Critical Response Paper On Language And Identity

This is my critical response paper about language and identity. Although Cutler’s article discusses young European immigrants through Hip-hop to identify their racial identities in New York City, which may be far away from the phenomenon of Hip-hop of young Chinese people, in my view, the younger Chinese generation also treats Hip-hop as a medium to express their identities. From the late 1990s to the present moment, Chinese youths link to western culture and contact with Hip-hop through the Internet (De Kloet 2). Cutler said Hip-hop provides a broad range of social, cultural, and linguistic resources to help youths quest self-definitions (8). In the world of Hip-hop, the younger Chinese generation narrates daily life in a mutinous way and uses different Chinese dialects in order to show their “cool” and keep their distinct regional identities. Cutler states that youngsters would like to use their own

Fung claims that Chinese Hip-hop is a novelty approach to spread positive energy of mainstream culture (72). He considers the identity of the younger Chinese generation to be “cool”, for they are full of passion for life in their hearts and have peculiar dreams. For example, Jay Chou, a popular Hip-hop singer in China, combines Chinese classical elements and popular western musical styles, thus his musical tunes present a youthful insolence, defiance, and non-compliance, such as Nun-Chuks, Year Three Class Two, and Old Indian Turtledove. Nonetheless, the most popular of his songs’ contents are about Chinese traditional culture and value including filial piety, diligence, and conscientiousness, such as Blue and white porcelain, Listen To Mother's Words, and Snail (72). As Fung said, the younger Chinese generation cares