Signifyin'
[1] Other names for signifyin' include: "Dropping lugs, joaning, sounding, capping, snapping, dissing, busting, bagging, janking, ranking, toasting, woofing, roasting, putting on, or cracking.
According to Gates, the practice derived from the trickster archetype found in much African mythology, folklore, and religion: a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and societal norms.
The term signifyin' itself currently carries a range of metaphorical and theoretical meanings in black cultural studies that stretch far beyond its literal scope of reference.
In The Signifying Monkey, Gates expands the term to refer not merely to a specific vernacular strategy but also to a trope of double-voiced repetition and reversal that exemplifies the distinguishing property of black discourse.
[7] Gates, in "The Signifying Monkey and the Language of Signifyin(g)" clarifies the confusing nature of the subject matter by representing the two terms on a graph made up of intercepting x-axis and a y-axis.
As Gates represents, "the relation of signification itself has been critiqued by a black act of (re)doubling" in which the point of intersection permits new understandings of a term to take place.
The y-axis of black vernacular, however, "concerns itself with that which is suspended, vertically...the playful puns on a word that occupy the paradigmatic axis of language and which a speaker draws on for figurative substitution.
"[9]Schloss relates this to the ambiguity common to African musics, including looping (as of a sample), for "it allows individuals to demonstrate intellectual power while simultaneously obscuring the nature and extent of their agency ...
[11] Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, recognized as the first scholar to interject African American women's signifyin' practices into broader linguistic discourses, recorded the following example: Grace is pregnant and beginning to show, but has not informed her sister yet.
The main criticism that Gates faces is a confusion surrounding the ideas of a black literary theory informed by Western thought—the same thought that created a purpose for the term signifyin(g).
Gates responds to these critiques by arguing for "text specific readings of black literature that explore works in relation to themselves and each other rather than viewing them as literal reflections of historical or social aspects of African American society.
