Signifying draws on African American oral tradition, using wit, repetition, parody, double meanings, and coded speech. In poetry, it lets writers speak back to power, revise inherited forms, tease, critique, celebrate community intelligence, and create layered meanings beneath apparently simple language.

Signifying is a sophisticated African American rhetorical practice involving indirection, irony, wit, double meaning, parody, or coded verbal play. In poetry, signifying can create layered meanings accessible differently depending on cultural knowledge and context. Students should be cautious about overly literal interpretation, since signifying often depends on implication, tonal nuance, and cultural reference rather than explicit statement. It is a major feature of Black expressive tradition.