Linguistic and Cultural Study of Precedent Phenomena (Based on Russian and English Rap Texts)

Rap as a musical genre has been present and actively developing in the Russian cultural field for more than 30 years. During this time, the genre has undergone certain changes both in Russia and in the place of its origin - the USA, which creates the question of the vector of development of Russian and American rap. The purpose of this study is to analyze works of the rap genre, identify similarities and differences between Russian and American rap and determine their unique features. The number of studies examining rap as a specific linguistic and cultural field and the number of cross-cultural analyzes on this topic are not large enough to recognize these areas as well-developed, which creates a second task - to create a basis for further research on this topic. For these objectives, purposive and continuous sampling methods were chosen, and the research methods chosen were contextual analysis, descriptive method, comparative analysis and quantitative analysis. In the course of the study, the author conducts a detailed analysis of precedent units (PU), highlighting precedent names (PN), texts (PT) and situations (PS) as the desired PU in the analysis of rap tracks. The author identifies various functions of PUs, as well as options for their classification, defining criteria for including the found PUs in the final table. In addition, the author analyzes the area of intertextuality for further work with elements of intertext in rap works. Within the framework of this work, the author includes their manifestations in the analyzed PUs, based on the conscious composition of texts by performers. The author analyzes the phenomenon of namedropping, a phenomenon specific to the linguocultural field of rap, and recognizes the results of its use of PE, based on the same conscious creation of the text by the rapper. In the course of the work, a table of precedent units was compiled, which included the works of six performers, three Russian and three American, selected by the author based on the importance of their contribution to rap culture - Basta, Oxxxymiron*, Noize MC*, Dr. Dre, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar. Having identified 12 categories - politics, history, mythology, crime, science, literature, art, music, cinema, sports, rap and brands, the author distributed the found PI, PT and PS into categories, drawing up graphs reflecting the results. According to the information received, name-dropping is more common in American rap and, more importantly, its qualitative content differs from that in Russian rap - rap, brands, sports and crime in American and rap and brands in Russian. Secondly, both Russian and American performers most often use PEs of mythology, politics, music and cinema due to the constancy of their mention in the information field. These PEs are part of the discourse of mass culture, which makes their use understandable to the average listener and other performers. Thirdly, the least used categories were identified, which are markers of the highly cultural nature of rap - science, art, literature and history. In the work of Russian rappers, the last two are more common than in American rappers. The frequency of their use allows, to a certain extent, to classify them as markers of mass culture. Fourthly, PEs are most often used by American rappers - in their albums the use of PEs of all categories in small quantities and PE categories of name-dropping is more common, which is noticeable in the example of Eminem - the artist who most often uses PEs from the American sample of rappers. Due to the lesser load of PE tracks in the namedropping categories, Russian rappers more often use PE categories of literature, art and history, as can be seen in the example of Oxxxymiron*, the artist who most often uses PE from the Russian sample of rappers. Key words: rap, precedent phenomenon, intertextuality, naming, cross-cultural research. * - The person is recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation