes, educations, etc.) has pointed
out the role of literacy, which acted as a particular perspective of communicative form.
They inherited this form from the socio-practices and ideologies of their creators –
African-American motifs and culture. Keeping ethnicity was seen as the core hip-hop
value of authenticity:
 17

An artist expresses his or her ethnicity as a personal characteristic but does

not use it as the basis for in-group formation to exclude others. Being real
goes beyond social divisions to include all aspects of identity. Hip-Hop
works are assertions of personal identity and are expected to succeed in their
creators’ own, sometimes idiosyncratic, terms, often in conflict with some
opposing force (Newman, 2005: 403).
As shown by Cutler (2003), young people in New York city constructed their identities,
adopted and reworked the hip-hop cultural markers to create new ethnicity of white
suburbs or non-ghetto areas. She gave examples on how young white urban New Yorkers
constructed themselves as authentic speakers within hip-hop in their discussions of
realness, race, and language even though the true hip-hop was rooted in the black area.
She argued that the ghetto of true hip-hop covers not only African Americans but also
non-African Americans, the linguistic practice and ideological stance of AAE were no
longer a sole domain of African Americans groups.
Pennycook (2001) discussed the notion of performativity as an important way to
understand acts of identity of speakers under the transcultural flows in Japan rap music
lyrics. English carried a complex role rather than just an expression of subculture identity
and style. It was a cultural production in connection with languages, localization,
nationality, representation and the world Englishes. People used language varieties in
order to ‘perform who we are by (amongst other things) using varieties of language’.
Based on previous experiences of communication of speakers in other similar
circumstances, they enacted semiotic reconstruction and identity formation by using
forms of speech of other groups. In order words, performativity, “in which we perform
acts of identity as an ongoing series of social and cultural performances rather than the
expressions of a prior identity” (Pennycook, 2003: 528). Eberhardt and Freeman (2015)
studied the performative language of Iggy Azalea – a successful white rapper in the US.
The way Azalea used AAE familiarly and commanded some linguistic features of AAE
proved that her language ideology linked firmly with her Blackness notion. As Bucholtz
and Lopez (2011: 702) mentioned it as “profound potential for cross-racial linguistic and
cultural practices to disrupt the conventional organization of race in majority-white
societies”. On one hand, her rap lyrics contented about the imagined ghetto and African
Americans, she constructed her performative persona within the Hip-Hop Nation. Her
 18

persona was a serious identity in the hip-hop world. On the other hand, her prominence
to white audiences, who were fascinated by African American cultural and linguistic
forms, encouraged the market strategy of whites for commercial hip-hop (Eberhardt &
Freeman, 2015).
3.4 Stance
The notion of stance has become central to sociolinguist studies in recent years (cf.
Jaffe, 2009; Kiesling, 2009; Johnstone, 2009), the term stance has had numerous
definitions from different perspectives. In order to find out what kind of function it served
in a particular context. The stance interpretation on the social and pragmatic nature of
language employed by speakers provided an insight to the broader scope of language use,
interaction and sociocultural field. Stance was a key sociolinguistic phenomenon and a
useful analytical tool (Du Bois, 2007; Jaffe, 2009). It provided a unified framework and
a detailed groundwork for contextualizing and interpreting stance with its various
elements and processes in a dialogic context. The stance was also defined as
a public act by a social actor, achieved dialogically through overt
communicative means (language, gesture, and other symbolic forms),
through which social actors simultaneously evaluate objects, position
subjects (them- selves and others) and align with other subjects, with respect
to any salient dimension of the sociocultural field (Du Bois, 2007: 163).
The primary goals of sociolinguistic approaches to stance should take into consideration
social and historical context when analyzing how a particular stance is taken up.
Goffman (1981) discussed the production format of a discourse, he illustrated
various functions of “speaker” as animator (who produced utterances, author (who
composes utterances), and principle (who commits to utterances). Animator was
distinguished from others functions by the various statuses of a participant so that the
utterance was received differently. Based on this participant framework of Goffman,
stance was not only about a relationship of the animator to the propositions in their talk
and their interlocutor but also an intersubjective, socially constructed activity (Du Bois,
2002). Ochs (1993) mentioned the local conventions linking interlocutors together by
their mediated understanding/sense about relation of language and social identity. She
pointed out that
 19

membership in a social group, whether it be a distinct language community

or a distinct social group within a language community, depends on
members’ knowledge of local conventions for building social identities
through act and stance displays (Ochs, 1993: 79).
Therefore, speakers simultaneously projected acts, and stances which, in turn, indexed
group membership, or social identity.
They displayed, evaluated and negotiated their points of view and alignment with
each other. Their stances were viewed as performances that could be a discursive object
in case it carries multiple ambiguous meanings of speakers in different linguistic forms.
As Jaffe stated:
Speaker stances are thus performances through which speakers may align or
disalign themselves with and/or ironize stereotypical associations with
particular linguistic forms; stances may thus express multiple or ambiguous
meanings. (Jaffe, 2009: 4).
Sociolinguists approached stance to uncover the particular stance taken by a performer
both habitually and conventionally. Thus, stance was associated with the performer’s role
and identity, both of which related to social relationships (Jaffe, 2009). The task of
dialogue analysis was to look at the sequences of word in utterance and the effect they
raised among participants. To find out the moves of performers and to describe its
conventionally acceptable moves and effects between participants in terms of information
states (Ginzburg, 2012).
The relationship between codes witching, stance and identity was investigated by
Jaffe (2007). Her sociocultural analysis showed how bilingual speakers positioned
themselves in classroom settings by employing two languages (Corsican and French).
The study discussed the evidence on functions of these codes in sociolinguistic and
political context from conversational analytic models and criteria. Depending on the
audiences and the situation, the teacher as a stance taker employed a code from his/her
linguistic repertoire due to her social role and the accommodation acquisition of the
audiences. This act matched with the idea of stance, when speakers valued their language
indexes to project an authoritative stance as it involved formality, authority and distance
as the relationship between interactional participants. She pursued a crucial aspect on CS
function and listed its social and political meanings:
 20

(1.) The indexical link between classroom utterance types and social
positions-identities and hierarchies. (2.) The modeling function of all teacher
discourse. (3.) Audience design: the attribution of audience competencies
and identities through teacher performance. (Jaffe, 2007: 73)
The importance of language alternative in interaction of Gaelic-English bilingual on the
Isles of Skye and Harris was emphasized by Smith-Christmas (2013). Employing CA,
she argued that CS is the most powerful communicative strategy to highlight their
epistemic and effective stance. To achieve a certain goal within talk, they used a specific
code to evoke social and personal identities. The contrastive function of CS between
Gaelic and English provided these bilingual speakers a communicative tool to ensure the
clear meaning while interacting with each other.
The study of Bassiouney (2012) relied on Du Bois (2007) stance triangle focused
to positioning stance as the key angle of stance act in Egyptians community during the
Egyptian revolution. She pointed out that CS was a marked choice of speaker and it was
an act of positioning, carrying a means of identity construction in Egyptian public
discourse of TV media stations. The distinctive indexes of Standard Arabic, Egyptian
Colloquial Arabic and English as linguistic resources allowed speakers to express
themselves with audiences. By switching code, they positioned and situated themselves
relation to their own country, political affiliation and identity, and showed their alignment
or disalignment with a specific target group. The target audiences in performed speech
were defined within that imagined community, where they shared the common idea of
belonging to a collective identity (Anderson, 1983). Bilinguals employed CS in media
discourse, projected their specific local consciousness and authentic local style in order
to achieve greater audiences (Androutsopoulos, 2007). The language choice of rappers in
French allowed them to project their multi-layered identities as the result of language
ideologies of hip-hop artists and youth. French rappers were able “to align themselves
with a diverse immigrant community as it is perceived to be the norm in French hip hop”
(Hassa, 2010: 62) by using various languages in their rap lyrics. Much sociolinguistic
research on stance taking of bilinguals has proved stance takers engaged CS as a social
and local meaning reproduction in their conventional associations. Providing a firm
theory and empirical evidence on the relationship of CS, stance, and identity construction.
 21

4. Methodology
This thesis intended to answer the following three questions: (1) How code-
switching practices are employed in Rap Viet Show – a Vietnamese reality TV show for
seeking talented rappers? (2) To what extent is CS employed as a stancetaking practice
in Rap Viet? (3) What kind of communicative and contextual meanings do these practices
encode? In order to understand the language use of hip-hop artists and youth Vietnamese
in public media, the relationship between Vietnamese and English language use needs to
be examined, both of which are popularly used in the urban speech of Vietnam and in
public media.
4.1 Methodological approach
This thesis employs Conversation Analysis (CA) approach to study CS in talk-
interaction. The pragmatic research on CS focused on the conversational functions of CS,
its effects on conversational participants and pragmatic motivations of speakers (Auer,
1984). For a particular situation, depending on extra-linguistic factors (topics, settings,
speaker roles, community norms and values, societal, political, and ideological), speakers
code-switch to convey special community intent.
The meaning of CS must be interpreted with reference to the language choice in
the preceding and following turns by the participants themselves (Wei, 1998). In addition,
it is also important to account for the social and local contexts, as well as the orientation
of bilingual speakers. Therefore, this thesis also employs some conceptual and analytical
tools associated with the markedness model developed by Myers-Scotton (1993).
Conversational participants initiate and negotiate their social roles by choosing a code to
establish a new RO set and to signal his or her understanding of the current situation.
Following the practical pattern of Myers-Scotton, to trace the tendencies of CS in
interaction, whether it appeared in the form of inter-sentential (within a sentence) type or
intra-sentential (across sentences) type. Those types of CS in this investigation were also
examined under CS occurred between utterances/turns and within an utterance. The CA
approach to data of English and Vietnamese codes were employed as a resource for
interpreting the meaning of each code in interaction. In order to find out the situated use
of CS in public media and its discourse-related functions between English and
Vietnamese by turn-by-turn analysis of language choices. Rational choice model helped
to answer the question of why English code was the best action of the participants at
 22

his/her turn in conversations happening in the Rap Viet show. It explained the motivation,
intention and desire of those participants on switching codes when it arrived at their local
intentions. In which, it was used as a filter model for the speaker-listener coordination, to
see if a specific code was taken up rationally to construct a social group membership, to
show solidarity or to accommodate their style with the previous turn. Or whether it was
derived from sequential structure as an act of distancing, contrasting or disagreeing. The
unmarked choice of speaker is an output of calculating a potential choice for a specific
interaction type, such as elaboration appraisal, alignment or disalignment with the
previous comments of other coaches/judges. It reflected and identified the speaker's goals,
attitude and belief, authority or interpretation in a giving interaction context. Right and
obligation set was a preferred indicator to process how a speaker used their linguistic
choice to project his/her own persona and social relations with other participants (such as
candidates, the MC, the judges and other coaches).
Hereof, the methodological approach in this investigation was ethnography of
naturally-occurring communication. The analysis of conversational CS in English and
Vietnamese was applied to trace and to identify user-related patterns of language use by
young people in public media – the Rap Viet TV show, such as the CS practices and the
enacted stances of speakers. Within the scope of this investigation, the turn-taking
techniques were employed for naturally occurring speech in hip-hop subculture contexts
in order to interpret their multilayered identities and their discursive positions when they
switch codes.
4.2 Data description and data collection
The data employed in this thesis consists of sixteen pre-recorded videos of the
Rap Viet show 2020 on YouTube. The Rap Viet TV program (2020) is a Vietnamese hip-
hop talent show, which was publicly broadcasted during primetime television (8PM every
Saturday) in Vietnam. The show is produced by Vie Channel (VieChannel, 2020) based
on a Thai show called The Rapper, which premiered in 2018 and was honoured as the
Best General Entertainment Programme at the 23rd Asian Television Awards in 2018.
The full video of the performances of the contestants in the first episode (on August 1st,
2020) of Rap Việt, uploaded on YouTube, has topped 19 million views just two weeks
after it was released. The second episode of Rap Viet, which aired on August 8th, attracted
 23

more than 576,000 concurrent viewers (on Aug 12th), a record for a reality TV show in
Việt Nam. (Vietnam News, 2020).
In order to examine the turn taking strategies used among Vietnamese hip-hop
artists and youth, sixteen videos of the Rap Viet TV show were selected for analysis (Vie
Channel - HTV2, 2020). The length of each video was roughly one hour and a half to two
hours. The first video included in the analysis was released on August 01 , 2020, and the
st

latest on November 14 , 2020. The analysis focused only on interactions that contained
th

CS instances. First, I identified all such contexts and then transcribed the interactions
following CA transcription conventions (cf. Clift 2016). Only interactions that contained
CS instances were transcribed according to CA transcription conventions following Clift
(2016) and presented data of tonal language to English-speaking audiences following
Sidnell & Stivers (2013). Songs / performances and their lyrics were excluded from the
analysis, as well as written text that appeared on the screen during the show. Only spoken
interactions were included in the data set. The total amount of analyzed interaction is 214.
4.3 Data analysis
Data analysis focused specifically on the instances of CS, namely, I identified the
types (intra/inter) of CS in both verbal and non-verbal modes. In the context of CS, verbal
and nonverbal activities, function as “contextualization cue” (Gumperz (1982: 131), that
is, as cues that provide “an interpretive framework for the referential content of a
message”. The data was transcribed, and coded according to the following categories:
turn transition places where CS occurred (turn-initial, turn-internal, and turn-final), topic
(topic management & shift) and variety stances of speaker (hip-hop related stances and
the stance triangle).
In my analysis, I paid a special attention to turn transition-relevance places (TRPs)
due to their central role in sequential turn-organization. Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson
(1974: 715) noted:
That talk can be continuous is provided in the rules by the fact that each option
provides a procedure whereby some next speaker can be located at any
transition relevance place. The exercise of options to talk, in the ordered
fashion in which they become available at each transition-relevance place,
yields a sequence of continuous talk.
 24

Turn transition is a social action, underlining the decision and design of speakers between
turns whether turns were overlapped, disrupted, paused, or latched and might pursue topic
shift. Schegloff (1996) labelled stance-taking as a task of TRPs, showing how participants
heard and understood the prior turn (aligning with or against, registering, surprise or
familiarity). Therefore, when transcribing the data, I included such features of
conversation as: verbal feedback (turn-taking), nonverbal feedback (gazes, gestures),
hesitation, overlapping talk, connecting, pauses, self-correct, and interruption (turn
accession). Those features conveyed information about interactional consequences for
interlocutors, signaling how speakers project their stances towards other interlocutors and
to what they are saying.
In addition, there are rhythmic patterns of the preceding turns in conversational
events, which is subjected to accommodation among interlocutors (Auer et al. 1999).
Communication accommodation is a dynamic process in which participants adjust (or
accommodate) their style of speech to one another. Relying on the communicative
behavior of other conversational partners, the message senders try to minimize the social
differences between them and their interactants. This theory provides a mechanistic view
of social interaction, linking the language use, context, and identity of speakers (Giles,
Coupland & Coupland, 1991).
Depending on the resources such as the structural code switches between (as inter-
and intra- sentential switch styles in TRPs), I interpreted the collected data and evaluated
a social and situated meaning in verbal and non-verbal communication of participants.
The understanding of CS as a structural strategy that links to stance-taking in
contextualization cues (Jaffe, 2009). I referred to this theory to find out the
communicative behavior and the motivation when an addresser took up his/her stance and
how this stance was acknowledged by other addresses speakers under specific topics,
conditions and circumstances. The rhythmic patterns of CS between speaker turns were
an indicator to the powerful means of contextualizing information and a scope for the
discussion of their constructed identities.
Vietnamese hip-hop has gained its position in the Vietnamese community, and it
is considered as a cultural rebellion and transformation of the youth movement. This
movement has evolved hip-hop music from a musical genre to a subculture. Hip-hop
music in public media has become a playground for both artists and young Vietnamese
 25

to create, express themselves, and use individual stances – not only to share and call for
the alignment of other team members. I argued that in the public domain, stance-takers
of the hip-hop community use their conversation switching style of in-group code for
interacting with their group members. The universal code of hip-hop English was a local
production of urban Vietnamese bilingual speech styles. Their linguistic practices allow
them to recontextualize the global culture of hip-hop and position themselves in the
notion of hip-hop authenticity. Thus, the given attention of public media for Rap Viet,
has provided Vietnamese hip-hop artists and participants a platform for the performers to
signal their glocal identities and to attract youth-cultural communities and audiences.

5. Findings
5.1 Formal and structural characteristics of code-swiching in the Rap Viet show
Participants of Rap Viet show employ both intra-sentential and inter-sentential
CS. Intra-sentential CS mostly are limited to the use of hip-hop-specific nouns or nominal
phrases, for instance, (underground, flow, trap, drill, a million dollar flow, hit maker flow,
old school, new school, etc.), adjectives (matched, international, flashy, rich, gospel,
cool, real, and so on), interjections (Yea, ya, yes, sure, sorry, salut, and more) adverbs
(always, exactly, so forth), and verbs (respect, rap, add). Meanwhile, inter-sentential CS
occurred less frequently and included such full clauses as Keep it real, Let’s get it!, Let’s
do it!, Make it bang!, Why not?, What do you think? , Doesn’t make sense!, Can’t do it,
Thank you!, So fancy right now.
In terms of CS position within the turn, three different patterns were identified: a)
turn-initial CS (for example, “keep it real” in excerpt 4, “million dollars” in excerpt 10,
“still here” in except 11, etc.), b) turn-internal CS (for example, “trap”, “flex”, and “dark”
in excerpt 11, “rich” & “gospel” in excerpt 12), and c) turn-final CS (for example, “real
flashy” and “fake flashy” in excerpt 6, “thank you” in excerpt 7 and 9, “make it bang”
excerpt 11). In the analyzed data, turn-initial CS and turn-final CS occurred more often
than the turn-internal CS. The position of CS within the turn is of central importance, as
it is primarily through the sequencing patterns that CS unfolded as markers of stance in
analyzed interactions.
 26

5.2 Code-switching as a marker of stance

Participants in the Rap Viet show interact with each other following an orderly
and meaningful activity. They enter a conversation or conclude their turn by employing
CS with intensity of their involvement, leaving evidence of their social status and
relationships with others. This finding discusses how speakers use public discourse in
order to project their stances by addressing two aspects of code-switching: (1.) Code-
switching functions in analyzed interactions as stancetaking acts: Switching to a
particular code, they express their identities intentionally. Following three types of stance
functions such as evaluation, positioning, and alignment, they share and transmit their
information and understanding of the social roles, rituals, and norms. (2.) Code-switching
is employed to project hip-hop related stances: The hip-hop linguistic patterns (hip-hop
keywords or phrases as their focus on the meaning of words) that are rooted in AAE was
used to signal their in-group identity. This speech style contained those patterns allow
them to invite the associations of other hip-hop members to participate in the flow of
conversation.
In the hip-hop community, there has been a wide range of researchers where
language is considered as not only a means of communication, rather a series of choices
that artists, hip-hoppers, and urban youth select to index their identities. Language choice
represents their belief and leaves consequences in their group members. Regarding the
meaning-making process, hip-hop music presents the co-authorship and co-construction
between artists and the urban youth community. All sounds and objects they produce
carry a specific meaning in their local or regional culture.
5.3 Code-switching as stance taking act
From the view of the stance triangle, Dubois laid the groundwork for analyzing
stance systematically. Affective stance displayed valuation of a speaker, was an act of
claiming a particular identity themselves and evaluating the claim and status of his/her
addressees. Same priority, epistemic stance as positioning act, which indexed knowledge
and authority of a speaker, establishing the relative authority of interactants and
legitimating their further act of evaluation. He suggested concepts of stance functions
such as evaluation, positioning, and alignment; they are three aspects of stance which
were unified in stance act (Du Bois, 2007). Following this concept, the speakers’ use of
CS evidenced their stances to larger language ideologies was grouped into three sub-
 27

sections: positioning stance (excerpt 1), evaluation (excerpt 2), and alignment (or
disaligment as in excerpt 3). With purpose to unfold the stance taking process, it depended
on CS as a mechanism that claims the indexes, the ideologies and identity of speakers.
5.3.1 Code-switching as positioning strategy
Excerpt 1: BinZ discussed with Gonzo (GZ) about the topic and the preparation for
16Typh performance in episode 13, the breakout round. BinZ is the coach of Gonzo (he
is a candidate belongs to BinZ’s team)
1 BZ 84:35:00 Thầy giáo chào thầy giáo ((pound hug))
Teacher greets teacher!
Coach greets the teacher!
2 GZ 84:36:00 (hih) Em chào thầy
Hello coach!
Hello coach!
3 BZ 84:38:00 Hi em! Cái vòng đấu của em thì những đối thủ của em là (point
to the poster)
Hi brother! The round battle of you so your opponents are
Hi! Your opponents in the next ground are...
4 GZ 84:41:00 Tage
Tage?
5 BZ 84:42:00 Yes, yes yes
84:43:00 Gonzo narrates
6 BZ 84:48:00 Tage cũng là học trò của em?
Tage also is student of you?
Is Tage your student?
84:49:00 BZ narrates
7 BZ 84:55:00 theo như anh biết là lần này cái chủ đề nó rất là open.
As I know is this time the topic it is open
As I know, the topic is so open
8 84:57:00 Của em sẽ là thành ngữ tục ngữ.
Yours will be idioms and proverbs
It's idioms and proverbs
9 84:59:00 Em có thể làm mọi thứ ở trên cái chủ đề này.
You can do everything on this topic
You can do everything about this topic
85:01:00 Gonzo narrates
85:11:00 BZ narrates
10 BZ 85:15:00 Cái sự trau chuốt, cái sự chỉnh chu ở trong cái flow của em,
anh là người thấy điều đó rất là rõ,
The carefulness, the elegance in the flow of you, I am the
person see it really clear
I can see the carefulness and elegance in your flow
11 85:19:00 và anh nghĩ cái nhịp old school sẽ là cái nhịp rất là tốt để làm
cho cái điều đó nó toả sáng.
And I think the beat old school will be the beat really good to
make those shiny
I think old school beat is good to help you shine
12 85:23:00 Mình có thể nghe thử cái beat nha để xem mình có cái gì hay
ho xảy ra không.
 28

We can listen try the beat so that we have anything cool

happen
Let's check the beat out to see if good things happen!
13 85:27:00 Anh xin Mie. (music on)
I would ask Mie
Mie, please!
14 GZ 85:29:00 Woohoo, let's go (feel the beat)
15 BZ 85:32:00 (heh) để xem có gì hay ho không ha, hey: (đứng lên)
To see anything cool okay,
To see what happens
85:35:00 Gonzo narrates
85:45:00 BZ narrates
16 GZ 85:56:00 Oh yeah, em rất là thích cái sample trống này.
Oh yeah, I really like this sample drum
I love this drum sample
17 85:59:00 Yeah, nó nó đều đều, nó vào nó vào việc.
Yeah, it it steady steady, it in it in work.
It just goes my way
86:02:00 BZ narrates
18 BZ 86:09:00 Cảm giác của em ra sao
The felling of you is how?
How do you feel?
19 GZ 86:10:00 Sau khi mà qua cái vòng đấu trước, em cũng suy nghĩ rất là
nhiều
After pass the round battle previous, I also think really much
I thought so much after the 2nd round
20 86:12:00 bởi vì là okay, bây giờ mình được vào đến cái vòng tiếp
theo.Thì vòng đấu này có tên là vòng bứt phá,
Because is okay, now I can come into the ground next. That the
ground battle is named round breakout
Because, okay, I move to this round and it's called
breakthrough round
21 86:17:00 nghĩa là em phải bứt phá, em phải vượt lên trên bản thân của
em
Mean that I have to breakout, I have to get over the self of me
I have to break through and get over myself
22 86:19:00 Em có suy nghĩ là liệu mình có nên thử sức ở những cái loại
âm nhạc khác như là trap hay là drill
I have thoughts that if I should try on the music genres
different such as trap or drill
I wonder if I should try with other kinds of music like trap or
drill
23 86:24:00 hay là những thứ mà nó đang trending thời điểm hiện tại.
or the things that it is trending at the moment
or the current trends
24 86:26:00 Nhưng mà sau đấy thì em ngồi lại và em nghĩ tới cái pros and
cons,
But after that I sit back and I think about the pros and cons
Then I sit back and think about the pros and cons
25 86:30:00 em nghĩ là àh, thế mạnh của mình là một cái flow thật là chậm
mà chắc và một cái rhyme scheme
I think that ah, the strength of me is a type flow really slow but
solid and a rhyme scheme
 29

My strengths are solid and slow flow and rhyme scheme

26 86:34:00 thì tại sao mình phải bỏ nó đi để theo một cái khác.
So why I have to give it up to follow a thing different.
Why do I give them all up to follow something else?
27 86:36:00 Cái bứt phá của em nghĩa là em bứt phá lên khỏi bản thân của
mình và em đem đến một cái năng lượng thật sự là tích cực,
thật sự là bùng nổ trên sân khấu
My breakthrough is getting over myself and bringing positive
and explosion energy on stage
86:42:00 BZ narrates
28 BZ 86:49:00 Anh nghĩ em rất là sáng suốt khi em chọn như vậy, tại vì anh
nhìn thấy ở em một giá trị timeless.
I think you really are correct when you choose like that,
because I see in you a value timeless
I think you're right to think so since I see timeless values in you
29 86:53:00 Với những bạn khác thì anh khuyên nên bắt kịp cái trend
With other member yet I advise should catch the trend
I advise other members to catch the trends
30 86:56:00 của những cái gì đang xảy ra trong âm nhạc.
Of what being happen in musi
What is happening in music
31 86:57:00 Nhưng mà riêng em , anh thấy ở trong em, nó có cái giá trị
vượt thời gian đó.
But then only you, I see in you, it has a value timeless that.
But I can see the timeless values in you
87:01:00 GZ narrates
32 GZ 87:04:00 Yes Sir. Let's do it! [(hah)
33 BZ 87:05:00 [Let’s do it! ((pound hug))

In excerpt 1, BZ and GZ talked about the topic of this round, exchanging their
idea of how Gonzo would develop his song, and listening to the prepared beat together.
At first, both BZ and GZ greet each other in English, which may mark they are both fluent
or familiar with this code (their background). It alerts the capacity to interpret other
linguistic choices cognitively. In line X, BZ then answers the question of GZ using
English interjection Yes, yes, yes (line 5) and starts mixing codes throughout his turns. In
line X, BZ informs GZ about the topic information and comments upon that with CS open
in line 7. He continues with giving suggestions for GZ from his own knowledge as a
coach, employing such CS as flow (line 10), old school (line 11), beat (line 12), (drum)
sample (line 16). All of these hip-hop-related English terms allow him to position himself
as a commentator in the conversation with GZ, therefore the marked choice of English is
preferred to position in the rap music setting. In line X, BZ uses "timeless" for the rap
genres that Gonzo mentioned. By taking an evaluation stance for Gonzo ("timeless
value"), he establishes his authoritative status (his knowledge) as a forerunner and an
 30

artist who gains attention about rap music to multiple countries. Nonetheless, he aligns
with Gonzo idea about picking up the 19th rap genre for his next round. In the last turn,
line X, GZ agreed with BZ with Yes sir! Let's do it! (line 32) and laughs. BZ in response,
repeats GZ utterance in equal code Let’s do it! (line 33) and salutes with a pound hug.
Their moves in choosing linguistics codes are depends on (i) the topic of their
conversation (rap music performance), (ii) responses of their interlocutor (both switch) –
capacity of speakers to interpret choice of other, (iii) showing epistemic stance, and (iv)
their calculation on the in-group rap community input (hip-hop music genres and hip-hop
gestures) of other to turn in their marked choice.
5.3.2 Code-switching as evaluation strategy
Excerpt 2: Tran Thanh (TT), Karik (KR) and JustaTee (JT) discuss the performance of
TLinh (TL) in episode 15 – the final round. TT is the MC of the show; KR is one of four
coaches; JT is one of two judges; and TL is a candidate.
1 TT 44:19:00 Okay, tui thấy là KR phải đứng lên, KR thấy sao
Okay, I see that KR has to stand up, KR feel how?
Ok, I saw Karik stood up, what do you think?
2 KR 44:22:00 Bây giờ lúc này thì cái nón của JT để cứu TLinh nó quá xứng
đáng
Now at the moment that the hat of JT to save TLinh it so worth
I can see that golden hat of Justa Tee is so worth it
3 44:27:00 tại vì đây là tiết mục nó chất, chất không còn gì để nói
Because this is performance so swag, swag nothing to say
This is such a swag performance, nothing else to say
4 44:31:00 từ hình thể tới cách cách sắp xếp bố cục bài và cách chọn type
beat luôn
From body language to way arrange structure the song and
way select type beat also
From your body language to song structure, and beat type
choice
5 44:36:00 và kể cả vũ đạo của em và thần thái của em mọi thứ nó rất là
match(ed) với nhau
And also dancing move of you and spirit of you, everything it
really is matched together
Even your dancing moves and spirit, everything matches
6 44:40:00 và anh – anh muốn chết lặng luôn, so ((showing surrender))
((bowing))
And I – I want numb such, so
I feel like, numb, so (1.0)
7 TL 44:45:00 [Em cảm ơn
Thank you
Thank you
8 TT [Tui hiểu những gì KR đang trải qua
I understand things KR is experiencing
I know what KR going through
 31

9 44:47:00 tại vì tui cũng như vậy. Nó rất là international.

because I also like that. It really is international
because I think it's so international
10 44:51:00 Bất cứ một người nào của một quốc gia nào khi xem tiết mục
vừa rồi cũng không cần quan tâm cái người đó đến từ nước
nào.
Any person of a country any when watch performance this also
not need care she comes from which country.
Anyone from any country, watching and don't care where she
comes from
11 44:57:00 Thấy là wow, rất là hay
Feeling is wow, really is great
So wow and great

TLinh is the only female rapper that JT saved her by his golden hat at the end of
the breakout round. She performed the song “Chú chó trên ôtô" (nodding dog toy in the
car) of hip-hopper rock the stage. TT mentions KR action in Vietnamese đứng lên (stood
up – in line 1), to inform KR turn in the flow of conversation. He asked for KR
knowledge/opinion about the performance of TL – request for KR epistemic stance , as
if KR co-ordinates with his suggestion (the show was so great that KR had to stand up
and show his appreciation). To respond, KR projects his affective stance, he mixes codes
match(ed) (line 5), type beat (line 4) to confirm his belief that TL was successful. His CS
is calculated to communicate with TL, showing his empathetic and signals his identity as
a rapper. His role as a coach encouraged him to use English as keywords in his speech.
His turn is ended with so (line 6), gestures of supplicating and pause (1.0), they can be
interpreted as word-searching. This break is elaborated by TT international (line 9) and
an interjection Wow (line 11). TT uses his linguistic choice as links, from his identity as
non-rapper nor musical background, (i) to resume KR sentences (overlapped with TL to
co-construct the turn-in progress at KR turn); (ii) to align with KR stance.
5.3.3 Code-switching as disalignment strategy
Excerpt 3: Tran Thanh (TT), Wowy (WW), SuBoi (SB), BinZ (BZ) discuss WW's joke
on threatening other coaches and judges before performances of his team members in
episode 14, the breakout round. TT is the MC of the show; WW, SB and BZ are three of
four coaches.
1 SB 4:11 Ủa, còn bên đây thì sao?
Hay, abour here so what
Hey, what about me?
2 TT 4:13 Con - con gái, người ta hổng có ấy
A – a girl, he not do it
 32

You're female, he doesn't hit you

3 WW 4:15 Từ từ (approaching SB))
Hold on
Hold on!
4 BZ ((guarding SB))=
5 SB 4:22 = Oh ((hih))
6 BZ 4:44 no no ((head shake)) can’t do it, can’t do it. Không được,
không được. Về về đi
Do not, do not. Go go back
Do not do it! Come back
7 TT 4:45 Về về [về
Back back back
Come back
8 WW [Không có ngoại lệ đâu BZ
No have exception ,BZ
There is no exception, BinZ!
9 TT 04:46 người nhái ơi về người nhái ơi:::
Diver back diver
Come back, this diver!
10 WW 4:48 Khoan, cái này =
Hold on, this
Hold on, this
11 TT 4:49 = trời ơi, người ta man(ly) quá người ta bảo vệ
Gosh, the person manly so
He's so manly, he protects the girl
12 WW 4:53 Từ từ, khoan khoan
Wait, wait, hold on
Hold on, wait!
13 4:55 cái này là SB muốn
This is SB want
Suboi wants it
14 TT 4:56 Muốn cái gì, thôi người nhái về đi. Trời ơi ((turn away))
Want what, so diver go back. Gosh!
What does she want? Come back! Gosh!
15 WW 4:58 (hih)
16 4:59 Một tràng pháo tay cho Binz (talk to the audiences).
An applause for BZ
A big applause for BinZ!
17 TT 5:04 Thấy người ta gentleman,
See that person gentleman
See what a gentleman he is!
18 WW 5:05 ông đi về ông chiên cái ốp la ăn cho tỉnh lại đi.
you go back you fry an egg eat to be sober
come back and fry an egg to eat, to get sober!
19 5:08 Đi, nhanh, lẹ
Go, quick, fast
Go, quickly!

In excerpt 3, WW brought a pan with him as a threatening tool to other coaches

who dared to look down on the performance of his key members in episode 14. WW
stepped to Karik, RM, and JT chair to scare them with the pan (a joke). SB is the only
 33

female rapper who is one of coaches in the show who WW approached lastly. BZ opts
for English code to disalign with WW and shakes his head. His position is overtly
negative toward WW act - , in line 6, he utters no, no, can't do it, can't do it is uttered to
confront WW, a person with whom he shares who has the same authoritative status, same
ethnic background, same gender (both male) and the same community of practice
(rapper). In the same line (line 6), he then chooses Vietnamese to request WW taking his
step back. His move displays his moral stance by protecting SB and disalignment with
WW. In line 11, TT interrupts WW with his appraisal of BZ employing manly, and takes
a full turn by a mix-code exclamation sentence (gentleman, line 17). He co-constructs in
the turn-in progress and aligns with BZ (uses the same code as BZ as a facility of
expression and distance from WW. English as an unmarked choice It appears that his
linguistic choice is rational, based on RO set, his belief on gender norms.
5.4 Stances relating to hip-hop identity
The sequencing pattern of CS in conversation left evidence on the function CS is
employed as primarily as a stance marker for interactants to project their social identities
and to signal their relationship (alignment, belonging) to the and language ideology of
hip-hop culture. The relationship to hip-hop culture is indexed through three different
stance projections, namely, realness (keepin’ it real stance in excerpt 4, 5, and 6), street
credibility (respect/give props stance in excerpt 7, 8, and 9), and aggressiveness (gangsta
stance in excerpt 10, 11, and 12). In the following sections I discuss these stancetaking
strategies in more detail. Those mentioned stance-taking strategies provided an insight
view of the complex sociocultural meaning and complex interactive constructed identity
of Vietnamese rappers, interpersonal interaction. They first use their stance to claim
authority and aligned or disaligned with other participants. There are three patterns that
were found out: turn-initial CS (for example, “keep it real” in excerpt 4, “million dollars”
in excerpt 10, “still here” in except 11, etc), turn-internal CS (for example, “trap”, “flex”,
and “dark” in excerpt 11, “rich” & “gospel” in excerpt 12), and turn-final CS (for
example, “real flashy” and “fake flashy” in excerpt 6, “thank you” in excerpt 7 and 9,
“make it bang” excerpt 11). In naturally-occurring conversation, the turn-initial CS and
turn-final CS occurred more often than the turn-internal code-switching.
5.4.1 Code-switching as a marker of keepin’ it real stance
According to Cutler (2003: 215), hip-hop’s “keepin’ it real” doctrine is built upon:
 34

(1) the idea that people should present themselves for what they are not “front”
with respect to class, race and language use; and (2) the idea that realness has
to do with being connect to “the street” or the urban ghetto in both a physical
and a linguistic sense.
Hip-hop artists in Vietnam rely on this very same ideological doctrine of authenticity to
discursively construct themselves as belonging to this community of practice. The
language ideology of hip-hoppers was the referenced framework to analyze how
conversational participants construct themselves as authentic.

Excerpt 4: Tran Thanh (TT), Wowy (WW) discuss the performance of Thanh Draw (TD)
in episode 15 – the final round. TT is the MC of the show, WW is one of the coaches.
1 TT 76:03:00 WW em thấy sao?
WW, you feel how?
Wowy, what do you think?
2 WW 76:05:00 Keep it real, thành thật mà nói, thì em đã đoán trúng (shoulder
shrug) =
Keep it real, honestly to say, that I did guess right
Keep it real, I have to say honestly, I guessed it right
3 TD 76:08:00 = Yeah, you're right!
4 WW 76:10:00 (hahah) (0.5)
5 76:11:00 Em rất là cháy bỏng nha,
You really are hot
You have so much fire
6 76:13:00 khả năng của em cho tới hiện tại nó on the next level
ability of you until now it on the next level
your performing skill is at the next level
7 76:17:00 anh rất là vui khi mà thấy qua một cái chương trình RV như thế
này. Các bạn rapper có thể ngày càng ngày càng giống với các
superstars nhiều hơn nữa đó.
I really am happy when see through a show Rap Viet like this.
The fellow rappers can day by day like with the super stars
much more then.
I feel so happy after this show, rappers become more and more
like super stars
8 76:26:00 Anh hông có nhìn ra nổi em luôn đó.
I not recognize can you then
I can't recognize you
76:28:00 Em so fancy right now!
You so fancy right now!
You are so fancy right now!
9 TT 76:31:00 yeah, thật sự =
yeah, truly
yeah, truly
10 WW 76:32:00 = Tới mức mà anh ngồi anh nói tiếng anh luôn đó anh Thành
(2.0)
 35

So much that you sit you speak English too Mr. Thanh
You even speak English, Mr.Thanh
11 76:36:00 Á lộn, [em ngồi em nói tiếng anh.] ((laugh))
Ah mistake, I sit I speak English
My mistake, I speak English
12 76:36:30 [(hahah)
13 TT 76:40:00 Okay, cảm ơn WW, anh biết là cái cảm xúc này rất là thú vị, tại
vì chúng ta rất phấn khích qua cái tiết mục vừa rồi.
Okay, thank WW, I know that the emotion this really is
interesting, because we really excited about the performance
recent.
Ok, I know how it feels, we're all so excited after his
performance
14 76:47:00 Thực sự là như vậy anh đứng ở dưới mà anh cứ nhún nhảy theo
em thôi. Tại vì nó thực sự là catchy
Really is like that, I stand over there and I also dance follow you
so. Because it really is catchy
For real though, I had to dance along, it's really catchy

In excerpt 4, Thanh Draw rapped a song named “Thành Thật” (Honesty) was
about the realness of a rapper. Before the performance of Thanh Draw, WW predicted
Thanh Draw would bring something strong, active and explosive to the stage. After TT
initiates the conversation by asking in Vietnamese if WW still keeps his opinion, WW,
em thấy sao? (How do you feel, WW?, line 1), WW’s (in line 2) immediate CS to English
“keep it real” allows him to position himself as both a coach (commenter) in this rap show
and a member of a rap community. The subsequent code-switches in line 6 (on the next
level), line 7 (superstar), line 8 (so fancy right now) help him to confirm his authoritative
stance and his empathetic about Thanh Draw ability. Turn-final CS is employed to close
up his turn with an exclamatory sentence in line 8, Em so fancy right now!. He
ambiguously indexes (i) his identity (underground rapper) in this answer, (ii) his persona
and (iii) the norm of in-group rap community. The mutual understanding about “Keep it
real” is a mantra in hip-hop, individuals' urge to be true to their roots is shared in public
discourse, (except TT). He rationally makes sure his position as (sincere) stance about his
previous prediction about TD performance. Thanh Draw shows his appreciation to WW
about his belief by switching to English yeah, you’re right, line 3. This act is encouraged
from his background of TD is a graphic designer who belongs to the younger rapper
generation than WW. He was born in Hai Phong and lives in Saigon (both urban cities).
The interaction in time of TD, no silence between him and WW, projects his clarification
on WW utterance, he eagerly supports WW belief about his performance. In this case,
 36

unmarked choice of CS is rational (Myers S., 2001), he signals his understanding of (i)
the stance of WW, (ii) his role/ relation within this context as a candidate (WW is a coach)
(iii) his identity as a rapper – RO set, from rap community aspect, his linguistic choice as
links between him and WW. His affective stance is projected equal English code to WW
code of “Keep it real" – language in use in their rap community (WW & TD). WW set a
value for Thanh Draw's performance by his evaluation stance. As a person who has
succeeded and got respect from the Vietnamese Hip-hop community from the beginning.

Excerpt 5: The coaches and the judges were invited to give a comment on a battle of two
candidates (16Typh and LeeBoo) in episode 10. SB is the last coach who gives a comment
before Ryhmastic (RM) – one of the judges starts.
1 SB 37:14:00 Thật ra con gái không phải là mình cứ nói cái gì cool, ngầu hay
là màu mè, thì người ta thích đâu
Actually, the girls not have be we keep something cool, cool, or
is colourful, that they like yet.
Actually, girls don't always like cool and colorful things
2 37:19:00 Mà người ta muốn thấy được em là ai
Yet they want see well you are who
They want to know who you are
3 37:22:00 [Vâng
Yes
Yes
4 37:22:00 [Đó, cho nên chị nhìn những cái bài trước của em đó, nó rất là
hay
Yes, so that I look other songs previous of you, they really are
good
Your previous songs are so good
5 37:26:00 mà nếu như em bỏ 50% cái đó, rồi 50% mà em học của anh BZ
là chắc chắn là đẹp luôn
And if you combine 50% those, then 50% which you learn of
Mr. BZ that really great is.
If you combine 50% of your old self and 50% new things you
learn from BinZ, it'd be great
6 37:31:00 Em cảm ơn ạ
I thank you!
Thank you!
7 RM 37:35:00 Anh biết là 16Typh có một thế mạnh rất lớn khi mà rap về
những nội dung về xã hội,
I know that 16Typh has a strength really big when rap about
the issues about society.
I know 16 Typh has much strength to rap about social issues-
8 37:40:00 về tình cảm anh em, cũng như là cái lối sống real,
About the hood of brothers, as well as the lifestyle real.
about brotherhood or real lifestyle
9 37:44:00 và anh nghĩ là những cái chủ đề như thế nó sẽ giúp bật cái sức
mạnh của em lên hơn là một cái chủ đề về tình yêu.
 37

And I think that those topics like that they will help show the
strength of you up more than a topic about love
I think those topics are better for you to show yourself than love

In excerpt 5, 16Typth (16T) and LeeBoo performed a flirting song "Gặp nhau là
skrrt" (Skrrt any time we meet) on the trap flow. Skrrtt is an onomatopoeia for the sound
of tires screeching, used by trap rappers. Trap music is a subgenre of hip-hop, it originated
from Atlanta where trap in slang means illegal drug selling area. The judges had to decide
who would be selected to go for the next round – the breakthrough. SB starts her turn by
mixing English code cool (line 1), to emphasize her dispreference and to contrast with
the cool image 16T and LeeBoo had shown in their performance. From her view of a
woman, opening up to two young male, about how girls would love to know about them.
Because 16T and LeeBoo belong to BZ’s team. She suggests they should keep their
selfness and learn from BZ to develop it in their songs. Subsequently RM also continues
on the flow of conversation by mixing English code real (line 8). He shows his authority
about the forte topic (brotherhood & real lifestyle) which would support 16T more than
a topic about love. His move is elaborating on the suggestion of SB for 16T to be his real
version (who is from an underground background). Interacting with SB and 16T, RM not
only projects his identity as a speaker but also creates a link between his turn and SB turn
by using his linguistic choice of English. Moreover, he rationally picks English as a code
to put forward the core ideology of hip-hoppers and this act can be identified as the keepin'
it real stance of Ryhmastic.

Excerpt 6: Tran Thanh, Karik, Wowy, BinZ and JustaTee (JT) discuss the performance
of Hanh Or in episode 6. TT is the MC of the show; KR, WW and BZ are three coaches;
and JT is one of two judges.
1 TT 82:05:00 Và bây giờ hai giám khảo sẽ là người quyết định, Hành về với
tô cháo nào
And now two judges will be persons decide Hanh go to bows
porridge which
Now two judges decide which "porridge" bow that "Hanh"
belongs to
2 KR 82:11:00 (hah)
3 JT 82:13:00 Đây là một cái lá bài rất là mạnh
This is a card really such strong.
He's such a strong factor
4 82:15:00 Cho nên là ở đây có ai muốn nói bất cứ điều gì để =
So that is right here have anyone want talk any thing to
 38

Anyone wants to say anything to-

5 KR 82:19:00 = kích cầu, kích cầu nào
Demand stimuli, demand stimuli let’s
Let’s speak up!
6 JT 82:20:00 ya, mình có thể tuyết phục được BGK trên này và mọi người ở
đây là có thể đi được chung với bạn này không?
ya, you able to persuade well the judges up here and everyone
right there that can go with this contestant?
- to persuade the judges and everyone that you can go with this
contestant
7 BZ 82:26:00 Bản thân anh nghĩ là WW không thể đem cái ngôi sao ở bên
trong em ra được
Myself I think that WW can not get the stars is inside you out
well
I think Wowy can't get the star inside of out to shine out
8 82:30:00 Cái sự liên kết của WW nó nằm ở những điều đơn giản
The connection of WW it lay on things the simple
His connection lies in the simple things
9 82:33:00 Nếu em muốn cái gì đó flashy hơn, em muốn cái gì đó lấp
lánh, em biết phải chọn ai rồi =
If you want something flashy more, you want something
sparkle, you know have to choose who already.
If you want more flashy things, you know whom to choose
10 TT 82:37:00 = Thấy ghét hông,
Look hating so
Look at him!
11 82:39:00 Đàn ông với đàn ông mà còn thả thính nữa, thiệt tình =
Gentlement with gentlemen but still flirting, really
Men to men and he's such flirting
12 WW 82:42:00 = Anh nghĩ là BZ nên nói lại, bởi vì cái người đơn giản là BZ
chứ không phải là WW
I think that BZ should talk again, because the person simple
is BZ but not have be WW
I think he should think about it again, BinZ is simple, not me
13 82:47:00 Còn flashy của WW là real flashy, nó hổng phải là fake
flashy
Regarding flashy of WW is real flashy, it not have be fake
flashy
Mine is real flashy, not fake flashy
14 BZ 82:52:00 Uh uh ((nod))

In the first round of the show (the conquering round), four couches had to press
his/her button to select a candidate into his/her team while this candidate was
performing. If there were more than one couch choosing a candidate, the decision would
belong to two judges. Hanh Or was selected by all couches and touched their admiration
by his song "Beethoven trappin'" on the soundtrack of "Fur Elise'' (Beethoven),
combining classical music with hip-hop. He owned an impressive performance with his
artistic style, mastering the voice and stage and his dancing capability. In excerpt 6,
 39

WW and BZ were two promising teams for the coaches to resolve. JT invites both of
them to speak for themselves and persuades him and RM. The debate is in Vietnamese
until BZ presented himself as flashy in English (line 9). He contrasts himself with WW
by using metaphor, Hanh Or as a star. He points out that the rap style of WW was
simple, and his is flashy (line 9), enough for the star to shine. His intention was to stress
his catchy rap style would fit Hanh Or more than of WW. For communicative purposes,
WW reflects himself in response for BZ as real flashy (line 13). Thus, he corrects the
statement of BZ without hesitation and shows distance with BZ as fake flashy (line 13).
His stance is constructed based on his situational coherence, from his position as
forerunner underground rapper who had kept the realness from the beginning of his
career until now. On the other side, based on his authoritative status, he implicitly
invites and encourages Hanh Or to build up the same real style as him. Both WW and
BZ self-present themselves by employing English code as the turn-final alternative
code. WW, in particular, his calculation on the previous turn of BZ exposes to an extent
of the markedness model. The language use arrived between BZ and WW was
Vietnamese mixed with English adjectives specifically, and in the hip-hop community
at large.
5.4.2 Code-switching as a marker of giving props/respect stances
Membership in the hip-hop nation is a reward in which it is created, recognized
and reconciled by its audience. Hip-hop artists with their length of service and stability
in hip-hop music are reckoned as long-term members. They serve as national builders and
have power to influence their fellow and to monitor the authenticity of audiences and
artists (Morgan, 2001). Receiving props or having respect from a long-term member
would be considered as granting membership to the younger hip-hop generations in their
community. Through hip-hop sub-cultural and linguistic symbols (word, expression, and
messages, etc), urban youth signify their membership, role and status in their speech
(Cutler, 2003). They constantly re-work the language style of AAE and represent the hip-
hop culture, which provides a frame for researchers to recognize and to interpret their
stance behind it. Their linguistic practices in following excerpts would serve as evidence
of how they define themselves with respect to others within the hip-hop community in
Vietnam.
 40

Excerpt 7: TT, BZ discusses the performance of Ricky Star, GDucky (GD) and KR in the
final round. TT is the MC of the show; BZ and KR are both coaches; Ricky Star and
GDucky are candidates.
1 BZ 69:13:00 Một tràng pháo tay nồng nhiệt cho ba thầy trò. Woa:::
An applause big for three coach attendants. Woa::
A big applause for this triple!
2 69:20:00 Explosion, ô, thật sự bùng nổ
Explosion, oh, really explosed.
Explosion. Oh, it's real explosion
3 69:21:00 BZ, em thấy thế nào
BZ, you feel how?
BZ, how do you feel?
4 69:23:00 Trước hết em nói về người bạn của em KR, trước - trước khi anh
nói về hai em
At first I talk about the friend of mine KR, before – before I talk
about two you
I have to say about my friend Karik first, before talking about
you two
5 69:26:00 Thực sự là ở đây mình cảm nhận được là KR ở trên đó rap cả
con tim ra ngoài luôn
Really is right here I feel can that KR up there rap all the heart
out.
I can really feel that Karik raps all of his heart out
6 69:30:00 Mình cảm nhận được điều đó và mình nể phục điều đó
I feel can that thing and I admire that thing.
I can feel it and I admire it
7 69:32:00 Respect, much respects ((clap hands)) =
8 69:33:00 = Cho KR thêm một tràng pháo tay, được không ạ ((clap hands))
9 Give KR more one applause, can you?
One more applause for Karik, please!
10 69:37:00 Gducky và Ricky Star, cả hai em đều có những cái sự tinh tế ở
trong cái bài nhạc
GDucky and Ricky Star, both two you evenly have much the
elegance in the song.
Both GDucky and Ricky Star have elegance in this song
11 69:42:00 Cách tụi em ra vào trong cái bài nhạc, làm sao tụi em thả về cái
hook hoặc là tụi em vào cái hook ra sao
Way you go out in of the song, way you let go the hook or you
come back in the hook how
The way you hold and let the hook go
12 69:46:00 Mọi thứ nó đều rất là đẹp, và rất là tuyệt vời
Everything is so nice and great
13 69:48:00 Một bài hát amazing ((clap hands))
A song amazing
Such an amazing song!
14 69:50:00 Thank you! ((clap hands))
69:51:00 thank you cho cái màn trình diễn vừa rồi
15 Thank for this performance!
 41

In excerpt 7, GDucky, Ricky Star and KR. Their song was ALA ELA, which made
everyone have to stand up and dance along. After TT giving his expression in English
Explosion (line 2), he initiates the conversation by asking BZ’s opinion on this
performance in Vietnamese BinZ, em thấy thế nào? (BZ, how do you feel) in line 3. BZ
replies in Vietnamese and code-switches to English respect (line 7) and claps his hands
to finish his part which was only to his addressee - KR. This action allows him to position
himself as (i) a commenter in the show, (ii) an audience and (iii) a member of a rap
community. He uses English code respect - a keyword used in the hip-hop community to
give props (respect) to hip-hop artists, which in this case, is to KR. His next sentence, in
line 8, he calls for appraisal and alliance from the audiences and other attendants by
clapping their hands. This give props/respect stance is not only held within the hip-hop
community but also shouted to the larger audience/community. The subsequent code-
switches hook (line 11), amazing (line 13), thank you (line 14 & 15) help him to confirm
his authoritative stance and his alignment with TT initial CS about the performance
GDucky, Ricky Star and Karik.

Excerpt 8: Tran Thanh, JustaTee and Rhymastic discuss the performance of Dế Choắt
(DC) in episode 3. TT is the MC of the show, JT and RM are the two judges; and DC is
a candidate.
1 TT 63:53:00 JT?
2 JT 63:54:00 Trước hết, là phải ngưỡng mộ cách bạn ấy chọn lọc từ,
First of all, is have admire way he select word
First, I admire how he uses the words
3 63:57:00 Không thừa không thiếu
No excess no lack
No less, no more
4 63:58:00 Từ nào cũng rất là đắt trong cái bài nhạc này
Word any also really is costly in the song this.
All the words are brilliant
5 64:00:00 Và thứ hai, cái sự biến hoá của em (0.2) trên sân khấu, phóng
khoáng, tự do
And the second, the way changing of you (0.2) on the state,
open, free
Second, how you change on stage openly and freely
6 64:03:00 em đã làm rất tốt ở vòng đầu rồi
You did do really well in round audition already.
It's so free, you did it so well in the audition round
7 64:07:00 Mọi người có thể thấy em chạy khắp sân khấu
Everyone able to see you run around the stage
We saw you running around the stage
8 64:10:00 Xong rồi em làm mọi thứ nó rất là hồn nhiên
 42

After that you did everything it eally is natural.

You did everything in a natural way
9 64:13:00 Và đến vòng này, khi mà cần cái sự ngạo nghễ của một ông vua
And to this round, when need the arrogance of a king
To this round, when it requires the arrogance of a king
10 64:17:00 Em vẫn làm dược, chỉ cần đứng nguyên một chỗ thôi
You still do can, only need stand still one place at
You can still do it, you just stand at one place
11 64:20:00 Để đọc ra những cái lời đấy, toả năng lượng đến mọi người
To read out the lyrics that, spread energy to everyone
You read the words, show us your energy
12 64:24:00 Mà em vẫn làm được
Yet you still do can.
You nailed it
13 64:25:00 Đấy là cái cực kỳ thành công từ em
That is the really sucsessful from you.
It's your great success
14 64:27:00 Và một cái nữa, tuy là em đang hoá thân vào một ông vua,
And one thing more, even though you being act as a king,
One more thing, though you're acting like a king
15 64:30:00 nhưng mà cái cốt cách của em, em vẫn luôn giữ, khi mà em nhắc
đến một vài cái tính từ về chân thành, chân chất , ta không quên.
But the manner of you, you still always keep, when you mention
to several adjectives about sincere, naïve, I do not forget.
But you still remain your manner when you mention the words
like sincere, naïve, I don’t forget
16 64:37:00 Cái điều đấy là điều rất là đáng quý của em! ((look at Dế Choắt))
That thing is the really respectable of you!
It's what I appreciate in you
17 RM 64:42:00 Yeah! [Respect
18 DC [Em cảm ơn ạ
I thank you
Thank you
19 RM 64:43:00 Ở vòng này, thực sự chất giọng của em toả sáng một cách rực rỡ
luôn
In this round, truely the voice of you shine brightly really.
Your voice truly shines brightly in this round
20 64:48:00 Khi mà giọng của em nó cất lên cùng với (0.2) một bài nhạc mà
80% trong đó là tính từ, động từ,
When the voice of you it sing together with (0.2) a song when
80% in it is adjectives, verbs.
Your voice sings a song with 80% of adjectives and verbs
21 64:55:00 Thì cách delivery cách nhấn nhá những cái tự ngữ đấy nó đạt
lên hiệu quả cao nhất
That way delivery way stress those words so it reach to effect
highest.
You reach the highest effect with your way of delivering and
making stress
22 64:59:00 Và cái giọng của em nó làm anh nhớ đến một huyền thoại nhạc
rap là Ice Cube và cũng là thần tượng của anh, ya
And the voice of you it make me remember a rap legend is Ice
Cube and also is my idol, ya
 43

Your voice reminds me of a rap legend Ice Cube, he's also my

idol
23 65:07:00 Yea, ừm, thứ hai là anh rất là thích cái cách sử dụng những cái ý
từ trong bài của em, đặc biệt là ở những đoạn hooks,
Yea, ừm, the second is anh really like the way use the meaning
words in song of you, especially is at the part hooks
Secondly, I love the words you use, especially in the hooks

In excerpt 8, RM and JT in turn express their opinion on De Choat

performance. His song named "Phieu Luu Ky" (Adventures) rapping about the self-
reflection of a rapper. The rapper in his song is depicted following the classic children
novel Dế Mèn phiêu lưu ký (Adventures of a Cricket) of To Hoai. According to the given
topic "Trending sayings" from RM and JT. In this song, De Choat lyrics only used
alliterative expressions, compound words in the Vietnamese Proverbs Collection,
appeared with a traditional outfit. His performance was so excellent that all coaches
praised the decision to bring Vietnamese unique words and poetic form into the rap. TT
invites JT to take the floor by calling his name. JT evaluates the performance in
Vietnamese, detailing how brilliant De Choat presented spiritual lyrics from a haughty
cricket. He mentioned some words from De Choat lyrics as sincere, naive, and
unforgettable despite the success. Since the content of the song which JT mentioned,
rooted in the Vietnamese culture, derived from an idiom When you eat a fruit, think of
the man who planted the tree. When his turn was interrupted by RM appraisal in English
respect, in line 18, constantly agrees with RM statement and indexes his identity as a
long-term member of the Vietnamese hip-hop community by showing his respect, in line
17. This stance of RM aligns with the evaluation stance of JT. RM continues on by code
switches delivery (line 21) and hook (line 23). Those hip-hop keywords assist his
judgement and explain why he respects De Choat. Taking into account that all three are
from big cities (Saigon and Hanoi), RM and JT hold the same authority status, meanwhile
De Choat rap career is much shorter. Expressing respect to De Choat, right after JR
speech, RM acknowledges and grants him a membership in the Vietnamese rap
community. He speaks for not only him but JT, from the position of a long-term member
as a co-construct meaning in their conversation. Their turns are unmarked CS which are
connecting simultaneously. RM’s move (i) shows his authority (ii) is driven from his
empathy about GD performance and appearance (iii) expresses his solidarity with
JustaTee.
 44

Excerpt 9: Tran Thanh, Wowy, BinZ, Karik discuss the performance of Duy Andy, MCK,
and Yuno Bigboy in episode 8. TT is the MC of the show; WW, BZ and KR are three of
four coaches; Duy Andy, MCK, and Yuno Bigboy(YunoBB) are candidates
1 WW 45:56:00 Yeah yeah, anyway, anh rất là happy, anh rất là happy
I so am happy, I so am happy
Anyways, I'm so happy
2 TT 46:05:00 Xin cảm ơn đóng góp của huấn luyện viên WW
Would thank feedback of coach WW
Thank the feedback from Wowy!
3 46:08:00 Đó người ta đang trách BZ là tại sao nãy giờ không đứng lên,
để ngồi địa hàng đúng hông
See he blames BZ that why during time not stand up, to hunt
right?
He blames BinZ for not standing up, you focus on hunting
4 BZ 46:12:00 WW nói đúng (á) thực sự một cái bài hát quá hay, đập vào
mặt anh. Anh chỉ có vài phút để anh không hiểu, tại sao mình
chỉ được chọn một người trong cái bộ ba quá kinh khủng này
WW says correctly really a song great, hit on my face. I only
have few minutes to I not understand, why I only can choose
one in the triple so super this
Wowy is right, this song is so great, and I had only a few
minutes to process why I can only choose one in the super
triple
5 46:20:00 Cái việc KR đang làm anh respect cái điều đó
The thing KR is doing I respect the thing that
I respect what Karik is doing
6 46:22:00 Tại vì cái sự hy sinh KR phải có để tạo ra cái tác phẩm hôm
nay
Because the sacrifice KR must have to create the product
today
Because he has to sacrifice to have this product
7 46:26:00 Thank you KR để có một cái màn trình diễn tuyệt vời như
vậy
to have a performance great like this.
Thank Karik for such a great performance!
8 KR 46:28:00 ((KR bumps his fist to his chest))
9 BZ 46:29:00 Khi mà cái nốt đầu tiên của MCK vang lên là anh biết đây sẽ
là một cái gì đó rất là kinh khủng
When the note at first of MCK is on that I know this will be
something really super
When MCK's note hit it, I knew it would become something so
super
10 46:34:00 cho những năm sắp tới của hip-hop Việt nam
For the years upcoming of hip-hop Viet Nam
For the upcoming years of Viet Nam hiphop
12 46:36:00 Và nối tiếp theo sau đó là Andy, em dùng cái kỹ thuật
beatbox của mình rất là đúng chỗ,
And continue after that is Andy, you use the skill beatbox of
you really right place,
 45

And then Andy, you used your beatbox skill at the right place
12 46:41:00 và không có lạm dụng nó
And you not overuse it.
You didn't use it too much
13 46:42:00 Và tới khi Yuno BB xuất hiện thì một cái nốt end quá đẹp
cho cái verse 1, và đến cái chorus thì mọi thứ nổ tung lên
luôn
And until Yuno BB appear so a note end so nice for the verse
1, and until the chorus so everything exploded well
Yuno Bigboi was a good ending for verse 1 and until the
chorus, things exploded
14 46:50:00 Sorry tụi em vì không thể đứng lên anh nhảy, tại vì anh vẫn
đang không hiểu tại sao phải loại hai tụi em ra trong ba người
này,
Sorry all you because not able stand up dance, because I still
being not understand why must eliminate two of you in three
persons here
I'm sorry for not standing up and dancing along, since I
didn't understand why we should eliminate 2 in this triple
15 46:55:00 Chúc mừng màn trình diễn =
Congrats the performance
Congrats on this performance!
16 46:56:00 = Em cảm ơn anh (Duy Andy, MCK, and Yuno BB chorus)
I thank you brother
Thank you!
17 TT 46:58:00 Biết tại sao phải loại hông BZ, tại vì người ta biết là sẽ có
người quăng nón á (hah) =
Know why must eliminate BZ, because he knows that will be
someone throw hat so
Do you know why we have to eliminate them? Because he
knows someone will throw a hat
18 KR 47:05:00 = Yeah, exactly

Except 9 was pulled from episode 8, KR team stepped in the battle round (3rd
round). Team members were paired into two or three members to battle. The judges (JT
and RM) can only choose one candidate in each battle to join the breakout round. This
conversation is about the battle of three members: Duy Andy, MCK, and Yuno Bigboy.
They are three most talented candidates in the team of KR which bring up a hard time for
the judge to decide. They perform the song "M.A.Y", belonging to the boom bap
genre, about their love for a girl named Rap. It was so stirring that all coaches and judges
had to stand up, except BZ. During WW previous turn, he answered when TT mocked
BZ of why he did not stand up and cheer while Duy Andy, MCK, and YunoBB were
performing. WW guessed that BZ was wondering whether to throw the hat because there
is still a team left to perform (team of SB). WW mentioned that BZ was just as WW, still
have their rights to use the golden hat (the hat is used to save one rapper from other teams
 46

who is not selected by JT and RM). SB team members were so strong, he kept thinking
as if he should use his hat or not until the song ended. WW put an end for his turn by
employing English interjection Yea Yea and adjective happy (line 1). His sentence
confirms his evaluation stance of how happy he is, watching the performance. TT gives
the floor to BZ with a question in Vietnamese, asking for the confirmation on the claim.
BZ's first reaction is to align with WW clarification for his action (not standing to dance
and encourage). He then switches code with respect (line 5) and Thank you (line 7) to
signal his stance toward KR. This code raises multiple meanings in BZ statement: (i)
support his evaluation on the performance (ii) his appreciation to KR arrangement (iii)
project his empathy on how and why KT put three out-standing rappers into one battle.
His respect stance not only sets a high value for the performance but also reveals an extent
of deferring. KR immediately recognizes this respect stance of BZ and gestures himself
by bumping his fist to the chest, line 8 – a way of presenting respect in the hip-hop
community. BZ and KR calculate both the code choice (English) and the gesture to
converse their respect stance – one of the core ideological doctrines of the hip-hop
community in this interaction. The following code switches, BZ assigns beatbox (line 12)
for Duy Andy, end (line 13) for Yuno Bigboy, and chorus (for all), supporting his
authoritative stance as a commentator. In addition, he apologizes in English, sorry (line
14) for not cheering them at first and elaborate on it. At this point, he refers back to WW
evaluation, showing his regret and aligning with WW evaluation stance one more time.
TT concludes the discussion in Vietnamese as a tease, predicting BZ would use the right
of his gold hat to scout one rapper to his team (out of two expelled ones). In the Vietnam
rapper community, WW, BZ and KR are considered as long-term members and nation
builders by their influences on the newbie (rapper at fresh level). Vietnamese code is a
dominant language in between the coaches (WW, BZ, and KR) but hip-hop English
keywords and English code are employed for some specific aspects such as evaluation,
praise and solidarity in their hip-hop social group. It presents their beliefs and has
consequences on others by their tun-in-progress conversation.
5.4.3 Code-switching as a marker of gangsta stances
The aggressive or gangsta rap is the common theme in rap lyrics which relates to
the violent lifestyle as thug or gangsta. Even though the quintessential gangsta track as
defined by Quinn (2005: 6) is “rich, dramatic storytelling in the first person; an ethic of
 47

“survivalist individualism; potent social commentary; and—not to be forgotten—playful,

robust humor.”. This rap genre in modern life plays a role of money talks rather than the
origin purpose of African American (a cultural expression in marginalized communities,
empowerment and political activism). This role is the goal of some rappers who identified
with the underground rap scene, to achieve commercial success and ultimate riches. Hip-
hop music is now fully established into the mainstream by the involvement of media
corporations, the gangsta or thug frame has been widespread among hip-hop fans. The
explanation for this commercial palatability is the stereotype of selling what audiences
want to hear, satisfying the consumers desires. The realness of the rapper is legitimated
by the cultural marketplace, their publicity image. They rap from their frank declaration
of such commercial messages (Quinn, 2005). However, hip-hop artists of gangsta gerne
communicate a strong sense of street authenticity by their hip street vernacular, the dress
code, and stylized gestures of the rap artists.

Excerpt 10: BZ is the last coach giving comment on the performance of 16T (a candidate),
before JT, RM (who are the judges) discuss the performance of 16T in episode 4 – the
conquering round.
1 BZ 72:27:00 Anh nghĩ là bản thân em biết rõ hơn ai hết, cái này là cái
million dollar flows em có ngay ở đây
I think you know clear more than anyone, this is a million dollar
flow you have right here.
I know you know for sure that it's a million dollar flow you have
2 72:33:00 Em phải biết điều đó
You have know that.
You have to know it
3 72:34:00 Cái flow này là hit maker flow, nó không phải flow để nghe,
mà là flow cho hit
A flow this is hit maker flow, it is not flow to hear, but is flow
for hit.
It's a hit maker flow, not for listening, it's to be a hit
4 72:38:00 Anh nhìn thấy được điều đó ở em
I see can that in you
I can see it in you
5 72:39:00 Như JT có nói á, mình làm (0.2) phức tap rất là dễ, nhưng mà
mình làm cho nó đơn giản mà hay nó sẽ rất là khó
As JT have talk that, we make (0.2) complicated very is easy,
but we make it simple yet good it will very is hard.
Like Justa Tee says, it's easy to make a complicated song, it's so
hard to make a simple but good song
6 72:46:00 Tại vì anh nghĩ là với cái tư cách một người viết nhạc, một
người nghệ sĩ thì cái việc mà mình add thêm vào.
 48

Because I think that with a position a songwriter, an artist so

the doing that we add more in
From the view of a songwriter as well as an artist, adding more
needs less of our pride
7 72:53:00 Nó cần rất là ít cái tự cao của mình, nhưng mà với tư cách một
người nghệ sĩ, cái việc lấy bớt ra, nó cần mình bỏ rất là nhiều
cái tự cao của mình
It needs really less the pride of us, but with a position an artist,
the doing lessen, it needs us take down much pride of us
Making it less means you have to lose much of your pride
8 72:58:00 Mà em đã làm được điều đó thì chúc mừng em ((clap hands))
Yet you did do that so congrats you.
You can do it, congrats!
9 73:00:00 Salut!
10 73:02:00 Cảm ơn anh ạ ((bow))
Thank you
Thank you!
11 TT 73:06:00 (talk to the audience)
12 73:23:00 Vâng xin mời các vị giám khảo
Yes please the judges
The judges, please share your thoughts!
13 73:25:00 Thực ra thì anh nghĩ em về với đội của ai thì em cũng phá được
cái khả năng của mình ra
Actually that I think you go with team of anyone so you still
uphold can the potential of you
I think you can uphold your potential whomever you go with
14 73:30:00 Toả sáng được ở bất cứ đâu
You can shine anywhere
15 JT 73:33:00 Cả ba người đều có thể là những kim chỉ nam tốt dành cho con
đường của em.
All three persons evenly possible are magnetic needle good for
the path of you.
All three coaches can be good leaders for your path
16 73:37:00 Cho nên là cái điều này hơi khó nghĩ ((look at RM))
So that is this thing kinda hard think
It's kinda hard to decide
17 73:39:00 ((touch RM’s head)) Thiện nghĩ bù đầu từ nãy giờ
Thien think over head and ears for a while
Thien has considered so much so far
18 RM 73:42:00 Nghĩ tóc tiếc dựng hết cả lên rồi,
Think hair stand all up already.
I think so much that my hair stands like this
19 73:45:00 (mà) chưa nghĩ ra
(but) not yet think out.
I haven't decided yet
20 16T 73:48:00 Em tin tưởng vào lựa chọn của hai anh ạ
I trust in the decision of two you.
I trust in the choice of you two
21 RM 73:51:00 Em có một cái mặt tiền rất là sáng giá, rất là đắt giá rồi
You have a facade reall is brilliant, really is valuable
You have a very good outlook
22 73:54:00 Còn cái flow như anh - anh BZ rnói nữa, là million dollar
nữa, rất là đắt tiền nữa
 49

Regard the flow as Mr – Mr BZ says also, is million dollar also,

really is costly.
And the million dollar flow like Mr.BinZ says
23 73:58:00 Nói chung là cái gì nó cũng rất là đắt rồi
In general is anything it also really expensive already.
Everything is so expensive now
24 74:02:00 Huấn luyện viên nào cũng sẽ rất muốn.
Coaches any also will really want
All coaches want you.

In the excerpt 10, 16Typh performed a song named "Khói thuốc" (Smoke) about
a love breakup. Despite other coaches, commenting on his rap lines/lyrics, BZ focuses on
the music flow of 16T and he calls it a million dollars flow (line 1). He starts his turn with
unmarked intra-sentential CS, and projects his gangsta stance to value the performance
of 16Typth. Leaving evidence for this gangsta stance and allocates his social background
(i) a Vietnamese lived abroad who went back and joined the subculture music flow here,
(ii) his skill in gangsta rap, (iii) a coach who offered 16T join to his team explicitly. The
subsequent code-switch in line 6, add, conveys his concern on how 16T would be able to
make such a costly hit but remained simple. In addition, it exhibits his judgement from
the perspective of a commercial rapper in Vietnam, who has released many hits on the
same gangsta rap genre. To close up his turn, he uses English interjection Salut! (line 9).
CS that is used in BZ turn matches with (i) his situational comprehension and his local
intentions in this conversation. When 16T joined the conversation in Vietnamese (line
20), expressed his faith in the choice of JT and RM handing him to a coach team. RM
starts his turn in Vietnamese then switches to English to repeat flow and million dollar
(line 22). He legistes what BZ had said and shows solidarity. In this turn, he signaled his
understanding and authority of the current situation, what BZ meant and the trust of 16T
from the role of (i) a producer (ii) a rapper (iii) an evaluator. This unmarked CS implicitly
confirms that BZ was the most matched choice, according to the gangsta stance he casted.
They shared coherence of English to the extent of hip-hop culture and the meaning of
gangsta image within it. And combined it in the commercial palatability of hip-hop in
Vietnam, which triggered the cause of alternation.

Excerpt 11: BinZ discussed with 16T about the topic and the preparation for 16T
performance in episode 11. BZ is the coach of 16T (a candidate belonging to BZ team).
1 BZ 40:29:00 Still here! ((pound hug))
 50

2 16T 40:30:00 Yay!

3 Bz 40:31:00 Thì uhm cái chủ đề lần này của em là: "những câu nói trending"
So uhm the topic this time of you is: “ the sayings trending”
Your topic is trending sayings
4 16T 40:34:00 Những câu nói trending hả anh
Sayings trending right
Trending sayings?
5 40:37:00 Nghe cũng hay đấy anh ạ
Sounds also nice
It sounds nice
6 40:38:00 BZ narrates
7 BZ 40:44:00 Tại vì cái màu sắc của em nó rất là swag, nó rất là mới
Because the color of you it really is swag, it really is new
Because your color is so swag and new
8 40:47:00 Và những đối thủ của em sẽ là Hydra, Dế Choắt với lại Đạt
Dope
And the opponents of you will be Hydra, De Choat together with
Dat Dope
Your opponents are Hydra, De Choat, and Dat Dope
40:50:00 BZ narrates
9 BZ 40:58:00 Em là chiến binh để ra quân trong cái bảng này thì anh hoàn toàn
tự tin
You are warrior to set out in this table that I completely
confident
You're the first member in this table, I'm so confident
41:01:00 BZ narrates
10 16T 41:04:00 Xuất thân của em là từ underground (0.5)
Background of me is from underground
I come from underground
11 41:07:00 Và cả hai vòng vừa rồi ý, thì thực ra em vẫn đang (0.2) tìm hiểu
và cố thử làm mới mình
And both rounds previous, that actually I still being find out and
try refresh myself
In the previous rounds, I was trying to figure out my style and
refresh it
12 41:12:00 Em thấy là cơ hội nó không còn nhiều nữa,
I see that opportunity it not much more
I think there aren't many chances for me
13 41:13:00 Em thực sự muốn mang đúng cái hình ảnh, cái chất đấy của em
lên trên sân khấu chính thống (0.5)
I really want bring real the image, that self of me on to the stage
mainstream
I really want to show the real me on the mainstream stage
14 BZ 41:18:00 Cái màu sắc của em nó hơi trap, nó hơi tối tối [một tí, nó hơi
flex]
The colour of you it a bit trap, it a bit dark dark [a little, it a bit
flex]
Your color is a bit dark and trap
15 16T 41:20:00 [Nó hơi hơi dark,
hơi dark một tí=
It a little bit
dark, a bit dark
It is a bit dark.
 51

16 BZ 41:20:00 = Ya ((nod))
17 41:21:00 Thì anh với anh Hoàng cũng chuẩn bị sẵn một cái beat cho em
So I and Mr. Hoang also prepared already a beat for you
I and Mr.Hoang prepared a beat for you
18 41:23:00 Anh xin Mie cho anh
I would ask Mie for me.
Mie, please drop the beat!
(music on)
41:32:00 BZ narrates
19 16T 41:39:00 (rapping on the beat)
41:43:00 16Typh narrates
20 BZ 41:50:00 Thank you em, thank you em! (talk to Mie)
Thank you sister, thank you sister
Thank you! Thank you!
21 16T 41:51:00 Hợp lý đấy anh ạ
Make sense brother.
It makes sense
41:52:00 BZ narrates
22 BZ 41:56:00 Có cái gì nó xảy ra ở trong đầu em ngay lúc này hông?
Have anything it happen in the head of you right now or not?
Anything happening in your mind right now?
23 16T 42:00:00 Chắc em sẽ làm hơi trêu chọc một tí
Maybe I will do slightly tease a bit.
I'll do it a bit teasing
24 BZ 42:02:00 Anh ủng hộ
I support
I support you
25 42:02:00 Nhưng mà trêu chọc ai chứ? Trêu chọc Mie?
But then tease whom? Tease Mie?
But who to tease? Mie?
26 16T 42:06:00 Thôi anh ạ, em là em sẽ giữ [ở trong bài nhạc
No brother, I am I will keep [in the song
No, I'll keep it a secret
27 BZ 42:07:00 [(hah) [Mình cook, mình cook nó
sau
We cook, we cook it later
We will cook it later.
28 42:09:00 [Để em suy nghĩ cho nó chính
chắn anh ạ
Let me think about it careful
brother
I'll consider it carefully
42:11:00 16Typh narrates
29 BZ 42:17:00 (Out loud) thôi=
(Out loud) let’s
Let’s (out loud)
20 16T 42:17:30 = Yeah ((stand up))
31 BZ 42:19:00 Let's go ((shouder shrug) =
32 16T 42:19:30 = Let's do it! Make it bang anh ạ!
Let’s do it! Make it bang brother!
Let’s do it! Make it bang!
 52

In excerpt 11, the conversation between 16T and BZ after 16T was selected to go
on the next round (episode 6). In episode 11, BZ announced the topic of the breakthrough
ground to 16T, including letting him listen to the prepared beat from the producer of this
show, and build up the idea for his coming performance. Opening the conversation, BZ
greeted 16T in English Still here! (line 1) and a pound hug gesture. The English
interjection Yay! (line 2) was used in response to BZ. Their code choice signaled their
ability of mastering English in conversation. Since 16T was from Hai Phong city, one of
five largest cities in Vietnam and he has been devoted to rap music since 2015. After
telling 16T the topic was "trending saying", BZ values 16T rap style as swag (line 7) and
knows that it might help him beating his opponents in this round. 16T understands BZ
projection, he confesses his identity as rapper from underground (line 10). And hoping
to bring this underground identity and gangsta style to the mainstream stage. With this
thought, he tried to set up a new RO set, he acknowledged his identity as an underground
rapper with passion for trap music. To the Vietnamese culture which is tightened with
Confucianism and Taoism, featured in humble, studious and respect. Meanwhile, gangsta
lifestyle involves a hard-hitting, angry, aggressive attitude. BZ filled the pause of 16T
(0.5) (line 13) as a sign of hesitation, using his mix-code comment on 16T as trap and
flex (line 15). In this interaction, he gestured (i) his understanding on the claimed identity
of 16T (ii) his authoritative status as an advisor who has knowledge on the same field of
trap sub-genre music, and (iii) his alignment and encouragement for 16T belief. 'Flexing'
or 'flex' is a hip-hop keyword whose design as a way of signaling the wealth and ability
of the rapper. 16T turn overlapped with BZ showed his empathy in talking with BZ, and
his effort to pursue his alignment with BZ gangsta stance. Their turn-final CS was
remarkable to look at. Both switched to English Out loud (line 26), Let's get it! (line 27),
Let's do it! and Make it bang (line 29) as a marked alteration code, this act would serve
as the ending point of their conversation. Closing up by the same gesture, they establish
the hip-hop environment where English was mixed with Vietnamese throughout their
conversation.

Excerpt 12: Tran Thanh, JustaTee, Rhymastic and GDucky discuss the performance of
GD in episode 12 – the breakout round. TT is the MC of the show; JT and RM are the
judges; and GD is a candidate.
 53

Không đứng trước cái nguồn năng lượng như thế này thì em
1 JT 90:53:00 nghĩ mình nên thu mình đi một tí
No stand in front the source energy like this that I think I should
smake smaller myself a little bit
I think I need to make myself smaller in front of this huge energy
2 90:58:00 ẩn mình đi một tí
Hide myself away a bit
I hide myself a bit
3 TT 90:59:00 Ừ
Yes
Yes
4 RM 91:00:00 người ta giàu mà =
The person rich much
He's so rich
5 JT 91:01:00 = trông rich quá
Look rich so much
He looks so rich
6 RM 91:01:00 (heheh)
Okay, cái bài hát này của em không chỉ mình anh TT sởn da gà
7 JT 91:13:00 đâu,
Okay, the song here of you not only Mr TT get goosebumps so
Not only Mr.Thanh get goosebumps due to your song
8 91:18:00 mà em làm cho anh sởn da gà từ những cái bài đầu tiên của em.
That you make me get goosebumps form the first songs of you
You've made me get goosebumps from your first songs
Nguyên cái bài hát này anh hú hét rất là nhiều ở những cái phân
9 91:22:00 đoạn cao trào,
The whole performance I shouted a lot at the chorus climax
During your performance I shouted a lot at the climate of chorus
thực sự là nó quá hàn lâm so với một con người có thể mang cái
10 91:25:00 màn trình diễn này lên đây
Really is it too academic compare to a person can bring such
performance up here.
It's so academic for a man to bring this performance on the
stage
11 GD 91:29:00 Em cảm ơn anh
Thank you brother
Thank you!
Khi mà bước vào chương trình Rap Việt trong thâm tâm anh
luôn mong muốn là một ai đấy trong thí sinh có thể mang được
12 91:31:00 ví dụ là một dàn đồng ca,
When enter program Rap Viet in the mind of me always hope
that someone among candidates can bring example is a choir
Coming to this show, I always hope there's a rapper who can
bring a choir on stage
13 91:40:00 hoặc là một cái gì đấy như kiểu là thánh đường ấy,
Or is something such genre of cathedral
Or something like a cathedral
14 91:44:00 kiểu nó mang cái ý nghĩa (1.0)
Such genre carry the meaning
It means...
15 RM 91:45:00 Gospel =
16 JT 91:46:00 = Đúng rồi
 54

Right
Right
và hôm nay anh được mãn nguyện khi mà em mang cái opera
17 91:47:00 lên đây,
And today I am satisfired when you bring the opera up here
Today I'm satisfied you can bring opera here
18 91:51:00 nó đẩy cái cảm xúc cao trào của cái bài hát này cùng với em,
It pushes the emotion climax of this song together with you
it pushes the emotion to the chorus with you
cực kỳ là hiệu quả và đây là cái điều anh thực sự mãn nguyện
trong
19 91:55:00 cái phần trình diễn này
highly effective and this is the thing I really satisfy in this
performance of you
it's highly effective and I feel so satisfied about it in this
performance
20 GD 91:58:00 Em cảm ơn anh ạ
Thank you brother
Thank you!

In excerpt 12, GDucky brought in the rap "Money a lot for what", his appearance
was imaged as a “king”, powerful and wealthy in a long huge fur coat. This gangsta image
has been long depicted in the hip-hop community by rappers in gangsta rap. TT asks JT
to give a comment for GDucky performance by calling JT name. JT at first answered in
Vietnamese, but when his turn was interrupted by RM appraisal (another judge) in
Vietnamese giàu (rich), in line 4. He then mixes his code, constantly reconfirms RM
statement by rich, in line 5. Their turns are unmarked CS which are connecting
simultaneously. JT’s move (i) shows his authority (ii) is driven from his empathy about
GDucky performance and appearance (iii) expresses his solidarity with RM. The
affective stance of RM receives JT alignment. Conversely, when IT pauses (1.0) to find
the suitable music term.. RM jumps in RM shows his alignment by using the English
Gospel in line 15 to fill in the pause of JT, RM follows the links in JT speaking of dàn
đồng ca (choir) in line 12 and thánh đường (cathedral) in line 13. While JT finished his
turn as a commenter (his role) who project evaluation stance to GDucky. Their
competence-related interpretation has mutally achieved – they both are capable to
interpret the linguistic choice of another. Their choices of mixing code are rational acts,
cautiously/reasonably calculated in the given interaction. Their unmarked choice also
provided proof about language use in their community (group awareness) (i) urban
citizents (both live in Hanoi) (ii) rappers.
 55

6. Conclusion
The global flow of hip-hop culture has brought the identity of hip-hoppers to an
extent surpassing what an American hip-hopper would be able to express the metaphor
of authenticity. Hip-hop artists around the world, therefore, pay a great deal of attention
to their speech, overall language-use and language ideology. In order to be associated
with the communicative language practices of the AAE hip-hop community to maintain
their street credibility, they adopt hip-hop linguistic patterns (hip-hop keywords or
phrases as their focus on the meaning of words) that are rooted in AAE as methods of
their in-group speech. Those patterns allow them to signal their identity and invite other
participants' associations in the flow of conversation. Equally, Vietnamese hip-hop artists
and urban youth have adopted hip-hop subculture (Lanca, 2008), applied these patterns
into their speech style (Pham, 2018), to shape their local identity of hip-hop community
of linguistic practice. The interpretation of the CS practices in interaction of Vietnamese
hip-hoppers in this thesis has contributed to facilitating meaning and understanding their
identity-related stances. These specific stances were highlighted and emphasized by their
motivations, social features, and multilayered identities when they switched codes in the
Rap Viet show.
This thesis has showed that CS is employed by Vietnamese rappers as a resource
for stancetaking, which as allows them to index their group membership or social identity
(cf. Ochs, 1993), and project their interpersonal and social relationships between
themselves and their audiences (cf. Jaffe, 2009), such as: group solidarity, group identity,
and individual identity. With a particular intention of investment, turn-in-interaction
conversations of participants in the show had an embedded layer of stancetaking which
carries multiple ambiguous meanings in the form of CS (Jaffe, 2009; Kiesling, 2009).
Speakers in public discourse associated linguistic resources of Vietnamese and English
to take a stance and gave themselves a specific identity and imposed on others a different
one. In connection with CS, this analysis has pointed out that the unmarked choice of
interlocutor enabled them to position themselves within the concept of the hip-hop
community. English and Vietnamese had different indexes in public discourse of the Rap
Viet show, they both employed to position speakers in relation to their country, their
community ideology, and aligned or disaligned with others within their hip-hop sub-
culture group.
 56

This analysis confirmed the relationship between language and identity in the hip-
hop community under the global flow of hip-hop culture. The mixing codes of English
and Vietnamese language illustrated how the global and the local are blending and co-
presenting in rap-related conversations of long-term members and the younger
generations. In examples from the keepin’ it real stance, the speakers switched and
referred to English to cast authorization on their comments. Projecting hip-hop related
stances, these Vietnamese rappers appeal to the indexes of English and to language
ideologies associated with English as an indicator of the hip-hop authenticity, and claim
their knowledge or authority. In examples from the give props/respect stance, hip-hop
English featured the connection between an evaluator and rap performers. Turn-internal
and turn-final CS showed the self-representation of Vietnamese rappers, based on their
calculations of other interlocutors. Through turn-internal CS, they expressed their
emotions, accelerated other’s evaluation, and showed solidarity with their members. The
gangsta stances of the last examples, hip-hop keywords were borrowed to legitimize the
claim of the previous turn and align with speakers of that turn. In their speech, language
practices were regarded as a localized process and manifested their social norms as part
of glocalization or Vietnamization outcome. It was triggered by the demand of urban
Vietnamese youth, for different purposes of expression, they connected/bridged their
traditional culture and hip-hop subculture in their performed code-switching.
At first, one limitation of this thesis is that it presented plainly two directions of
stance functions (follow the stancetaking act of Dubois’ triangle and the hip-hop related
stances) where CS was employed as a tool. The hip-hop artists, young generation rappers,
and the urban youth in Vietnam may project other stances with different purposes of
communication to not only their in-group community but also the out-group one. Further
research addressing a wider sociolinguistic context would be beneficial in establishing
the use of CS by re-examining the transcribed data. On that account, it might help to
conclude a more generalized interpretation about all possible kinds of stances.
Secondly, this ethnographic research included the transcribed data without taking
the visual effects into account, such as the more prominent use of English which appeared
in the written text that appeared on the screen during the show. The translated scripts
when speakers switched to English or the advertising signs during the break time and
before the performance, might have a stronger presence of English. They were
 57

intentionally added to increase its chances of exposure to Vietnamese audiences. They

might be an aspect of a specific local consciousness, and the local switching style which
helped the show achieve greater audiences. Likewise, digital ethnographic approach may
investigate the combined visual effects and the broader social meaning of language use
to give a more generalized conclusion, in terms of the larger data set as well as the
interaction of the audiences in an online platform.
Lastly, as another limitation of my finding, that I only focused to naturally
occurring conversation in which data of rap lyrics was not examined. CS in rap lyrics
may interact to index and enact the collective linguistic and cultural identity of their
speech community. Showing how this phenomenon is carefully drafted and expressed to
the arena of public discourse, with intention for the larger population or audiences.
Therefore, further research could involve seeing this gap for more databases about the CS
of Vietnamese and English in rap lyrics in Vietnam. By taking a closer look on how hip-
hop artists pay a great deal of attention to hip-hop linguistic patterns in their lyrics (hip-
hop keywords or phrases as their focus on the meaning of words) that are rooted in AAE.
So that, raplishes can be useful for teaching English as foreign language, in terms of
vocabulary, grammar and spoken discourse in an informal register. Thus, the function of
linguistic features of intra-sentential CS should be examined to unravel as if they would
be imported into the vocabulary of Vietnamese language as borrowing words. Or how
they demonstrate for the verbalization process of Vietnamese - English language practice
of youth community.
 58

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Appendix 1: Transcription conventions

[ overlap onset
] overlap offset
(1.0) number in parentheses indicate the length of pause or silence
= a. connecting utterance of the same speaker (after being
interrupted by others)
b. no break or pause (no latching) between different turn of
speakers: no silence between them
- cut-off or self-correction
: prolongation
hah / heh / hih laughing
(( )) description of events
() uncertain about hearing
 VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF LITHUANIAN STUDIES

International Master’s in Sociolinguistics and Multilingualism

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Date: April 06th, 2021

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