Politeness And Face in Caribbean Creoles (Varieties of English Around the World General Series)

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Author: Susanne Muehleisen | Bettina Migge

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Varieties of English Around the World

General Editor Edgar W. Schneider Department of English & American Studies University of Regensburg Universitätsstraße 31 D-93053 REGENSBURG Germany [email protected] Editorial Assistants Alexander Kautzsch, Magnus Huber (Regensburg) Editorial Board Laurie Bauer (Wellington); Manfred Görlach (Cologne); Rajend Mesthrie (Cape Town); Peter Trudgill (Fribourg); Walt Wolfram (Raleigh, NC)

General Series Volume G34 Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles Edited by Susanne Mühleisen and Bettina Migge

Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles Edited by

Susanne Mühleisen Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University

Bettina Migge University College Dublin

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Politeness and face in caribbean creoles / edited by Susanne Mühleisen and Bettina Migge. p. cm. (Varieties of English Around the World, issn 0172–7362 ; v. g34) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Creole dialects--Caribbean Area. 2. Politeness (Linguistics)-Caribbean Area. 3. Sociolinguistics--Caribbean Area. I. Muehleisen, Suzanne. II. Migge, Bettina. III. Series. PM7834.C37P65 2005 417’.22’09729--dc22 isbn 90 272 4894 X (Hb; alk. paper)

2005049338

© 2005 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents

Acknowledgements Politeness and face in Caribbean Creoles: An overview Bettina Migge and Susanne Mühleisen

vii 1

I. Performing rudeness and face maintenance The use of “bad” language as a politeness strategy in a Panamanian Creole village Peter Snow Ritualized insults and the African diaspora: Sounding in African American Vernacular English and Wording in Nigerian Pidgin Nicholas Faraclas, Lourdes Gonzalez, Migdalia Medina and Wendell Villanueva Reyes Rude sounds: Kiss Teeth and negotiation of the public sphere Esther Figueroa Faiya-bon: The socio-pragmatics of homophobia in Jamaican (Dancehall) culture Joseph T. Farquharson

23

45

73

101

II. Face attention and the public and private self Greeting and social change Bettina Migge

121

Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village and the interactional organization of uncertainty Jack Sidnell

145

Meaningful routines: Meaning-making and the face value of Barbadian greetings Janina Fenigsen

169

Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles

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Table of contents

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles: The presentation of selves and others in the Caribbean context Susanne Mühleisen

195

III. Socialization and face development “May I have the bilna?”: The development of face-saving in young Trinidadian children Valerie Youssef

227

Learning respect in Guadeloupe: Greetings and politeness rituals Alex Louise Tessonneau

255

Notes on contributors

283

Name index

287

Subject index

291

Acknowledgements

Assembling a collection of papers always requires extensive collaboration. The editors would therefore like to thank a number of people who supported the emergence of this volume. First and foremost, we would like to thank all the contributors to this volume for their enthusiasm for and active support of the project and their cooperation and patience throughout the editing process. We are also indebted to the various reviewers who took the time to carefully read and comment in detail on the papers. Our sincere and special thanks go to Raimund Schiess for his meticulous and timely editing of a great number of the papers in the volume. Finally, we would like to thank the series editor, Edgar W. Schneider, for his continued enthusiasm and encouragement for this volume.

Politeness and face in Caribbean Creoles An overview Bettina Migge and Susanne Mühleisen University College Dublin / Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

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Introduction

Politeness phenomena have become a fruitful field of linguistic research ever since Brown and Levinson’s (1987) classic study on the subject. Studies have dealt with a broad range of issues such as the universality and culturally specific nature of linguistic politeness practices, gendered politeness practices (Lakoff 1973a; Smith 1992; Brown 1993; Holmes 1995; Christie 2002; Mills 2003) and the concept of face in the interaction of cultural, social and regional groups in a variety of contexts (Fukushima 2000; Günthner 2000; Ide et al. 1992). Topics such as making requests, apologies, suggestions, management of conflict, business negotiations were investigated from various analytical perspectives such as interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, sociology, linguistic and cultural anthropology and have made available a wealth of data. They provide important insights into the social and linguistic practices and ideologies of individual societies and make possible cross-societal comparisons. Surprisingly, politeness theory has generated comparatively little work on Caribbean communities. Most of the existing work on black communities deals with the African American community of the USA (e.g. Labov 1972; MitchellKernan 1972; Morgan 1994; Morgan 1998; Morgan 2002; Makoni et al. 2003; Abrahams 1976). It focuses on linguistic politeness practices that appear to be distinctive of that community such as conversational signifying and the dozens in order to prove that African American English constitutes a separate (socio)linguistic system. In relation to the origin of these practices, scholars

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Bettina Migge and Susanne Mühleisen

implicitly and explicitly argue that they are either based on similar African practices and/or that they emerged due to the special circumstances of slavery. So far, the research on the formation of African American varieties, currently a particularly thriving field of investigation, has predominantly focused on comparing lexical (cf. Taylor 1977; Huttar 1985) and structural (cf. Smith 1996; Migge 2002, 2003) features in African-American varieties and in their possible source languages. No attention has been paid to investigating and comparing entire socio-pragmatic domains (e.g. greetings, apologies) including the socio-cultural rules and principles underlying them (Price and Price 1999: 300). However, given the socio-historical context of the emergence of African American societies, it seems that continuities would be more widely found on the socio-cultural rather than on the purely linguistic level (Mintz and Price 1992: 53). Comprehensive knowledge about cultural practices on both sides of the Atlantic would therefore help to significantly further the continuing debate on transatlantic cultural continuities. Mintz and Price (1976 [1992]) and Price and Price (1999) therefore emphasize the importance of integrating social theory and analysis with the analysis of linguistic forms and practices. Despite the fact that it has long been recognized (cf., for instance, Mintz and Price 1976 [1992]; Price and Price 1999) that the Caribbean region constitutes a rich and interesting cultural and linguistic site where cultural continuities meet with new “creolized” or innovative practices, little research has been devoted to systematically investigating the nature and the origin of these practices. To date, there are but a few isolated strands of research focusing on Caribbean creole communities (e.g. Abrahams 1983a; Fisher 1976; Reisman 1970, 1974a, 1974b; Wilson 1969). The main reason for the lack of research in this area is that the greater part of sociolinguistic research on Caribbean Creoles has so far mainly dealt with structural aspects of variation and has paid little attention to its socio-pragmatic meanings or to the socio-cultural rules and principles that generate it (cf. Winford 1997). Research on the various facets of the communicative competence (Hymes 1971) of creole speakers is still largely absent (but cf., for instance, Sidnell 2000; Shields-Brodber 1992; Patrick 1997). The present volume attempts to make a contribution towards highlighting the importance of communicative practices in the Caribbean context by exploring politeness issues in a number of different Caribbean Creole communities (e.g. Barbados, Guyana, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad) and across communities in the region. We decided to focus on one particular region rather than on creole communities in general for a number of reasons. First, the Caribbean (including some parts of South America) is not only a distinct geo-

Politeness and face in Caribbean Creoles

graphical area but it also constitutes a socio-cultural area (cf. also Mintz’s 1996 notion of the Caribbean region as “oikoumene”). Notwithstanding the differences between the different communities of the region, it is clear that all of the modern communities have been affected by the same sociohistorical processes, e.g. slavery, colonialism, struggle for political independence. Second, the communities also share important demographic similarities. Most of the societies in the region are quite multicultural consisting of peoples whose ancestors originated from such diverse regions as Africa, India, China, Indonesia etc. This internal diversity is, however, largely similar across the region because the populations of the different contemporary societies originated from the same geographical areas. Finally, there have been extensive contacts between the different communities since the beginning by travel, migration, dislocation. Such a mixture of internal diversity and shared cultural roots across the region makes it into a particularly fascinating area for investigating cultural adaptations, innovations and continuities.

. Traditions of anthropological research in the Caribbean context There is a long tradition of research in anthropology in the Caribbean, starting with scholars such as Melville J. Herskovits (1941; also Herskovits and Herskovits 1947). These early investigations (cf. also Herskovits 1931, 1938) into “New World Negro” culture centre on their related ancestral West African forms and, particularly, the localization of particular West African linguistic and New World cultural traits. In the 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of researchers (e.g. Wilson 1969; Reisman 1970, 1974a&b; Abrahams and Bauman 1971; Abrahams 1983a; Kochman 1972) focussed not only on (isolated) cultural elements and their West African heritage but on cultural processes and “Caribbean transformations”, as the title of an anthropological study by Sidney Mintz (1974) puts it. One of the recurrent topics dealt with here is indeed closely related to politeness issues: the structure of the moral and social system of a community and the way values like respectability (Wilson 1969) or sense of decorum (Abrahams and Bauman 1971) are realised in verbal and other forms, for instance, in the way reputation in the Caribbean is interlinked with names/titles (Wilson 1969: 74ff.; Price and Price 1972) or in the “conversational rules” of the performance event “tea meeting” in St. Vincent (Abrahams and Bauman 1971). Because we think that these early anthropological studies are of vital importance to our volume, we will briefly outline some of the most influential and

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interesting ones (Reisman 1970; Abrahams 1970a, 1970b, 1972, 1983aandb; Labov 1972; Fisher 1976). One of the most enlightening studies on the duality of cultural patterning in the Caribbean, “both of Creole vs. English speech and of African vs. English culture”, is Karl Reisman’s (1970) article on “cultural and linguistic ambiguity in a West Indian village.” He describes how this cultural duality is, in fact, denied and covered by a set of techniques by which dominant cultural forms are taken on (“masking”) on the surface, to be then “reinterpreted” and “remodeled” so that the two cultural strands are woven into a complex of cultural and linguistic expression. The remodelings of European forms, Reisman argues, are to some extent face-saving strategies derived from slavery times: Remodelings were not only useful but were a way to redress the harshness of the slavery situation, by turning commands into forms of politeness. The intonation used in “please” in shops in Antigua today is the same as that used in American caricatures of haughty British ladies giving commands to servants. (Reisman 1970: 133)

Like Wilson (1969) or Abrahams and Bauman (1971), Reisman also uses and interprets the notion of “respect”. However, he looks at its postcolonial cultural ambivalence when he writes that “in the Antiguan situation one accepts with “respect” both the status system, with its concomitant self-definition as “low,” and the total superiority of the standards and the value of English culture” (1970: 130). The polarization within this status system also entails an assertion of low status privileges and values (e.g. “unruliness”, “disobedience”, “going on ignorant”, etc., cf. also Reisman 1974b on “making noise”). Roger Abrahams’ series of articles on verbal performance in Creole culture (1970a, 1970b, 1972, 1983b), published with additional chapters as The Manof-Words in the West Indies (1983a) also acknowledges this status dichotomy in the performance of verbal acts: There are two basic categories of behavior, the rude and the behaved; the former involves playing the fool or talking nonsense, the latter, talking sensible. A wide variety of acts and events are categorized and judged in terms of this basic dichotomy. Rudeness is not always judged as inappropriate by any means. Indeed there are certain ceremonial occasions (like Carnival and wakes) in which it is regarded as appropriate and is encouraged.

Abrahams explores verbal traditions and “creole eloquence” in the West Indies in a series of speech acts (e.g. joking, gossiping) and events (e.g. wakes, tea ceremonies) and describes two kinds of men-of-words performances: good talking (or talking sweet, 1972), associated with approximation to Standard English


and stylized ceremonies, and broad talking (or talking bad, 1983b): “Badinage remains an integral part of the expressive and communicative dimensions of everyday life there. Almost any conversation can develop into an entertainment, especially a contest of wits” (1983a: 3). While such cultural practices are investigated for a few communities (e.g. St. Vincent, Tobago), they appear to be widely represented all across the Caribbean region. Labov, working in a much more structural linguistic framework, was largely concerned with demonstrating the rule-governed nature and distinctiveness of African American speech patterns. While most of his studies focused on phonological and morphosyntactic features, Labov (1972) explores in great detail ritual insulting, commonly called sounding or playing the dozens.1 Drawing on naturally occurring and elicited data, and personal narratives, he investigates the syntactic and semantic nature of sounds and the interactional rules underlying sounding. Sounds may occur in the form of rhymed couplets, I fucked your mother in the ear. And when I came out she said, “Buy me a beer.”

(Labov 1972: 307)

or use formulaic speech patterns as illustrated below. 1. Your mother is/look (like) ___ (Brand name, person etc. considered ugly, bizzare, e.g. Flipper) 2. Your mother got ___ (something bizarre, e.g. a putty chest) 3. Your mother so ___ (neg. adjective, e.g. ugly) she ___ (sentence as in 2, e.g. got spider webs under her arm) [. . .] (Labov 1972: 309–321)

His investigation suggests that sounds are highly ritualized. The attributes (e.g. age, weight, looks, smell) and persons (often mother, sometimes other family members) sounded on are relatively well defined. The meaning of a sound and the activity largely relies on their opposition to dominant middle-class norms of “proper” speech. It is the cleverness of the means of expression, their absurdity or novelty and/or the amount of disgust they invoke in the audience that determines their effectiveness. Labov also shows that sounding involves distinct highly formalized rules of interaction between several participants (e.g. antagonist A, antagonist B and the audience). It is a conventionalized display of verbal skill for its own sake.2 The effectiveness of a sound is determined by the audience. Approval is signaled by laughter, exclamations like oh shit! God damn! (drawn out and high pitched) and/or repetitions of part of the sound. Negative evaluations involve exclamations like That’s too much, oh shit! (low pitch and sustained). Sounds may be transformed into real insults but people generally select sounds that

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do not closely focus on the real-world circumstances of their opponent and his family. Fisher (1976) also gives testimony of the relative distinctiveness of New World verbal routines in his investigation of the Bajan speech event of dropping remarks or remark dropping. His aim is threefold: to challenge current models of communication, to substantiate Goffman’s (1964) claim that overhearers and bystanders, like ratified participants, shape the nature of on-going talk and to demonstrate that processes of communication are culturally determined. While dropping remarks covers several related organized routines “during which the shifting relationship between the vilifier and the target individual is itself the subject of discourse” (227), Fisher’s analysis focuses only on the most common type, the so-called triangular form, as illustrated in the following example: A woman chose to wear an overly bright shade of lipstick to a party. She overheard a woman say, “Oh, I thought your mouth was burst,” to a man whose lips were perfectly in order. (Fisher 1976: 231)

In this kind of interaction a speaker addresses an utterance to a hearer (the man) with the intention of dropping a remark to an overhearer (the woman wearing bright lipstick). The hearer is not the target of the utterance but functions as what Fisher calls a sham receiver of a veiled comment about some disagreement between the speaker and the overhearer. The remark derives its potency and essentially becomes recognizable as an “insulting remark” because it is imperfectly integrated into the ongoing talk between the speaker and the hearer. However, the speaker usually also alerts the intended recipient by various other means such as a change in volume, a styled voice, eye-contact etc. This indirect strategy for escalating a conflict is considered more effective than a direct attack or comment because the speaker does not have to admit to the insult nor do the speaker and hearer have to know all the details of the disagreement. Remark dropping takes place during the early stages of dispute escalation while direct confrontations only emerge later. While some of these studies also work with the concept of “face” (Fisher 1976; Reisman 1970), they were written before this notion was also discussed and integrated into a linguistic model of politeness theory. For this volume, we think that a critical inclusion of politeness theory can provide a useful analytical frame for a more systematic investigation into and discussion about these phenomena.


. Politeness and face As a lay concept, most competent adult members of a society know what “politeness” means and what kind of behaviour is evaluated as polite versus impolite. Both linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of what is commonly referred to as politeness, such as saying “thank you” and “please” or making space for others in a crowded area, are acquired behaviour, and its prescribed rules are part of children‘s general and linguistic socialization process. As a research issue in linguistics, the beginning of increased interest in politeness may be placed with the emergence of pragmatics as an important new field.3 Here, the focus of attention goes beyond the everyday notion of politeness (and beyond prescribed etiquette rules) to include a broad range of issues in the study of strategic verbal behaviour in social interaction4 (and including behaviour which, in everyday notions of politeness, would be considered impolite, e.g. insults). . Politeness theory Austin’s (1962) and Searle’s (1970, 1972) speech act theory as well as Grice’s work on conversational implicatures provided the first theoretical ground for the exploration of linguistic politeness in the 1960s and ’70s. Some of the early models of politeness were thus expansions of Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP) (Lakoff 1973b), or took CP as a starting point for a model of general pragmatics (Leech 1983) which would then include a Politeness Principle (PP) with six or more maxims (Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy). The PP in Leech’s terms is meant to regulate the “social equilibrium and the friendly relations which enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place” (1983: 82). The approach politeness theory is most commonly associated with, however, is Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage (1987), first published (in Goody 1978) as an extended, book-long article in a collection on politeness phenomena. Though controversial, it remains an important reference point and still the most influential model of politeness up to date. Central to Brown and Levinson’s model is the notion of “face”, a a term that is borrowed from and associated with the sociologist Erving Goffman (1967, 1971). Face here is defined as “the public self-image that every member [of a society] wants to claim for himself [or herself]” and seen as something that “is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 61). Face consists of two related aspects,

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of ‘negative face’, “the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction – i.e. to freedom of action and freedom of imposition”, and of ‘positive face’, “the positive consistent self-image or ‘personality’ (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants” (ibid.). Both negative and positive face can be damaged or threatened and some verbal acts are inherently “face threatening acts (FTAs)”: directives or requests, for instance, restrict an individual’s claim to freedom of action and freedom of imposition and are examples of negative FTAs. Insults or criticism, on the other hand, violate an individual’s desire to be liked and approved of and are thus positive FTAs. The central goal of Brown and Levinson’s theory is to identify the circumstances in which a set of five specified general politeness strategies will be selected. Positive politeness and negative politeness are two such policies, “redressive actions” which are used to either minimize a particular face threatening act (especially negative politeness) or widened to the appreciation of the addressee’s wants in general (positive politeness). Thus, to claim common ground, to notice and attend to the hearer’s interests, to use in-group identity markers are strategies to enhance the hearer’s positive face, whereas indirectness, apologies, impersonalizations are ways to make a negative face threat (e.g. a request) less imposing. Brown and Levinson (1987: 74) maintain that in many, and perhaps all cultures, the seriousness of a FTA is assessed by taking into account the factors (i) ‘social distance’ (D) of S (speaker) and H (hearer), (ii) the relative ‘power’ (P) of S and H, and (iii) the absolute ranking (R) of impositions in the particular culture. . Criticism Among the criticism on Brown and Levinson’s model,5 and perhaps the point most relevant to this volume, is their claim to universality. While acknowledging that there are intercultural differences in politeness – the factors D, P, and R may result in differing levels of weightiness (Wx) – the general framework of face threatening acts and the associated politeness strategies are assumed to be shared. This is something which has been questioned by scholars such as Wierzbicka (1985, 1991) who asserts that cultural norms, such as directness/indirectness, self-assertion, intimacy, which are reflected in speech acts, differ not only from one language to another, but also from one regional and social variety to another. As Meier contends,


Each speech community has means to communicate deference, mitigation, directness, and indirectness, etc. It dare not be assumed, however, that these means will find functional equivalence across languages and cultures. The folk notion of one culture being ‘more or less polite’ than another can be ascribed to one language using linguistic forms, for example, that are associated with a different meaning in a comparable context in another speech community. Politeness can be said to be universal only in the sense that every society has some sort of norms for appropriate behavior [. . .]. (Meier 1995: 338)

Such a speech community-based view on politeness is something we emphatically would like to take up in our culture-specific explorations of politeness phenomena in the Caribbean region. The second issue in politeness theories which seems particularly relevant for our volume is the idea of normativity, i.e. the evaluation of polite behaviour as a shared social norm. Politeness theories generally assume shared expectations of the behaviour of an adult, competent person in social and interpersonal interaction (cf. Eelen 2001: 121–141 for an overview and comparison). The acquisition of verbal (and other) behaviour which is considered appropriate and “normal” by the majority of the community is also regarded as part of children’s socialization. As Arndt and Janney put it, All people in a culture who wish to be regarded as normal must eventually learn to make roughly similar types of inferences about their experiences. The penalty for not doing this is social exclusion, being labeled abnormal, retarded, defective, or deviant. [. . .] Frameworks [of common knowledge, experience, expectations, and beliefs that enable people to be tactful] are absolutely essential to tactful communication because without them, as Mead [. . .] points out, people cannot think about their own projected behaviour from the perspective of the ‘generalised other’ and imagine how it might be interpreted or what its consequences might be. (Arndt and Janney 1992: 30–31)

While Brown and Levinson focus more on the individual rather than on cultural norms, they implicitly also acknowledge the presence of shared norms by excluding, at least partially, “juvenile, mad, incapacitated persons” from their framework. The Caribbean seems a particularly interesting site to explore the value of the concept ‘normativity’ in politeness: first because of the region’s many different cultural influences and a long history of parallel societies with highly different norms and evaluations of behaviour which has its origin in the slavery period. And secondly, because of the resulting long tradition of undermining norms and evaluations of the dominant stratum of society.

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. Face and self One of the notions which will be dealt with extensively in the contributions to this volume is that of face. As noted above, this is a key concept in Brown and Levinson’s model. Their use of the term face, however, although derived from Goffman, differs in many aspects from his original concept.6 As Watts (2003: 102) points out in his criticism, Brown and Levinson’s perception of face is a highly individualistic one, which may not apply to “‘cultures’ where the individual is defined by virtue of his or her membership in the social group”. But even without stressing cultural differences, the notion of ‘face’ in Goffman’s theory contrasts with such an exclusively individualistic view and is part of a social theory of the self . In his writings on face and self (cf. Goffman 1955, 1956, 1967), Goffman presents two different images of self (cf. also Lemert and Branaman 1997: xivii): (a) The self as a social product, and (b) The self as an individual’s construct where the individual is able to strategically manipulate the social situation and others’ impressions of themselves. Both images have seemingly contradictory aspects to them: The self may be socially determined, but an individual can also behave in ways out of keeping with social norms. The self may be something that is constantly constructed by the individual in social interaction, but the individual is also restricted in that he or she cannot choose freely the image of self they would like to present. Rather, this self-image has to comply with the status, role and relationship it is granted by the possibilities of the social order. In other words, the construction of self is an ongoing process in which social determinants are in constant negotiation with the individual’s strategies of selfpresentation. Face plays an important part in this interaction as it is described as an “image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes” (Goffman [1955] 1967: 5). Watts (2003: 105) describes the relation between self and face as follows: For Goffman face is a socially attributed aspect of self that is on loan for the duration of the interaction in accordance with the line or lines that the individual has adopted for the purposes of that interaction. It does not reside in or on the individual. As a social attribution, it cannot be the image that an individual wishes to have accepted by the other participants. The self, however, can be transformed by social interaction from a social attribution to an individual attribution.

In cases of incongruence between the individual self-claim and the possibilities granted by the social order – or in cases of unconvincing performance –, the self can also be violated: “Any event which demonstrates that someone has made


a false claim, defining himself as something which he is not, tends to destroy him. If others realize that the person’s conception of self has been contradicted and discredited, then the person tends to be destroyed in the eyes of others” (Goffman [1952] reprinted in Lemert and Branaman 1997: 16). Goffman’s focus on face and the presentation of self in everyday life is a particularly significant starting point for explorations of social roles and of the public and private self in the Caribbean. Verbal performance plays a large role in Caribbean creole culture, as was shown, for example, in Abrahams (1983a). Ritualized verbal behaviour may be seen here as an essential part of the construction of self in public life. . Politeness studies Numerous studies have been conducted in the last two decades in the context of politeness theory. Quite a number of them are speech act-based and deal with a cross-cultural comparison of either one (e.g. compliments, Herbert 1991; complaints, Olshtain and Weinbach 1987) or several speech acts (e.g. requests and thanks, Held 1996; volume on request and apologies, Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989). Others deal with several politeness phenomena in a particular language and/or culture (e.g. Chinese, Lee-Wong 1999) or a comparison of politeness patterns in different languages and cultures (e.g. English and Greek, Sifianou 1992). Gender has been a special focus in many politeness studies (e.g. Holmes 1995, cf. also Mills 2003). While most analyses focus on national languages/cultures (e.g. English versus Polish/Japanese/Chinese), there are comparatively few studies which explore politeness phenomena in particular (speech) communites. Apart from a few studies on African-American (e.g. Labov 1972; Mitchell-Kernan 1972; Morgan 1994; Morgan 2002; Makoni et al. 2003; Abrahams 1976), nonstandard varietes of English have largely been ignored,7 as have been contact varieties (with some notable exceptions, e.g. Miriam Meyerhoff ’s (1999) study on apologies in Bislama “Sorry in the pacific”). As already described in Section 2, there are but few linguistic and anthropological studies on Caribbean Creoles which include the notions of politeness and/or face, and even fewer recent ones such as, for instance, Garrett (2005), on “learning to curse” in St. Lucia.

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. Structure and scope of this book The aim of the present volume then is to contribute towards filling this research gap with a volume centering on one aspect of the communicative competence of creole speakers, namely politeness and face phenomena in the Caribbean Creoles. By presenting a collection of innovative contributions on a range of topics such as greetings, address forms, bad language, socialization and discourse, parent-child discourse etc. we hope to provide further insights into the communicative practices of Caribbean creole speakers and to offer further incentives for a more fruitful exploration of the nature of the connections between the different creoles communities. Three wider areas of investigation strike us as particularly interesting and important for the analysis of linguistic practices in Caribbean Creoles. These three focal points are reflected in the respective sections of the book. . Focal points in this volume Part I deals with issues of Performing rudeness and face maintenance. The practice of insulting in the African-American context first received attention in William Labov’s classic (1972) “Rules for ritual insults”. In the Caribbean region, strategic use of “bad language” and face threats are a significant phenomenon, as can be shown by the four contributions in this section. The integration of politeness and face theory with a close analysis of linguistic forms and practices in a range of communities (e.g. in Panamanian Creole, Jamaican) and contexts is particularly interesting for explaining motivation and sociopragmatic effects of such verbal routines, for instance, in the construction of a particular social identity. The pan-Caribbean extra-verbal form of commenting, ‘kiss-teeth,’ is examined and interpreted in the light of face-management in the public sphere. A comparison of Caribbean and African-American with West-African (Nigerian) ritual insults additionally explores cross-Atlantic continuities in a socio-pragmatic field. In the Jamaican context of dancehall culture, homophobic threats and insults are investigated in their function of asserting masculinity. Part II focuses on Face attention and the public and private self. Attention to face and positive politeness practices are explored in a number of speech acts and practices, such as greetings (cf., for instance, Duranti 1997) in various communities (Barbadian, Pamaka), advice-giving or strategic uses of Caribbean forms of address. Here, the identities and social roles of participants in the particular context are of crucial importance to the analysis of


these particular speech acts. In turn, the very act plays an essential part in the construction of the individual’s position in the interaction. Part III examines the ways Socialization and face development are interlinked. The question of universal versus culture-specific aspects of face and politeness becomes particularly significant when we look at face development as part of linguistic and cultural socialization (cf. also Ochs and Schieffelin 1984). In two contributions dealing with different Caribbean communities (Trinidad, Guadeloupe), face development is looked at in parent-child discourse. Most of the ten novel contributions are based on empirical data (qualitative, or a combination of qualitative and quantitative), with a theoretical grounding in the ethnography of communication, interactional sociolinguistics or related approaches. . Contributions in this volume In Part I, Peter Snow (Christopher Newport University, USA) examines the use of so-called bad language in spontaneous discourse on the Panamanian island of Bastimentos. His contribution titled The use of “bad” language as a politeness strategy in a Panamanian Creole community suggests that participants use such language as a form of participation in conversation. Snow investigates the employment of “obscene assessments” as a local politeness strategy which interactants utlilize to cooperatively preserve the face of the speaker during ongoing talk. His in-depth-analysis is based on recorded conversation and storytelling activites of a group of Bastimentos Panama Creole English speakers. The second article in this division is Ritualized insults and the African diaspora: Sounding in African American Vernacular English and Wording in Nigerian Pidgin by Nicolas Faraclas, Lourdes Gonzalez, Migdalia Medina, and Wendell Villanueva Reyes (Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, USA). Ritual insulting, long established as an African American practice (Labov 1972), is here explored in a comparative perspective. By using audio-recorded data, the authors analyze verbal dueling among Nigerian Pidgin speaking children in Port Harcourt to reveal syntactic, pragmatic and discursive similarities between West African and African American practices. Faraclas and his coauthors attribute these correspondences to a cultural continuity between West Africa and the communities of the African diaspora in the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas. Esther Figueroa (Hawai’i) examines the pan-Caribbean phenomenon of “Kiss-Teeth” in Rude sounds – Kiss Teeth and negotiation of the public sphere. She shows in her analysis how this oral gesture is used as a means to defy or






defend the established moral discourse. In so doing, Kiss-Teeth is also a part of the management of the public sphere. Using examples from observation as well as from texts in media and literature, Figueroa explores the role of performative language in the political contestation over public and counter-public spheres, and the negotiation of moral standing between individuals within the public sphere. Jamaican Dancehall culture serves as a site of investigation in Joseph Farquharson’s (University of the West Indies, Jamaica) contribution on The sociopragmatics of homophobia in Jamaican (Dancehall) culture. The author analyses how derogatory lexical items and threats in songs are performatively used for asserting a Jamaican male identity. By using a speech act analysis of lyrics, Farquharson interprets the use of homophobic performances in the Jamaican socio-cultural context. In Part II, Bettina Migge (University College Dublin, Ireland) explores in her article Greeting and social change greeting routines and the transformations they are undergoing in the Eastern Maroon community. Based on data coming from long term participant observation, discussions with native speakers, and natural recordings in the Pamaka community, her investigation reveals that the Pamaka community employs a range of greeting procedures that differ both in terms of their structural makeup and the social meanings they constitute. Drawing on the techniques of conversation analysis, Jack Sidnell (University of Toronto, Canada) examines Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village and the interactional organization of uncertainty. His analysis of recorded conversations of talk surrounding a particular community event shows that phenomena such as expertise and uncertainty emerge from a complex interactional organization of turn-taking. Sidnell shows how in the interaction of paricipants, the display of both uncertainty and of expertise are crucially interlinked. Janina Fenigsen (University of South Carolina, USA) looks at the relationship between register choice and face-work within greeting practices in Arawak Hill, Barbados. Drawing on ethnographic field data, Meaningful routines: Meaning-making and the face-value of Barbadian greetings considers pragmatic functions of greetings and factors that figure in their construction. Fenigsen shows that greeting routines can become a site of ideological contestation and questions ideas of the primary function of greeting as a courteous indication of recognition. Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles: The presentation of selves and others in the Caribbean context by Susanne Mühleisen (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany) investigates the development and use of forms of address in the Anglo-Caribbean context. Drawing on historical


material, this paper discusses the origin and use of some specific nominal forms of Caribbean address, as well as (optional) second person singular/plural distinction in the pronominal system. In the last part, which deals with language socialization and face development, Valerie Youssef (University of the West Indies, Trinidad) examines the development of attention to face needs in three Trinidadian children based on an analysis of recorded data. ‘May I have the bilna?’ The development of face-saving in young Trinidadian children seeks to shed light on the issue of universality versus particularity in the onset of attention to face. Alex Louise Tessonneau (Université de Paris VIII, France) makes an excursion into the francophone Caribbean in her Learning respect in Guadeloupe: Greetings and politeness rituals. She looks at the way greetings are taught to children from a very early age, and are part of the process of socialisation which operates on children. Tessoneau’s diachronic study of greeting rituals shows their importance in the interaction between individuals and how they reflect changes in socialization patterns.

Notes . There are other, less widely known terms which are used in specific African American communities, e.g. woofing in Philadelphia, joning in Washington etc. . Labov also distinguishes a category of so-called ‘applied sounding’. These sounds appear as part of other interactions largely “to channel the direction of personal interaction in a direction that favors them” (350). . For an overview of pre-pragmatic approaches, cf. Watts (2003: 54–56). . Cf. also Watts’ (2003) notion of “first and second order politeness”. . For an excellent critical overview of the various politeness theories in comparison, cf. Eelen (2001). . For a pointed criticism on this issue, cf. Watts (2003: 101–107). . With exceptions, cf. for instance, de Kadt (1992).

References Abrahams, Roger D. (1970a). “A performance-centered approach to gossip.” Man, New Series, 5, 290–301. Reprinted in R. D. Abrahams (1983a), 77–87. Abrahams, Roger D. (1970b). “Traditions of eloquence in the West Indies.” Journal of InterAmerican Studies and World Affairs, 12, 505–527. Reprinted as “Traditions of eloquence in Afro-American communities.” In R. D. Abrahams (1983a), 21–40.

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Abrahams, Roger D. (1972). “The training of the man-of-words in talking sweet.” Language in Society, 1, 15–29. Reprinted in R. D. Abrahams (1983a), 109–121. Abrahams, Roger D. (1976). Talking Black. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Abrahams, Roger D. (1983a). The Man-of-Words in the West Indies. Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Abrahams, Roger D. (1983b). “Joking: The training of the man-of-words in talking broad.” In R. D. Abrahams (1983a), 55–76. Abrahams, Roger D. & Richard Bauman (1971). “Sense and nonsense in St. Vincent: Speech behavior and decorum in a Caribbean community.” American Anthropologist, New Series, 73, 762–772. Arndt, Horst & Richard Janney (1992). “Intracultural tact versus intercultural tact.” In R. J. Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehlich (Eds.), Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practice (pp. 21–41). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Austin, John (1962). How to Do Things With Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, & Gabriele Kasper (Eds.). (1989). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Brown, Penelope (1993). “Gender, politeness and confrontation in Tenejapa”. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Gender and Conversational Interaction (pp. 144–162). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson (1978). “Universals of language usage: Politeness phenomena.” In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and Politeness Strategies in Social Interaction (pp. 56–311). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Christie, Chris (2002). “Politeness and the linguistic construction of gender in Parliament: An analysis of transgressions and apology behaviour”. In Linguistic Politeness Research Group (Ed.), Working Papers on the Web (www.shu.ac.uk/wpw). De Kadt, E. (1992). “Politeness phenomena in South African Black English.” Pragmatics and Language Learning, 3, 103–116. Duranti, Alessandro (1997). Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eelen, Gino (2001). A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St. Jerome. Fisher, Lawrence E. (1976). “‘Dropping remarks’ and the Barbadian audience.” American Ethnologist, 3, 227–242. Fukushima, Saeko (2000). Requests and Culture: Politeness in British English and Japanese. Bern: Peter Lang. Garrett, Paul B. (2005). “What a language is good for: Language socialization, language shift, and the persistence of code-specific genres in St. Lucia.” Language in Society, 34, 327– 361. Goffman, Erving (1952). “On cooling the mark out: Some aspects of adaption to failure”. Psychiatry, 15, 451–463. Reprinted in C. Lemert & A. Branaman (Eds., 1997), The Goffman Reader (pp. 3–20). Oxford: Blackwell. Goffman, Erving (1955). “On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction.” Psychiatry, 18, 213–231.


Goffman, Erving (1956). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Center. Goffman, Erving (1964). “The neglected situation.” In J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.), The Ethnography of Communication. American Anthropologist (special publication) 66 (pp. 133–136). Goffman, Erving (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books. Goffman, Erving (1971). Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books. Günthner, Susanne (2000). “Argumentation and resulting problems in the negotiation of rapport in a German-Chinese conversation”. In H. Spencer-Oatey (Ed.), Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures (pp. 217–239). London: Continuum. Held, Gudrun (1996). “Two polite speech acts in contrastive view: Aspects of the realization of requesting and thanking in French and Italian.” In M. Hellinger & U. Ammon (Eds.), Contrastive Sociolinguistics (pp. 363–384). Berlin: de Gruyter. Herbert, Robert (1991). “The sociology of compliment work: An ethnocontrastive study of Polish and English compliments.” Multilingua, 10, 381–402. Herskovits, Melville J. (1931). “The New World Negro as an anthropological problem.” Man, 31, 68–69. Herskovits, Melville J. (1938). “African ethnology and the New World Negro.” Man, 38, 9–10. Herskovits, Melville J. (1941). The Myth of the Negro Past. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Herskovits, Melville J. & Frances S. Herskovits (1947). Trinidad Village. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Holmes, Janet (1995). Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman. Huttar, George (1985). “Sources of Ndjuka African vocabulary.” De Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, 59, 45–71. Hymes, Dell (1971). “On communicative competence.” Reprinted in J. B. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds., 1972), Sociolinguistics. Selected Readings (pp. 269–293). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Ide, Sachiko, Beverly Hill, Y. Cames, Tsunao Ogino, & Akiko Kawasaki (1992). “The concept of politeness: An empirical study of American English and Japanese”. In R. Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehlich (Eds.), Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory, and Practice. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Kochman, Thomas (Ed.). (1972). Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out: Communication in Urban Black America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Lakoff, Robin (1973a). Language and Woman’s Place. New York: Harper and Row. Lakoff, Robin (1973b). “The logic of politeness; or minding your p’s and q’s.” Chicago Linguistics Society, 8, 292–305. Lee-Wong, Song-Mei (1999). Politeness and Face in Chinese Culture. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Leech, Geoffrey (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Lemert, Charles & Ann Branaman (Eds.). (1997). The Goffman Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Makoni, Sinfree, Geneva Smitherman, Arnetha Ball, & Arthur Spears (Eds.). (2003). Black Linguistics: Language, Society, and Politics in Africa and the Americas. London: Routledge. Meier, Ardith J. (1995). “Passages of politeness.” Journal of Pragmatics, 24, 381–392. Migge, Bettina (2002). “The origin of the copulas (d/n)a and de in the Eastern Maroon Creole.” Diachronica, 19, 83–136. Migge, Bettina (2003). Creole Formation as Language Contact: The Case of the Suriname Creoles. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Mills, Sara (2003). Gender and Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mintz, Sidney W. (1974). Caribbean Transformations. Chicago: Aldine. Mintz, Sidney W. (1996). “Enduring substances, trying theories: The Caribbean region as oikoumene.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2, 289–311. Mintz, Sidney W. & Richard Price (1976). An Approach to the Afro-American Past. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. [Revised and updated version: (1992), The Birth of African American Culture. An Anthropological Perspective. Boston: Beacon Press.] Mitchell-Kernan, Claudia (1972). “Signifying and marking: Two Afro-American speech acts.” In J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication (pp. 161–179). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Morgan, Marcyliena (2002). Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, Marcyliena (1998). “More than a mood or an attitude: Discourse and verbal genres in African-American culture.” In S. Mufwene, J. Rickford, G. Bailey, & J. Baugh (Eds.), African-American English: Structure, History and Use (pp. 215–281). London, New York: Routledge. Morgan, Marcyliena (Ed.). (1994). Language and the Social Construction of Identity in Creole Situations. Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, UCLA. Meyerhoff, Miriam (1999). “Sorry in the Pacific: Defining communities, defining practices.” Language in Society, 28, 225–238. Ochs, Elinor & Bambi B. Schieffelin (1984). “Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories and their implications.” Reprinted in A. Duranti (Ed.), Linguistic Anthropology. A Reader (pp. 263–301). Oxford: Blackwell. Olshtain, Elite & Liora Weinbach (1987). “Complaints: A study of speech act behavior among native and non-native speakers of Hebrew.” In J. Verschuren & M. BertucelliPapi (Eds.), The Pragmatic Perspective (pp. 195–208). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Patrick, Peter (1997). “Style and register in Jamaican Patwa.” In E. W. Schneider (Ed.), Englishes Around the World Vol 2. Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Australasia (pp. 41–55). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Price, Richard & Sally Price (1972). “Saramaka onomastics: An Afro-American naming system.” Ethnology, 4, 341–367. Price, Sally & Richard Price (1999). Maroon Arts: Cultural Vitality in the African Diaspora. Boston: Beacon Press.


Reisman, Karl (1970). “Cultural and linguistic ambiguity in a West Indian village.” In N. E. Whitten & J. F. Szwed (Eds.), Afro-American Anthropology (pp. 129–144). New York: The Free Press. Reisman, Karl (1974a). “Contrapuntal conversations in a Antiguan village.” In R. Bauman & J. Sherzen (Eds.), Explorations in the Ethnography of Communication (pp. 110–124). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reisman, Karl (1974b). “Noise and order”. In Language in its Social Setting (pp. 56–73). Washington, DC: Anthropological Society of Washington. Searle, John (1970). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John (Ed.). (1972). The Philosophy of Language. London: Oxford University Press. Shields-Brodber, Kathryn (1992). “Dynamism and assertiveness in the public voice: Turntaking and code-switching in radio talk shows in Jamaica.” Pragmatics, 2, 487–504. Sidnell, Jack (2000). “Primus inter pares: Story-telling and male-peer groups in an Indo Guyanese rumshop.” American Ethnologist, 27, 72–99. Sifianou, Maria (1992). Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece. Oxford: Clarendon. Smith, Janet (1992). “Women in charge: Politeness and directives in the speech of Japanese women.” Language in Society, 21, 59–82. Smith, Norval (1996). “Focus-marking in Saramaccan: Grammaticalization or substrate.” In P. Baker & A. Syea (Eds.), Changing Meanings, Changing Functions: Papers Relating to Grammaticalization in Contact Languages (pp. 113–128). London: University of Westminster Press. Taylor, Douglas (1977). Languages of the West Indies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Watts, Richard (2003). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wierzbicka, Anna (1985). “Different culture, different languages, different speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics, 9, 145–178. Wierzbicka, Anna (1991). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wilson, Peter (1969). “Reputation vs. respectability: A suggestion of Caribbean ethnography.” Man, New Series, 4, 70–84. Winford, Donald (1997). “Creole studies and sociolinguistics.” Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 12, 303–318.

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P I

Performing rudeness and face maintenance

The use of “bad” language as a politeness strategy in a Panamanian Creole village Peter Snow Christopher Newport University

This paper discusses the use of so-called “bad” language in uncensored spontaneous discourse on the Panamanian island of Bastimentos. In particular, this study examines participants’ use of “obscene” assessments to evaluate evolving talk within the storytelling activity. Analysis of interaction involving speakers of the Bastimentos variety of Panamanian Creole English suggests that certain so-called “obscene” lexical items, interjected as positive assessments in the midst of on-going talk, are an important part of a local politeness strategy involving cooperative face preservation. The study demonstrates how the participants use “bad” language in “good” ways to build social action and maintain social order, indexing a link between context and “badness”. Keywords: Assessments, context, creoles, face, obscenity, participation

.

Introduction

The sociocultural underpinnings of “bad” language remain relatively unexamined by linguists despite the fact that speakers of vernacular varieties around the world frequently employ so-called “obscene” speech items when interacting in informal contexts. Outside Spears (1998), Andersson and Trudgill (1990), and MacDonald (1973) there is very little research of any rigor on “bad” language. There are a number of reasons for the dearth of substantive discussion given to the topic, including some related to the difficulties of sensitively recontextualizing “bad” language, but certainly one important reason we lack data on the spontaneous use of “uncensored speech” is methodological.1 The field methods used by researchers to collect linguistic data determine the ultimate scope and richness of those data. Linguists who rely on recorded interviews with consultants actually create a formal context where the sponta-

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neous use of uncensored speech is inherently inappropriate. The imposition of formality by a powerful outsider with recording equipment looking for answers in places he or she hopes to find them means that the resulting data are, among other things, censored (see Labov 1984). As Duranti points out in his discussion of the problem of establishing units of analysis, researchers must attempt to “find analytical concepts that are consistent with the participants’ perspective without turning every informant into an anthropologist with our own analytical preferences” (1997: 8). Ethnographers of communication, therefore, document language use across as many contexts as possible. This includes activity settings where participants censor their speech (i.e. formal contexts) and, perhaps less frequently, activity settings where participants do not censor their speech (i.e. informal contexts) (see Irvine 1979). This paper presents the results of an ethnographic study conducted in an informal context on the Panamanian island of Bastimentos in the Western Caribbean Sea. Over 30 hours of uncensored spontaneous speech were audio-recorded at an isolated house where a small group of men drank beer and talked.2 The evidence presented here focuses on the participants’ systematic use of assessments to evaluate people and events being discussed within the talk (see Goodwin and Goodwin 1992). The assessments under consideration in this study combine the possessive pronouns mi (‘my’) and yu (‘your’) with the so-called “obscene” lexical items fok (‘fuck(hole)’) and ras (‘arse(hole)’).3 There are, then, four variants being analyzed: mi fok and mi ras, literally ‘my fuck(hole)’ and ‘my ass(hole)’, glossed here as ‘fuck me’, and yu fuk and yu ras, literally ‘your fuck(hole)’ and ‘your ass(hole)’, glossed here as ‘fuck you’. The paper describes two distinct pragmatic functions for the four assessments: 1. The assessments mi fok and mi ras, exclamations of astonishment, are shown to function as face-saving displays signifying alignment towards the assessable talk or phenomenon. 2. The assessments yu fok and yu ras, exclamations of disbelief and disgust, are shown to function as face-threatening displays signifying non-alignment towards the assessable talk or phenomenon. This study contributes to a socioculturally viable theory of “bad” language (see Spears 1998) by shifting the analytic focus from the sound sequences of the “bad” words to the forms of social organization made possible through their use. An examination of assessments within this particular activity suggests that so-called “bad” language plays an important pragmatic role in the organization of uncensored interactions and that its appropriate use is clearly not evaluated as “obscene” or even “bad” by any of the participants. To the contrary, the use

The use of “bad” language as a politeness strategy

of face-preserving forms of “bad” language as displays of alignment during the storytelling activity is actually interpreted by the participants as the preferred, polite course of action. The paper is organized as follows: the next section briefly describes the linguistic setting and the variety of Panamanian Creole English spoken on the island of Bastimentos. After establishing an analytic framework based on the notion of participation, the paper proceeds to analyze the relationship between face and so-called “obscene” assessments in transcribed uncensored spontaneous speech samples. The final concluding section discusses to what extent the results of the analysis offer any insight into the nature of “bad” language. . The Panamanian island of Bastimentos The island of Bastimentos is located in the archipelagic Panamanian province of Bocas del Toro in the Western Caribbean Sea, not far from the border separating Panama and Costa Rica. The vast majority (perhaps 96 percent) of the approximately 750 residents of the largest settlement on the island, Old Bank, are Creole English-speaking Afro-Panamanians of West Indian descent. The other four percent of the population is comprised of Spanish-speaking Panamanians introduced into the community through exogamy, Ngobe-Buglé (formerly Guaymí) families that live on the fringes of Old Bank, and a growing number of Europeans and North Americans who have arrived in the past five years. The official national language of Panama is Spanish and as a result all but the oldest residents of Old Bank are bilingual in the Bastimentos variety of Panamanian Creole English (PCE) and, to varying degrees, Spanish. PCE is an English-based creole spoken by approximately 100,000 Afro-Panamanians of West Indian descent in the Republic of Panama or 8% of the population (Holm 1989: 482–483). PCE is frequently classified as a variety of Western Caribbean Creole English along with the mutually intelligible varieties of Creole English spoken in Jamaica, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and on the Colombian islands of San Andrés and Providencia. There are significant populations of urban PCE speakers in Panama City (see Thomas-Brereton 1992) and Colón4 and a number of rural communities where PCE is spoken in the province of Bocas del Toro. In the province of Bocas del Toro, varieties of PCE are spoken in three main areas: on Isla Colón, locally known as “Bocas” (see Herzfeld 1983), in the mainland port of Almirante,5 and in the village of Old Bank on the island of Bastimentos (see Aceto 1995, 1996a, 1996b, 1998; Snow 2000a, 2000b, 2003, 2004). Old Bank has by far the highest percentage of Creole English-speaking

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Afro-Panamanians of any community in Bocas del Toro. Significantly smaller populations of PCE speakers live in the mainland city of Changuinola near the Costa Rican border, on the island of Carenero, and in a few small, extremely remote villages east of the Peninsula Valiente on the Golfo de los Mosquitos.6 Guidebook-wielding tourists often refer to the variety of PCE spoken in Old Bank as Guari-Guari, the exact etymology of which is unknown (see Aceto 1996b: 18). Many residents, when pressed by outsiders, will use the term GuariGuari as well as “bad English” and “broken English”, to refer to the language they speak, but most residents simply – and significantly – call their language “English” when speaking among themselves (see Snow 2003, 2004).7 . Data and transcription The data used for the present analysis are derived from thirty hours of audiotaped spontaneous conversations collected on nine separate occasions during the summers (June–August) of 2000 and 2001 at an isolated house approximately two miles from the village of Old Bank on the Panamanian island of Bastimentos in the Western Caribbean Sea. As it happens, the man who owns the home where the data were collected was locked up as a young man for using so-called “obscene” language in a public place. He escaped by dropping through the jail’s dock toilet into the sea and has lived alone for the past forty years on a remote beach where he is free to make as much noise as he likes. The data used for this study are culled from a larger database of over 100 hours of audio and video recordings that were made on the island and in the surrounding waters during the summers of 2000–2001.8 Talk is transcribed using some of the conventions first developed by Jefferson (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974: 731–733) and later refined in Ochs, Schegloff and Thompson (1996: 461–465). The following features were selected for being most relevant to the present analysis: [ [

Separate left square brackets, one above the other on two successive lines with utterances by different speakers, indicates a point of overlap onset. ] Separate right square brackets, one above the other, indicates the ] point at which overlaps end. (2.0) Numbers in parentheses represent silence in seconds. ((cough)) Double parentheses indicate transcriber’s descriptions of events rather than representations of them.


In addition, since remaining accessible to the largest possible audience was as important to me as maintaining the phonological integrity of the interactions, I have transcribed the PCE utterances using a modified form of Rickford’s (1987: 7–9) spelling system for Guyanese Creole English. Rickford’s system is a modified form of Cassidy’s (1961) system for Jamaican Creole English and – unlike the International Phonetic Alphabet – this phonemic orthography is restricted to the letters of the English alphabet.

. Participation, assessments, and face The notion of participation as an analytic framework represents an extension of Hymes’s (1972) SPEAKING model and Goffman’s (1981) footing model by such scholars as Philips (1983), Levinson (1988), Hanks (1990), and Irvine (1996), but the concept has been most rigorously expanded and clearly delineated by C. Goodwin and M. H. Goodwin (see especially C. Goodwin 1979, 1984; M. H. Goodwin 1990, 2001; Goodwin and Goodwin 1992, in press; in addition to Duranti 1997: 280–330 on the evolution of the concept within linguistic anthropology). The term participation will be used here to refer to “actions demonstrating forms of involvement performed by parties within evolving structures of talk” (M. H. Goodwin 2001: 172). The analysis of participation within activities makes it possible to examine the interactive processes through which different kinds of participants “build action together by participating in structured ways in the events that constitute an encounter” (Goodwin and Goodwin in press). Within a participation framework, then, the focus shifts “from the structure of speech activities to the forms of social organization made possible through talk” (M. H. Goodwin 2001: 173). Shifting the analytic focus in this way is crucial for a study of uncensored speech since so-called “bad” words traveling across contexts arrive burdened with semantic baggage. The sound of “bad” words in an unexpected context invariably invokes a judgment from those who hear them about those who use them. By looking beyond the mere sound sequences of “bad” words to the ways in which participants construct social action through their use, it may be possible to transcend moral judgements about, say, the sound of the word “fuck” and describe more precisely how such language is cooperatively and constructively used in informal contexts. In the time since Reisman (1974) examined the speech genre known as “making noise” in an Antiguan Creole village, relatively few linguists have attempted to systematically analyze the relation between everyday conversation

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Peter Snow

conventions and the maintenance of social order in creole communities (one notable exception is Sidnell 2000). It is generally well known that verbal performance plays an important role in creole culture (see Abrahams and Bauman 1971; Abrahams 1983) and that audiences in creole communities participate in communicative encounters in ways that involve more than simply looking and listening (see Fisher 1976; Edwards 1978; Rickford 1986). But the specific forms of participation within stories that spontaneously emerge out of ordinary conversations have never, to my knowledge, been made explicit. This study is concerned with one important form of participation in the storytelling activity that involves evaluating the persons and events being described within the story through the use of assessments. Assessments are interjected evaluative displays that occur within the evolving talk. As a result of their spontaneous placement, assessments have a significant impact on how the talk proceeds and, therefore, play an important role in determining whether social order is maintained or disrupted. As Goodwin and Goodwin (1992: 155) point out, one of the crucial features of assessments is “the way in which they involve an actor taking up a position toward the phenomena being assessed” in a public way. These public evaluative displays are accomplished through talk and embodied action and they take one of two forms: a positive assessment or a negative assessment. Positive assessments display agreement (see Brown and Levinson 1987: 112) with the storyteller’s talk and, as a result, preserve the face of the storyteller. Negative assessments display disagreement with the storyteller’s talk and, as a result, threaten the face of the storyteller. Face is used here, following Goffman (1967) and Brown and Levinson (1987), to refer generally to participants’ self-esteem and more specifically to two kinds of desires, called “face-wants”: “the desire to be unimpeded in one’s actions (negative face), and the desire (in some respects) to be approved of (positive face)” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 13).9 Within the storytelling activity on Bastimentos, as in many communities around the world, positive assessments are evaluative displays signaling astonishment (but, importantly, not disbelief) at the storyteller’s on-going description of people and events. Positive assessments interjected into emerging talk satisfy both the storyteller’s desire to be approved of (positive face) and his desire to continue telling the story unimpeded (negative face). Negative assessments, on the other hand, are disruptive public evaluative displays of disbelief that signal disgust with the storyteller’s description. This type of antagonistic act threatens the storyteller’s positive face insofar as the listeners’ disagreement with the description of events in the story represents disapproval of the storyteller’s character. Negative assessments also threaten the negative face of the storyteller: the listeners’ disagreement with the description of events in the


story creates a hostile environment that disrupts the storytelling activity. The following excerpts provide clear and simple examples of how the positive assessments mi fok and mi ras and the negative assessments yu fuk and yu ras are used and interpreted within the storytelling activity.10 . Positive assessments Excerpt 1 illustrates how the positive assessments mi fok and mi ras satisfy the face wants of the storyteller and maintain social order when used by the listeners. By using these positive assessments to agree with the storyteller’s talk, the listeners display to the storyteller their astonishment at his description of the events, which allows him to continue telling his story unimpeded. Significantly, the story in Excerpt 1 is an attempt at face restoration by the storyteller who was being ridiculed about his gluttonous ways in the talk just prior to this excerpt. By joking about the fact that the storyteller eats too much and moves very slowly the other participants were threatening his positive face (in Old Bank, as in other cultures, gluttony and sloth are frequently derided in informal contexts). In an attempt to restore his positive face the storyteller describes an even bigger man who, significantly, is neither present nor known to the others. The storyteller’s choice of topic represents what Goodwin and Goodwin (1992: 164) refer to as “differential access” to the phenomenon being assessed. In other words, while the storyteller unequivocally assesses the actions of the big man based on his personal observations, the men who are listening to the story have access to the big man and his actions only through the storyteller’s description. The listeners are not, then, assessing the big man, but rather are assessing the storyteller’s description of the big man and, by extension, the storyteller himself. The storyteller has adopted a particular stance – astonishment – towards the actions of the big man and the listeners’ positive assessments (mi fok and mi ras) preserve the face of the storyteller by publicly demonstrating their agreement. The use of these particular forms displays alignment with the storyteller’s description to both the storyteller and the other participants in the activity. There is, then, a very clear structure for the way in which the participants pragmatically build social action together with the use of these particular uncensored assessments.





Peter Snow

Excerpt 1 01 Kab:11 dat man gaat boot sebin foot taal. ‘that man was about seven feet tall’ 02 ai afa look op in im feis (1.0) an Chato- ii mos did wee faiv hundrid an od pown ‘I had to look up in his face and Chato- he must have weighed five hundred odd pounds’ 03 Chato: mi ras ‘fuck me’ 04 Kab: ii aiya Kokito karii im an wan neks man down de ‘he hired Kokito to take him and another man down there’ 05 dat man kal fi [trii ] fokin labsta wan taim ‘that man ordered three fucking lobsters at the same time’ 06 Pogo: [mi ras] fuck me’ 07 Tug: hm 08 Kab: an wan ting a pulpo wan ting- no jook yu noo ‘and one thing of octopus one thing- I’m not joking you know’ 09 [tu help ] mai livin gaad ‘I swear to God’ 10 Pogo: [ye ye Kab] ‘yeah yeah Kab’ 11 Kab: trii labsta wan taim inna wan big ting (1.0) ‘three lobsters at the same time in one big thing’ 12 ye Cres nyem- em- ii kyaan si douwn inna di likul cheer dem ‘yeah Cres name- um- he can’t sit down in the little chairs’ 13 ii si down pon wan big lang bench wu yuu sii Fonso di ga de ‘he sat down on a big long bench that you’ve seen Fonso had there’ 14 Pogo: mm-hmm mm-hmm ((nodding and inhaling on a cigarette)) 15 Kab: an de put a teebul rait de fu im ‘and they put a table right there for him’ 16 Pogo: mi [fok] ((exhaling cigarette smoke)) ‘fuck me’ 17 Kab: [an] ye- an ii kal trii labsta wan taim wan pleit wid pulpo ‘and- yeah- and he ordered three lobsters at the same time one plate with octopus’ 18 an wan neks pleit wid krab an wan wid konks ‘and another plate with crab and one with conchs’ 19 Pogo: mi [fok] ‘fuck me’


20 Kab: 21 22

[an ] im ting wid ii rais an ii patakon an ii salad ‘and his thing with his rice and his patacones12 and his salad’ an ii si down an ii wap ov evrii fok rait de ‘and he sat down and he ate every fucking bit of it right there’ an lik too biir wid it ‘and pounded two beers with it’

On the most basic level, the assessments used by the listeners in lines 03 and 06 (mi ras) and lines 16 and 19 (mi fok) are simple public displays of shared astonishment that preserve the face of the storyteller. The use of these particular assessments reveals to the storyteller that his listeners positively evaluate his description of the actions of the big man and that they are in alignment with his stance of amazement. The participants in this excerpt maintain their shared understanding as the talk evolves through the interjection (by the listeners) and recognition (by the storyteller) of the positive assessments and as a result social order is maintained within the group and the storyteller is free to tell his story. A more thorough analysis of participation within this excerpt makes it possible to examine the maintenance of shared understanding and social order through a consideration of the specific interactive phenomena the different kinds of participants use to demonstrate their involvement. A closer look at the data reveals that within the storytelling activity there are in fact two different types of positive assessments: requested assessments and unrequested assessments (see Figure 1 for a detailed schematization of the different types of assessments within the storytelling activity on Bastimentos). In Excerpt 1, the first occurrence of mi ras (line 03) occurs after the storyteller has selected one participant, Chato, as the designated primary recipient of his talk (line 02). Significantly, the storyteller selects Chato after a “so-what?” silence (see Labov 1972) of one second (line 02) following the introduction of a possible assessable (i.e. the man was seven feet tall and the storyteller had to look up to look him in the face). By selecting Chato and directing his talk to him the storyteller is, in effect, requesting an assessment from a particular listener. The practice of requesting assessments within the storytelling activity is very common on Bastimentos (see Table 1). Not surprisingly, storytellers request assessments from those participants that they believe will be most likely to preserve their face, generally for reasons related to prior shared experience, and they do this by selecting and addressing or “ratifying” (Goffman 1981) a single participant by name. In line 03 Chato maintains social order and preserves the face of the storyteller by interjecting his positive assessment (mi ras) after the storyteller’s directed description of the big man weighing over five hundred pounds (line 02). In this



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Peter Snow Particulara

Requested Positive assessments Unrequested

Negative assessments

Unrequested

Particularb Generalc Particulard Generale

Figure 1. Types of assessments within the storytelling activity on Bastimentos

case, there is a particular assessable phenomenon (i.e. the man weighed over five hundred pounds). Within the data collected for this study, requested assessments are always positive and always assess a particular phenomenon (see Figure 1). Requested assessments, while fairly common, do not occur as frequently as unrequested assessments (see Table 1). The three remaining assessments in this excerpt (lines 06, 16, and 19) are unrequested. Unrequested assessments are not uttered in response to a directly signaled request from the storyteller but rather are independently interjected by the other participants at relevant points in the talk to display agreement. Relevance, however, is in the ear of the listener. The fact that listeners are interpreting the talk in different ways and at different rates means that the question of what constitutes a relevant point of interjection is subjective insofar as it is dependent upon the mental state of any particular listener at any given time. As a result, unlike requested assessments, unrequested assessments may refer to either (a) particular assessable phenomena or (b) the general range of phenomena emerging in the storyteller’s description. In line 19, then, Pogo’s unrequested placement of mi fok assesses the proximate particular phenomenon that was described by the storyteller in the immediately preceding talk (lines 17 and 18). The storyteller’s description of the amount of food that was ordered by the big man – including three lobsters, a plate of octopus, a plate of crabs, and a plate of conchs – represents a Table 1. Uncensored assessments in 30 hours of speech Assessment

Requested

Unrequested

Total

mi fok mi ras yu fok yu ras

15 19 0 0

188 242 06 11

203 261 06 11


particular assessable and, as a result, Pogo appropriately interjects mi fok immediately following this description. Similarly, in line 16 Pogo interjects mi fok immediately after the storyteller describes a proximate particular assessable: the fact that the big man was so big he required his own bench and table (lines 13–15). The storyteller’s subsequent acknowledgment of and agreement with (line 17: ye or ‘yeah’) Pogo’s assessment in line 16 demonstrates quite clearly how the storyteller and the listeners work together by mutually monitoring (see M. H. Goodwin 1980) the emerging talk and using that talk to cooperatively construct social action and maintain social order. Assessments may also be used by listeners to evaluate the general range of phenomena emerging in the storyteller’s description. Analysis of the interjection of assessments in the midst of on-going and overlapping talk reveals that some assessments occur even though no particular assessable has been mentioned. In line 06, for example, Pogo’s use of mi ras occurs just after the storyteller says dat man kal fi (‘that man ordered’) and at the same time the storyteller is saying trii (‘three’) (see lines 05 and 06). Pogo is not assessing a particular phenomenon when he says mi ras (line 05) since no particular assessable has been introduced since line 03. Pogo is clearly not assessing the storyteller’s proximate statement in line 04 that Kokito brought the big man and another man to the restaurant, as this a common occurrence and as such does not represent a possible assessable. Nor is he assessing the sheer quantity of lobsters that the man ate since he interjects his assessment before this fact is made clear (lines 05 and 06). Pogo’s assessment in line 05 represents, rather, a general assessment of the range of phenomena that are emerging in the storyteller’s description and conveys his amazement at the overall picture that is emerging. General assessments may be interjected at any point in the on-going talk. The seemingly indiscriminate use of general assessments may be due to “imperfect” listening resulting from distractions created by performing activities in addition to listening (e.g. scraping a fish, rinsing a plate, grating a coconut). The use of general assessments allows participants to display agreement approximately yet appropriately, even when distracted. . Negative assessments In stark contrast to positive assessments, negative assessments are facethreatening public displays that signal disbelief and disgust with the storyteller’s description of people and events. Not surprisingly, negative assessments are always unrequested: no one wants to threaten their own face and, as a result, storytellers never request a negative assessment from the listeners (see Table 1).

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

Peter Snow

Negative assessments are extremely antagonistic and threaten the storyteller’s positive and negative face wants in the following ways: 1. Positive face threat: listeners’ use of negative assessments displays disagreement with the storyteller’s description of events in the story and represents disapproval of the storyteller’s character. 2. Negative face threat: listeners’ use of negative assessments to display disagreement creates a hostile context that disrupts the storytelling activity and does not allow the storyteller to proceed without taking facesaving action. The following excerpts illustrate how the negative assessments yu fok and yu ras threaten the face wants of the storyteller and disrupt social order when used by the participants. By changing the possessive pronoun in the assessments from mi to yu, the meaning of the utterance is made diametrically opposite. It is, by way of example, precisely the same semantic distinction indexed by the pronominal differences in the uncensored American English assessments “fuck me” (positive) and “fuck you” (negative). The uncensored negative assessments yu fok and yu ras allow listeners to baldly signal that they disagree with the storyteller’s talk. By publicly displaying their disbelief and disgust with the storyteller’s description of events, listeners threaten the storyteller’s positive face so severely that the storyteller is unable to continue with the story (negative face threat) until he is able to save face by justifying his earlier description in some way. This face-saving action is accomplished cooperatively with one or more of the other listeners who have assessed the negative assessment and found it to be unwarrantable. If the storyteller is unable to persuade even one listener to display agreement with his description after the negative assessment has been interjected, he will have lost face completely and, as a result, will lose the floor to another storyteller. For the most part, however, listeners are agreeable when telling stories in private places with close friends and almost always cooperate to save the face of the storyteller (see Table 1).13 In Old Bank, as in other cultures, drinking storytellers are fond of telling stories about irresponsible behavior (their own and others’) that resulted from earlier episodes of unrestrained carousing. So, following well-received stories by two other participants about the unlikely consequences of diving for lobster while drunk and baking bread while drunk, Marco tells a story in Excerpt 2 about an irresponsible doctor he brought to Old Bank to drink and dance and then took to the nearby island of Bocas to work at the hospital.


Excerpt 2 01 Marco: ai di dash wan unda wan dakta wan taim gwain Bocas ‘I gave one (a ganja cigarette) to a doctor one time when we were going to Bocas (in my boat)’ 02 and im begin mek naiz and taak ova di hool fokin pleis ‘and he began to make noise and talk really fucking loud’ 03 wen wii gwain bai di ospital evriibadii di open dem window in di nait ‘when we were going by the hospital everybody opened their windows even though it was dark’ 04 and de lookout- de waan noo how di dakta di taak so hard owt to sii ((laughter)) ‘and was looking out- they wanted to know why the doctor was talking so loud out at sea ((laughter))’ 05 Pogo: yu ras ‘fuck you’ 06 Marco: tu gaad – wii gaan drink ol bank an gwain bak ova in di nait ‘I swear to God – we went to Old Bank to drink and going back over that night’ 07 hii se mek wii smook sumting go ova- ai se no problem ai got‘he said let’s smoke something on the way over. I said no problem. I got-’ 08 Pogo: dakta makus? ‘doctor Marcus?’ 09 Marco: no no man mm-mm a neks dakta kom down kuntri fi sprii ‘no no man mm-mm another doctor that came down from Changuinola to party’ 10 Pogo: he mos bad man - iz rum and staak in im ras ‘he must be bad man- there’s rum and (ganja) stalk in his ass’ 11 Marco: ye hii se mek wii smook sumting go ova ospital ‘yeah he said let’s smoke something and go over to the hospital’ 12 Pogo: mi ras ‘fuck me’ 13 Marco: ye ‘yeah’

Marco’s description of the events involving the ganja-smoking doctor (lines 01–04) is publicly disputed by Pogo in line 05 with the negative assessment yu ras (‘fuck you’). The reason for Pogo’s face-threatening assessment becomes clear in line 08 when he asks if the storyteller is referring to Doctor Marcus. Pogo’s negative assessment, it seems, was based upon an assumption of shared access to and knowledge about the phenomenon being described (i.e. the doc-

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Peter Snow

tor Pogo knows, Dr. Marcus, would never engage in that type of behavior and Pogo therefore feels justified in displaying his disagreement). This proves not to be the case, however, and Marco – saving face – makes it clear that he is referring to a different doctor, a doctor unknown to the listeners (line 09). It is quite common for storytellers to respond – almost reflexively – to negative assessments by invoking the name of God and swearing that their description is true and accurate as Marco does in line 06.14 In cases of general negative assessments such as this (Excerpt 2, line 05), this oath (line 06) is typically followed by a condensed re-telling of the story (lines 06–07) until the storyteller is able to determine why the listener is threatening his face. When the storyteller recognizes what, specifically, is being assessed negatively by the listener (e.g. a particular doctor, line 08) he is then able to attempt to justify his comments in the light of the specific assessable (line 09). After Marco’s clarification of the particular assessable (i.e. a doctor other than Dr. Marcus), Pogo cooperatively participates in the restoration of the storyteller’s face. He does this by publicly re-aligning himself with the storyteller’s stance of “amazingly irresponsible doctor” (line 10) and, finally, using the positive assessment mi ras in line 12 which Marco – significantly – acknowledges (line 13), his face restored. Although it happens infrequently among intimates in private gatherings, listeners may also choose to negatively assess particular phenomena in the story and then refuse to cooperate with the storyteller as he attempts to save face. The storyteller, however, does not need the listener who uttered the negative assessment to ultimately agree with his description, he merely needs to generate agreement among the other listeners and have at least one of them display their alignment with his position to save his face and restore some semblance of social order. In Excerpt 3 the storyteller, Kab, is concluding a story about the time his boat swamped while he was taking tourists through a dangerous reef in rough seas when his face is baldly threatened by a disputatious listener. Bolo repeatedly threatens Kab’s face and finally calls him a coward for admitting to ketchin a fright (‘being frightened’) while bailing out his boat. While Kab is unable to get Bolo to publicly agree with his stance of ‘I was frightened only for the lives of the tourists who might have drowned and the possible legal consequences of their drowning’, the other listeners vigorously participate in the restoration of his face by enthusiastically displaying their agreement with his justification following the negative assessment.


Excerpt 3 01 Kab:

02 Bolo: 03 Kab: 04 Pogo: 05 Kab: 06 Bolo: 07 Kab:

08 Kres: 09 Pogo: 10 Kres: 11 Kab:

12 Pogo: 13 Bolo: 14 Kab:

15 Kab: 16 Kres: 17 Kab:

dat taim mii ovaboord de beil laik a ras bika ai kyaan git in it wan sink ‘at that point I’m overboard bailing like a motherfucker because I can’t get in it’s gonna sink’ ye yu moov fas ‘yeah you moved fast’ gaad seiv mii moov fas ras ‘God saved me. It wasn’t about moving fucking fast’ ((laughter)) gaad seiv mii ‘God saved me’ ((derisive laughter)) yu kowad ras yu ‘fuck your coward ass’ no- no kowad mi aloon mi no freid a ras but piipl laif [is wat I freid fa] ‘no I’m not a coward. if I was alone I wouldn’t have been fucking afraid at all but people’s lives were what I was afraid for’ [ye ye ye ye ] ‘yeah yeah yeah yeah’ [ye ye] ‘yeah yeah’ [yu kyan go jeil] ‘you can go to jail-’ [ai se if deez fokin piipl] drowndid ai gwain [jeil] bikaz de noo di chanul ‘I said to myself if these fucking people drown I’m going to jail because they (the police) know the channel’ [ye] ‘yeah’ wel ai drowndid mi fukin self too ‘well I could have fucking drowned too’ no de noo di chanul di chanul di first ting di govunmin- whappen sii ‘no they know the channel- the channel- the first the thing the government’s gonna say is’ weir di chanul iz? ‘where’s the channel?’ ye ‘yeah’ down de- wai yu diden go truu di chanul yu [no sii di sii ruf]

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Peter Snow

‘down there. why didn’t you go through the channel? you didn’t see the sea was rough? 18 Pogo: [tek a big chans] ‘took a big chance’ 19 Kab: to fuk jeil ai gwain ‘I would’ve gone straight to fucking jail’

In this case, the storyteller’s face is initially threatened by Bolo’s comment ye yu moov fas (‘yeah you moved fast’) in line 02. The irony of this thinly veiled statement is not lost on the slow-moving storyteller, hefty Kab, who, while earlier admitting to ketchin a fright (‘being frightened’), attempts to deflect this threat to his positive face by humbly invoking the name of God (line 03).15 In line 05 Kab repeats his humble and, significantly, not terribly macho claim that God saved him, perhaps since it was unclear what Pogo’s laughter in line 04 was aligned with: Bolo’s face-threatening comment (line 02) or Kab’s face-saving response (line 03). Bolo’s face-threatening negative assessment in line 06 – derisive laughter followed by a shouted yu kowad ras yu – is, quite possibly, as bald as they come. Following this assessment the storyteller devotes considerable effort to justifying and explaining his threatened stance as he attempts to save his face (lines 07, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19) and continue with his story. Aside from Bolo (who continues to dispute the storyteller’s justification as in line 13), the other participants enthusiastically display their alignment with Kab’s stance by interjecting ye (‘yeah’) (lines 08, 09, 12, 16) and by collaboratively participating in the construction of his explanation (e.g. line 10: ‘you can go to jail’ and line 18: [the police will recognize that] ‘you took a big chance’). The fact that listeners almost always champion the cause of the storyteller by coordinating their participation in this way, together with the data in Table I, would appear to suggest that the interjection of face-threatening negative assessments is not the preferred move within the storytelling activity.

. Conclusion The preceding discussion has been concerned with the pragmatic functions of so-called “obscene” assessments within the storytelling activity on a Western Caribbean island. The positive assessments mi fok and mi ras were shown to be an important part of a local politeness strategy involving cooperative face preservation. It was suggested that the participants’ appropriate use of so-called “bad” language to build social action and maintain social order represents,


perhaps surprisingly, the preferred and polite course of action. In this final section I briefly examine some of the implications of the present study for an understanding of “bad” language more generally. The notion of context is central to both the use and study of situated speech in general and uncensored speech in particular. Participants in any given activity must understand the relationship between their talk and the context in order to interact appropriately. Similarly, ethnographers must understand the relationship between the participants’ talk and the context in which it is occurring in order to interpret the actions of the participants within the activity. In the ethnographic tradition, Malinowski introduced the notion of a “context of situation” and pointed out that “utterance and situation are bound up inextricably with each other and the context of situation is indispensable for the understanding of the words” (1923: 306). According to Malinowski, “a word without linguistic context is a mere figment and stands for nothing by itself. . .the utterance has no meaning except in the context of situation” (1923: 307). If we take Malinowski’s ethnographic approach to language as the point of departure, it becomes apparent that context – and meaning – are shaped not only by the social and spatial setting, but also by the participants’ talk and interpretive work. From this perspective, “bad” words are only “bad” when other participants in the same context interpret their use (for various reasons) to be inappropriate for that context. A socioculturally viable theory of “bad” language must recognize and emphasize the role of context in the making of meaning: badness, ultimately, is a judgement that resides in the ear of the interpreter. Recontextualization is a process of removing, reframing, and reinterpreting. In the present study, recontextualization means removing the men’s talk from an activity setting where uncensored speech is appropriate and reframing it as a transcript to be interpreted in an activity setting where censored speech is the norm. One important aspect of accurately recontextualizing this type of language, then, is maintaining the local attachment between the talk and interpretive work of the participants and the social situation in which the interaction originally occurred. Simply put, without this attachment no theory of “bad” language is complete. With this attachment, however, it becomes possible to hear “bad” language in a new way and understand that words interpreted negatively by participants in one context may be interpreted positively by participants in another.

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Peter Snow

Notes . Drawing on the insights of Spears (1998: 226), I use the term “uncensored speech” to describe language use in informal settings “in order not to prejudge the actions of the users of such speech”. . I understand the possibility exists that some readers may take offense at the recontextualization of uncensored speech into an academic arena where censored language is the norm. While I certainly hope readers will approach this material intellectually, to those readers who are easily offended by uncensored speech I can only say read no further. . Allsopp (1996: 466) defines ras as an “obscene expression of anger or astonishment” and points out that it is “considered perhaps the most vulgar of all Caribbean Area expressions, its use aloud in public is punishable by law in most territories” (1996: 466). See also MacDonald (1973) on the legal aspects of cursing in the Caribbean. . The variety of PCE spoken in Colón has never been documented in any detail although there are many thousands of creole speakers in the city. This may be at least partly due to the fact that Colón, the northern terminus of the Panama Canal (and not to be confused with Isla Colón in Bocas del Toro province), has a high level of crime and is a very dangerous city for outsiders (see Doggett 1999: 306). . The variety of PCE spoken in Almirante is also undocumented. In addition, at the time of my fieldwork in 2000, residents of Old Bank pointed out that French Creole or “patwa” speakers could still be found in an Almirante neighborhood known as “patwa town”. It is unclear if this variety is related to the nearly extinct variety of San Miguel Creole French spoken by St. Lucian immigrants in Panama City. . None of these varieties have been documented. . The use of the term “bad” in this context would appear to refer to the grammatical and phonological structures of PCE in comparison to the grammatical and phonological structures of Standard (“good”) varieties of English heard in Panama. . The research was funded by a UCLA ISOP Fieldwork Fellowship. Their support is gratefully acknowledged here. I am also indebted to the people of Old Bank for welcoming me so warmly into their homes and allowing me to participate in their lives. . See DuFon, Kasper, Takahashi and Yoshinaga (1994) for an exhaustive bibliography of linguistic politeness. . Agreement and disagreement within the storytelling activity may, of course, be displayed in ways other than the uncensored assessments that are the focus of the analysis here. Agreement is also conveyed by head nodding, vocalizations such as ye (ye ye ye) and hm-mmm, and by re-stating the assessable. Disagreement is displayed by teeth sucking (see Allsopp 1996: 538), pointing with pursed lips at the storyteller, and vocalizations such as cho and hm. It is, unfortunately, beyond the scope of the present paper to examine these additional displays of agreement and disagreement in as much detail as they deserve, but they clearly play a vital role in the organization of talk and interaction along with uncensored assessments. . All names are pseudonyms. . Patacones are fried green plantains.


a See

Excerpt 1 (line 03). See Excerpt 1 (lines 16, 19). c See Excerpt 1 (line 06). d See Excerpt 3 (line 06). e See Excerpt 2 (line 05). b

. The systematic analysis of the use of assessments in the storytelling activity in more public spaces in Old Bank (e.g. the shop, the bar, the wharf) would undoubtedly reveal a very different type of situation. Listeners in public contexts are not always intimates and, as a result, are not necessarily inclined to display agreement or participate cooperatively in face-saving attempts. . See also Excerpt 1 (line 09) after Tub’s face-threatening hm (line 07). In addition, children in Old Bank frequently use this oath – tu gaad – among themselves. The witty rejoinder trii gaad (‘three Gods’), playing on the homophones tu (‘to’) and tu (‘two’) and the fact that PCE nouns are not inflected to indicate number, is a common response to this entreaty. . See Fisher (1976) on the indirect discourse strategy of “dropping remarks” in Barbados.

References Abrahams, Roger D. (1983). The Man-of-Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Abrahams, Roger D. & Richard Bauman (1971). “Sense and nonsense in St. Vincent: Speech behavior and decorum in a Caribbean community.” American Anthropologist, 73, 762– 772. Aceto, Michael (1995). “Variation in a secret creole language of Panama.” Language in Society, 24, 537–560. Aceto, Michael (1996a). “Syntactic innovation in a Caribbean creole: The Bastimentos variety of Panamanian Creole English.” English World-Wide, 17, 43–61. Aceto, Michael (1996b). Variation in a variety of Panamanian Creole English. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Texas at Austin. Aceto, Michael (1998). “A new future tense marker emerges in the Panamanian West Indies.” American Speech, 73, 23–43. Allsopp, Richard (Ed.). (1996). Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Andersson, Lars & Peter Trudgill (1990). Bad Language. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cassidy, Frederic G. (1961). Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica. London: Macmillan. Doggett, Scott (1999). Panama. Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publications. Duranti, Alessandro (1997). Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Peter Snow

Duranti, Alessandro & Charles Goodwin (Eds.). (1992). Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DuFon, Margaret A., Gabriele Kasper, Satomi Takahashi, & Naoko Yoshinaga (1994). “Bibliography on linguistic politeness.” Journal of Pragmatics, 21, 527–578. Edwards, Walter F. (1978). “Tantalisin and busin in Guyana.” Anthropological Linguistics, 20, 194–213. Fisher, Lawrence E. (1976). “‘Dropping remarks’ and the Barbadian audience.” American Ethnologist, 3, 227–242. Goffman, Erving (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Goffman, Erving (1981). “Footing.” In E. Goffman (Ed.), Forms of Talk (pp. 124–159). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Goodwin, Charles (1979). “The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation.” In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). New York: Irvington Publishers. Goodwin, Charles (1984). “Notes on story structure and the organization of participation.” In M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of Social Action (pp. 225–246). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodwin, Charles & Marjorie H. Goodwin (1992). “Assessments and the construction of context.” In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon (pp. 147–189). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodwin, Charles & Marjorie H. Goodwin (in press). “Participation.” In A. Duranti (Ed.), A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell. Goodwin, Marjorie H. (1980). “Processes of mutual monitoring implicated in the production of description sequences.” Sociological Inquiry, 50, 303–317. Goodwin, Marjorie H. (1990). He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press. Goodwin, Marjorie H. (2001). “Participation.” In A. Duranti (Ed.), Key Terms in Language and Culture (pp. 172–175). Oxford: Blackwell. Hanks, William (1990). Referential Practice: Language and Lived Space among the Maya. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Herzfeld, Anita (1983). “Limón Creole and Panamanian Creole: Comparison and contrast.” In L. Carrington (Ed.), Studies in Caribbean Language (pp. 23–37). St. Augustine, Trinidad: Society for Caribbean Linguistics. Holm, John T. (1989). Pidgins and Creoles. Volume 2: Reference Survey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hymes, Dell (1972). “Models of the interaction of language and social life.” In J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication (pp. 35–71). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Irvine, Judith T. (1979). “Formality and informality in communicative events.” American Anthropologist, 81, 773–790. Irvine, Judith T. (1996). “Shadow conversations: The indeterminacy of participant roles.” In M. Silverstein & G. Urban (Eds.), Natural Histories of Discourse (pp. 131–159). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.


Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Labov, William (1984). “Field methods of the project in linguistic change and variation.” In J. Baugh & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Language in Use (pp. 28–53). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Levinson, Stephen (1988). “Putting linguistics on a proper footing: Explorations in Goffman’s concepts of participation.” In P. Drew & A. Wootton (Eds.), Erving Goffman: Exploring the Interaction Order (pp. 161–227). Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. MacDonald, Judy Smith (1973). “Cursing and context in a Grenadian fishing community.” Anthropologica, 15, 89–127. Malinowski, Bronislaw (1923). “The problem of meaning in primitive languages.” In C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (Eds.), The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and the Science of Symbolism (pp. 296–336). New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. Ochs, Elinor, Emanuel A. Schegloff, & Sandra A. Thompson (Eds.). (1996). Interaction and Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Philips, Susan U. (1983). The Invisible Culture: Communication in Classroom and Community on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Reisman, Karl (1974). “Contrapuntal conversations in an Antiguan village.” In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking (pp. 110–124). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rickford, John R. (1986). “Riddling and lying: Participation and performance.” In J. Fishman (Ed.), The Fergusonian Impact (pp. 89–106). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Rickford, John R. (1987). Dimensions of a Creole Continuum: History, Texts, and Linguistic Analysis of Guyanese Creole. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, & Gail Jefferson (1974). “A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation.” Language, 50, 696–735. Sidnell, Jack (2000). “Primus inter pares: Storytelling and male peer groups in an IndoGuyanese rumshop.” American Ethnologist, 27, 72–99. Snow, Peter (2000a). “ The case for diglossia on the Panamanian island of Bastimentos.” Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 15, 165–169. Snow, Peter (2000b). “Caribbean Creole/non-lexifier contact situations: A provisional survey.” Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 15, 339–343. Snow, Peter (2003). “Talking with tourists in a Panamanian Creole village: An emerging site of production.” Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 18, 299–309. Snow, Peter (2004). “Tourism and small-language persistence in a Panamanian Creole village.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 166, 113–128. Spears, Arthur K. (1998). “African-American language use: Ideology and so-called obscenity.” In S. Mufwene, J. Rickford, G. Bailey, & J. Baugh (Eds.), African-American English: Structure, History, and Use (pp. 226–250). London: Routledge. Thomas-Brereton, Leticia C. (1992). An exploration of Panamanian Creole English: Some syntactic, lexical, and sociolinguistic features. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, New York University.

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Ritualized insults and the African diaspora Sounding in African American Vernacular English and Wording in Nigerian Pidgin Nicholas Faraclas, Lourdes Gonzalez, Migdalia Medina and Wendell Villanueva Reyes Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras

Upon analysis of verbal dueling matches among children living in an urban marketplace in southeastern Nigeria, it became apparent that ritualized insults in Nigerian Pidgin (NP) display similarities to those found in African American Vernacular English (AAVE). To determine the nature of these similarities, the features that typify the ritualized insults in the NP data were systematically compared with features characteristic of ritualized insults in AAVE. The results of this comparison indicate that ritualized insult exchanges in NP and AAVE operate essentially on the basis of the same system. To help explain why these striking similarities exist, ritualized insult patterns attested among young people in Turkey were contrasted with those found in NP and AAVE. The significant differences between ritualized insults in NP and AAVE on the one hand and those attested in Turkey on the other hand suggest that the similarities between NP and AAVE are primarily due to cultural continuities between West Africa and African diaspora communities in the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, rather than to the operation of universal mechanisms of any kind. Keywords: Afro-Caribbean English Lexifier Creole, Black English/Ebonics, Dozens, Port Harcourt, verbal dueling

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Introduction

Ritualized insults constitute a general category of speech events that involve the formulaic exchange of verbal abuse. Labov’s (1972) study of ritualized insults in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) speaking communities remains one of the most linguistically detailed studies of this discourse pat-

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tern to date. The following excerpt from a duel recorded by Labov between two gang members in New York City exemplifies this particular variety of ritualized insults (319): (1) AAVE Sounding: A1 (speaker A, utterance 1): Your mother take a swim in the gutter. B1 (speaker B, utterance 1): Your mother live in a garbage can. A2 (speaker A, utterance 2): Least I don’t live on 1122 Boogie Woogie Avenue, two garbage cans to the right.

Oloruntoba’s (1992: 121) and Maduka-Durunze’s (1991, 1998: 336) observations that ritualized insults constitute an important part of everyday verbal exchange among young people in southeastern Nigeria has been amply confirmed by our research in Port Harcourt, the largest city in the region. During the collection of samples of spontaneous speech from a broad cross section of the Nigerian Pidgin (NP) speaking community in Port Harcourt, the research team was intrigued when a group of children living in the Mile One Market began exchanging formulaic insults with one another. At first we thought that this was an isolated phenomenon, but when a group of young people in another compound transformed a story telling session into a ritualized battle of wits and words, we realized that Wording (as this activity is normally called in NP) was in fact a widespread speech event among the youth of the town and that it represented a considerable investment of their communicative skill, time, and energy. The following represents a typical exchange of ritualized insults from our NP data. All NP material appearing in this work is written using the NP orthography recommended in Faraclas (1996): (2) NP Wording (each utterance is given first in NP then translated into English beneath): A1: Làyk yò big hed làyk big man shit. ‘Your big head is like a grown man’s shit.’ B1: Wìt yò flat hed làyk Sàpèlé dòdo. ‘With your flat head like fried plantain slices from Sapele.’ A2: Làyk yò big bèle làyk òyìbó man nyash. ‘Your big belly is like a white man’s buttocks.’

We proceeded to record several sessions of these verbal sparring matches, since many of them displayed features identified as typical of similar discourse patterns observed in studies of ritualized insults among African Americans by such scholars as Dillard (1970), Dollard (1939), Labov (1972), Foster (1974) and Goffman (in Labov 1972).

Ritualized insults and the African diaspora

The phenomenon of ritualized insult exchange among adolescents in virtually all of the African American Vernacular English speaking communities of the United States has been given a number of names over the years, as recorded in the principal academic studies devoted to this topic, including: “the dozens, sounding, signifying, crackin’ on the kitchen folks, . . . mama talk, soundin’ on the moms, getting on moms” (all from Foster 1974: 210), “joining” (Dollard 1939: 15) “putting the man on the wheel, giving the man the spoke” (both from Berdie 1947: 120), and “playing” (Abrahams 1962: 209). Labov (1972: 306) claims that although the term the dozens is the oldest, sounding was the most current among the youths with whom he worked in New York City. In the present study, the term sounding will be used to refer to what Labov (1972: 307) describes as “a well organized speech event which occurs with great frequency in the verbal interaction of black adolescents . . . and occupies long stretches of their time” and which can include ritualized insults of the addressee, the addressee’s relatives and/or personal insults of a simpler form. Discourse patterns involving ritualized insults are not only found in Nigeria and the rest of West Africa and in the African American communities of the United States. Foster (1974: 225) cites a number of authors who report the existence of similar discourse practices elsewhere in West Africa and the African diaspora. In the Caribbean, for example, genres such as calypso in Trinidad show strong resemblances to AAVE Sounding and NP Wording. Ritualized insult genres have been attested in speech communities in Southern and East Africa as well as much further afield, from Papua New Guinea to the Arctic. While Labov (1972: 321–322) acknowledges that ritualized insult exchanges also typify the speech of some white communities in the United States, he concludes that “whereas the AAVE practice of sounding ranges over a wide variety of forms and topics which are combined with great flexibility, the white forms are essentially a limited set of routines” and that “this activity does not occupy a significant amount of time for the white groups – in a word, it is not a speech event for the white groups in the sense that sounding is a speech event for the black groups.” In this paper, it will be argued that the form and function of ritualized insults in Nigerian Pidgin speaking communities are too similar to those found in African American communities to be the result of mere coincidence or of the operation of some hypothetical universals of human discourse. Given the fact that the greatest proportion of the Africans who were taken as slaves to the Americas came from the area where Nigerian Pidgin is spoken today (i.e. from the Slave Coast to the Bight of Biafra, or roughly from present day Cotonou to Old Calabar), we contend that it would not be unreasonable to attribute these

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similarities to cultural continuity. In order to prove this point, the features that typify ritualized insults in other communities such as those documented among adolescents in Turkey (referred to as Dueling in Dundes et al. 1972) were compared with those that are characteristic of NP and AAVE. The results of this comparison revealed significant differences between Turkish Dueling on the one hand and AAVE Sounding and NP Wording on the other. These differences can be summed up under four general rubrics: 1. Form of Insults: While the clever manipulation of syntax is the primary gauge of a well-formed insult in AAVE Sounding and NP Wording, it is the skillful use of phonological variables such as meter and rhyme that characterizes a successful insult in Turkish Dueling. 2. Theme of Insults: In AAVE Sounding and NP Wording insults touch on a wide variety of topics and do not necessarily imply that one player dominates the other in any other area besides that of verbal dexterity. While Turkish Dueling does constitute a competition of verbal skill, thematically it deals almost exclusively with the sexual domination of one player over another. 3. Interpretation of Insults: AAVE Sounds and NP Words are consistently composed in such a way as to ensure that they are interpreted as untrue and therefore not as personal insults (which would actually shame or demean one’s opponent). However, Dundes et al. (1972: 135) state that in Turkish Dueling one of the main goals of insults is to: ‘force one’s opponent into a female, passive role. . .. [A] young boy defends and asserts his virile standing in his peer group by seeing to it that his phallus threatens the anus of any rival who may challenge him. It is important to play the active role in a homosexual relationship; it is shameful and demeaning to be forced to take the passive role.’ 4. Situational Context of Insults: While ritualized insult sessions are above all a public performance put on for an audience by both girls and boys from the age of four to adulthood in AAVE and NP, they are a very private and exclusively pre-pubescent and adolescent male affair in Turkish, where each of the dueling adversaries’ attention is narrowly focused on artfully expressing his sexual dominance over the other, rather than on impressing an audience. Compare the following example of Turkish Dueling from Dundes et al. (1972: 141) with those from AAVE and NP in (1) and (2) above:


(3) Turkish Dueling: A1: Inek. cow ‘(You are a) cow (female animal).’ B1: Üstüne binek top your to ride let’s ‘Let me ride you.’ Dagä gidek. mountain to go let’s ‘Let’s go to the mountain.’ Seni sikek. you penis let’s ‘Let me fuck you.’

While universal patterns of verbal interaction may account for the restricted set of common features shared by Turkish Dueling on the one hand and AAVE Sounding/NP Wording on the other, they cannot explain the much greater number of characteristics shared by AAVE Sounding and NP Wording. It is therefore our contention that the most logical and economic explanation for the striking similarities between AAVE Sounding and NP Wording is cultural continuity between West Africa and the communities of the African diaspora in the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas. The data sample used for Nigerian Pidgin in this work consists of approximately one hour of spontaneous speech collected from each of 30 NP speakers who were selected on the basis of ethnolinguistic background, gender, age, amount of formal education, whether NP was learned as a first or second language, and the extent to which NP was used by each in day to day interactions to represent a rough cross section of the NP speaking community in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Nigerian Pidgin is a creolized language whose vocabulary is mainly derived from English, but whose semantic, phonological, and morphosyntactic systems show a high degree of similarity to the dozens of Niger-Congo languages spoken in southern Nigeria (Faraclas 1990, 1996). With well over 60 million speakers, Nigerian Pidgin is spoken by more people than any other African language. Worldwide, no other creole language is so widely spoken as NP. NP could be considered to be a dialect of Afro-Caribbean English Lexifier Creole, whose other dialects include Cameroonian Pidgin, Sierra Leonean Creole, Jamaican Creole, Bajan, Trinidadian, the other English Lexifier Creoles of the Lesser Antilles and Central and South America, and possibly Bahamian and Gullah.

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. Comparison between African American Vernacular English ‘Sounding’ and Nigerian Pidgin ‘Wording’ and contrast with Turkish ‘Dueling’ In this section, the salient features of African American Vernacular English Sounding and Nigerian Pidgin Wording are systematically compared, and both AAVE Sounding and NP Wording are contrasted with Turkish Dueling (see Tables 1–7). Evidence to substantiate the claims made for AAVE Sounding in the tables can be found in the sources listed (abbreviated L, F, and B) on the pages indicated. Data supporting the generalizations made in the tables for NP Wording appear in the NP Corpus in the Appendix below, with the number in the table corresponding to the number of the utterance in the corpus; while examples and analysis contributing to the conclusions reached in the tables concerning Turkish Dueling are taken from Dundes et al. (1972) (abbreviated D in the tables) on the pages indicated. . Comparison and contrast: General characteristics As shown in Table 1 below, AAVE Sounding, NP Wording, and Turkish Dueling are all well organized speech events with specific rules regulating production, interpretation, response, form and content of insults and these rules are remarkably similar throughout each of their respective speech communities. But the verbal genre represented by both AAVE Sounding and NP Wording is first and foremost a performing art that revolves around the presence and evaluatory function of an audience. Turkish Dueling on the other hand does not require an audience at all, although players may comment on each other’s performance, especially on rhyme patterns. The role of the audience is illustrated in these excerpts from AAVE Sounding and NP Wording (e = audience evaluation of the preceding utterance): (4) AAVE Sounding (Labov 1972: 329): A1: Your mother got a .45 in her left titty. e: laughter (positive evaluation by audience) B1: Your mother got a 45 degree titty. e: no response (audience is unimpressed) A2: Your mother got baptized in a whiskey bottle. e: loud laughter all around (very positive evaluation by audience) (5) NP Wording: A1: Yù mes, yù mes, ol dì sup we ìm de fòr ol dì wold ì sawa. ‘You shit, all the soup in the whole world went rotten.’


e: audience laughs and repeats the utterance (very high evaluation) B1: Yù mes, ol dì won we sup fòr we yò màma kuk dèm dè sawa. ‘You shit, all the soup that your mother cooked went sour.’ e: laughter and interjections/exclamations (very high evaluation) A2: Yù mes. For kàtàpila no fit jakam. ‘You shit and four bulldozers couldn’t pick it up.’ e: no response (audience is unimpressed) B2: Yù mes. Òkilo dè tok se haw meni wayf we yù gò mari? ‘You shit. Okilo asked you how many wives you wanted to marry.’ e: laughter and interjections/exclamations (very high evaluation)

Neither Oloruntoba’s (1992: 120–122) assertion that NP Wording is restricted to males between the ages of 10 and 13 nor Maduka-Durunze’s (1991, 1998) exclusive association of NP Wording with male and female university students is borne out in the Port Harcourt data, where young people of both genders from the age of 4 to 20 were found to be proficient and prolific players. While male and female youth frequently engage in AAVE Sounding and NP Wording in a variety of contexts from a very early age, only boys from 8 to 14 years of age practice Turkish Dueling and then only in restricted contexts (for example, no women or girls may be present). Both AAVE Sounding and NP Wording are activities that are at the forefront of public consciousness and discussion (see Labov 1972: 326 concerning AAVE), with a well developed metalanguage for reporting on and evaluating a player’s performance and current standing in relation to other players. These examples from AAVE, NP, and Turkish include discussion of Sounding, Wording, and Dueling respectively: (6) AAVE Sounding (Labov 1972: 331): A1: Boot (C) one of the best sounders. B1: I say, uh-uhmC1: Now if you said that to me. . . D1: No no no no, you sound him, tell him, say say that. . . B2: He’s one of the best sounders of all. D2: Money (B) sounds good too. (7) NP Wording: A1: Si yò hed na sèkúra sèkúra. ‘Look at your head, full of ringworm.’ B1: Si yò mawt làyk [bùlùgúlú]. ‘Look at you mouth like [bulugulu].’ A2: (Loses his temper) Ày gò bit yu o. ‘I’m going to beat you.’

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B2: (Ridicules A’s response, but also invites A to keep playing) Dis boy ìm mes ànd ron. ‘This boy shit and ran.’ A3: (Checks to make sure that B is only playing) Sò yù wan wod mì? ‘So you want to ‘word’ me (play the dozens/sound with me)?’ B3: Yés. ‘Yes.’ A4: (Continues with the game) Si yò flat leg làyk Màmàtúnde fràynpán. ‘Look at your flat legs like Mamatunde’s fryingpan.’ (8) Turkish Dueling (Dundes et al. 1972: 143–145): ami. A1: Ananin mother yours cunt ‘Your mother’s cunt.’ B1: Babamin killi dami. father my hairy roof ‘My father’s hairy roof.’ (a clumsy reference to penis). A2: Onu öyle demezler. that this way say don’t they ‘They don’t say it that way.’ (commenting on B’s performance).

Table 1. Comparison and contrast: General characteristics General characteristics

AAVE sounds

NP words

Turkish duels

Rules, form & content remarkably similar throughout community

L 306

Both research sites very similar

Yes D 131

Well organized, with specific discourse rules exist for producing, interpreting, etc.

L 305–306

See rules below in Table 3

Yes D 131

Very public speech event Age of players can be very young Girls proficient players Occurs very frequently in young people’s speech, occupies much of their time

L 325 L 308 B 25–30 L 305

Audience a must Ages 4–20 years Equal gender ratio At least 33% of recording time

No D 131 8–14 years No D 135 ? Boys only

Very much in forefront of social consciousness (meta-talk)

L 326

See 7–9, 113–119

?D 136, 145

Key: L = Labov (1972); B = Brown, H. Rap (in Foster 1974); D = Dundes et al. (1972). Numbers under NP Sounds refer to utterances in the NP corpus found in the Appendix.


. Comparison and contrast: General parameters In Table 2 below, the general parameters governing AAVE Sounding and NP Wording are compared and then contrasted with those regulating Turkish Dueling. AAVE Sounding, NP Wording, and Turkish Dueling all require a very high degree of linguistic competence on the part of each player. In all three cases (see examples (1) through (5) above), an antagonist (A) puts forward an insult aimed at her/his opponent (or at a relative of his/her opponent) (B) as an invitation to begin play, to which the opponent (B) must respond by putting forward a new insult aimed at A. In response to a particular insult (A1), B must structure her/his response (B1) as an original and well-developed transformation of the insult just uttered (A1). After B offers his/her response (B1) to the antagonist’s original insult (A1), the antagonist puts forward a new insult (A2) which may be entirely new in form and content, or which may be a further transformation of A1/B1, in which case it is more positively evaluated than a completely new insult. Examples (4) and (5) above also show how in AAVE Sounding and NP Wording, the audience (e) intervenes between each insult, expressing their approval or disapproval of each player’s performance, while in Turkish Dueling there is no function allocated to an audience, yielding the following patterns of interaction: AAVE Sounding: A1 e B1 e A2 e B2 e A3. . . NP Wording: A1 e B1 e A2 e B2 e A3. . . Turkish Dueling: A1 B1 A2 B2 A3. . .

While in AAVE Sounding and NP Wording insults are ritually structured in such a way as to be so preposterous that they cannot be taken seriously as personal insults, the line between ritualized and personal insult in Turkish Dueling is much finer and is regularly crossed. In AAVE Sounding and NP Wording, insults are designed more to impress the audience (indeed they often directly address the audience, referring to the opponent in the third person) than to wound an opponent. This is frequently not the case in Turkish Dueling, where insults are clearly directed at one’s opponent in a very personal and devastating manner. While insults in AAVE Sounding and NP Wording are phrased in such a way that it its nearly impossible either to answer them directly or to deny them, insults in Turkish Dueling can frequently be both answered directly and denied. With younger players and in unusual contexts, AAVE Sounding and NP Wording can degenerate into the exchange of personal insults, but this usually

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Table 2. Comparison and contrast: General parameters A = antagonist; B = opponent or relative of opponent; e = audience

AAVE sounds

NP words

Turkish duels

General rule: A1 e B1 e A2 e B2 e A3. . . Requires great linguistic competence B1 should build on A1 (B1 should be an original or well developed transformation of A1) A2 may be entirely new form Better if A2 ‘tops’ B1 (is transformation of B1) Ritualized insults are challenges to play Ritualized insults, rather than personal insults

L 327 L 344 L 327–328

See 22–32 See Appendix See 15–16; 22–32 See 15–17 See 27–30 See 41; 107 See 15–16; 67– 68 See 9–12 See 89–95; 128–130 8 ethnicity, 128–130

No A1 B1 Yes D 132 Yes D 145

L 327–328 L 327–328 L 335 L 307

Audience is presupposed, 3rd person often used L 342 Ritualized insults cannot be answered or denied, L 333 each builds on last Ritual can become personal with young L 352 speakers and in strange situations

Yes D 142 Rhyme Yes D 152 No D 144 No No D 144 Often personal

Key: L = Labov (1972); D = Dundes et al. (1972). Numbers under NP Sounds refer to utterances in the NP corpus found in the Appendix.

meets with extreme disapproval on the part of the audience who intervene first by signaling that the rules of the game have been violated and eventually, if a player takes no heed of this preliminary warning, by replacing the transgressing player. In the following exchange from the NP data, the use of the third person and the elimination of a player who takes an insult personally are illustrated: (9) NP Wording: A1: À se yu shit et shit, go kol yò màma. Yò màma kom se wétíng hapun? Yù kom se màma: (completes the utterance in Igbo) ‘I said that you shit 8 shits and then you called out to your mother. Your mother said, what’s wrong? You said: (completes in Igbo).’ B1: À no hyar dì ting we yù dè tok nà. ‘I can’t understand you.’ C1: (audience intervention): Ànóda won à beg. No veks. ‘Change the subject, please. Don’t lose your tempers.’ A2: (third person) Dis gel shit. Ì stat tù faynd dì LCA. ‘This girl shit and then started to look for the Local Cleaning Authority.’ C2: (Takes over from poorly performing B, group wording aimed at B): Yò fest taym yù gò ànáwnsam fòr nyuspepa. ‘Your first one [menstruation], you’ll announce it in the newspaper.’


A3: (third person, group wording, directed at B): Dis gel bay ten kobo gràwnót. Ìm go dè faynd fòr shit. ‘This girl bought some peanuts, and recovered them later from her shit.’

. Comparison and contrast: Rules governing insult form and production The rules governing the form and the production of insults in AAVE Sounding and NP Wording are compared and then contrasted with those regulating Turkish Dueling in Table 3 below. Labov (1972: 336) contends that ritualized insults in AAVE are generally derived from the following basic construction: B (opponent, relative, body part) is so X (pejorative attribute) that P (absurd proposition)

NP Wording relies on the following basic construction (see also Oloruntoba 1992: 122), which, given the syntactic differences between NP and AAVE, is strikingly similar to the basic construction in AAVE: B (opponent, relative, body part)+{be/verb}+like+ P (absurd proposition/ideophone)

From these basic constructions eleven other insult constructions are derived in both AAVE and NP, as listed in Table 3. Since Turkish Dueling is constrained by phonological form (rhyme, meter) rather than syntactic form, there is no basic construction per se in Turkish Dueling and therefore neither are there any derived constructions, although a few of the insult forms found in Turkish Dueling can be correlated with the least specified AAVE and NP forms (absurd forms, couplets, response forms). In both AAVE Sounding and NP Wording the target can be the opponent him- or herself, one of the opponent’s family members, or one of the opponent’s body parts, clothes, excretions, etc. Standard formulae can be used to begin an insult exchange and exchanges may involve a whimsical juxtaposition of a variety of images. While family members, standard openers, and fairly whimsical images may sometimes be invoked in Turkish Dueling, the overarching theme and exclusive goal is always the sexual domination of one’s adversary. The great majority of formal properties shared by AAVE Sounding and NP Wording are not found in Turkish Dueling, including the following: (1) the opponent’s response (B1) is normally syntactically similar but syntactically or semantically more complex than the antagonist’s original insult (A1); (2) this

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Table 3. Comparison and contrast: Rules governing the production of insults A = antagonist; B = opponent or relative of opponent; X = pejorative attribute; P = absurd proposition; e= audience; Z = body part, etc. Rules of form and production AAVE 1 (BASIC): B/Z(B) is so X that P NP 1 (BASIC): B/Z(B)+be/verb+ P/ideophone AAVE 2: B is (like), looks like N NP 2: (Look at) B (is/looks) like N AAVE 3: Z(B) is (like), looks like N NP 3: (Look at, with) Z(B) (is/looks) like N AAVE 4/NP 4: B eats N AAVE 5: B’s mother raised B on N NP 5: B’s people eat N (including snails, &c) AAVE 6/NP6: I went to B’s house. . . AAVE 7/NP7: Stories AAVE 8/NP8: Portraits AAVE 9/NP 9: Absurd/Bizarre forms AAVE 10/NP10: Response forms AAVE 11/NP 11: Rhymed Couplets (Rare) AAVE 12: Didn’t I see. . . NP 12: Wasn’t it you. . . Target can be opponent (B) or relative(s) of B Whimsical juxtaposition of a variety of images Standard ‘starters’ to begin an exchange Surface syntax maintained between ‘sounds’ B1 builds on A1, is rarely simpler than A1 Sometimes extra complexity is semantic P’ may involve complex & left hand embedding P must be present but X can be implicit P may be deleted if X also is If X’ does not = X, then P’ does not = P Coda ends session, may be short Some targets taboo

AAVE sounds

NP words

L 336 L 311–312 L 311–312

See 19

L 311–312

Turkish duels

No equivalent See 127 No equivalent See 19, 22, 37, No 82–84 equivalent

L 315 L 315

See 11, 88 See 128–130

L 316–317 L 317–318 L 318 L 318 L 319 L 308 L 350

See 111–112 See 97–99 See 27–29 See 41; 53 See 70–72 Unrhymed See 35; 97

L 307 L 325 L 308 L 345 L 346 L 346 L 342 L 342 L 340 L 343 L 348 F 212

Yes, 123–125 53; 90; 107 See 70; 31 See 53–64 89–91; 101 See 47–48 See 21 See 24, 121 121, 128 See 83–84 30–32; 95 8 ethnicity

No equiv. No equivalent No equiv. No equiv. No equiv. Yes D 141 Yes D 138 Dominates No equivalent Yes D 135 Yes D 141 Yes D 131 No No D 142 No No No No No No No D 135

Key: L = Labov (1972); F = Foster (1974); D = Dundes et al. (1972). Numbers under NP Sounds refer to utterances in the NP corpus found in the Appendix.

added complexity may involve left hand embedding; (3) the absurd proposition (P) may be deleted only if the pejorative attribute (X) is also deleted; (4) if the pejorative attribute (X) is changed then the absurd proposition (P) must also


change; (5) sessions may be concluded by a short pithy coda insult; and (6) certain topics or targets are taboo: (10) NP Wording: A1: À blo kata yù se nà dì best àkàmú. ‘I blew some snot, you said that it was the best porridge.’ B1: À blo kata, ful bezin. Dis gel kari fifti kobo bred finisham. ‘I blew some snot, this girl brought a 25 cent loaf of bread and ate it all up.’ A2: Wìt yò túmtúm bèle làyk [stràléwawa]. ‘With your noisy belly like [ideophone (IP)].’ B2: Wì dè drink gàri. Dis gel don enta dì yad, dì gàri ton tù byábyá. ‘We were eating gari porridge. This girl came into the yard and the porridge turned to pubic hair.’ A3: Yò noz òpùnópun làyk indya wel. ‘Your nose is turned out like India (whale?).’ B3: Layk ‘Like ’ C1: Left hand embedding: (Joins, due to A’s faltering performance, group wording aimed at A): Ày shit làyk dis, yù tek pepa yù gò klinam se mek à klin dì shit fòr yu so dat yù gò tekam chop. ‘I shit like this. You brought some paper to clean it, saying ‘Let me clean it for you’ so that you could eat it.’ (11) AAVE Sounding (Labov 1972: 345–346): A1: Bell grandmother so-so-so ugly, her rag is showin’. B1: ‘Left hand embedding’: Bell grandmother got so many wrinkles in her face, when they walk down the street, her mother would say, “Wrinkles and ruffles.”

. Comparison and contrast: Evaluation of insults As shown in Table 4 below, in AAVE Sounding, NP Wording, and Turkish Dueling there are winners and losers, losers are often the target of a series of insults, and the farther a player deviates from ‘proper’ social norms in the form and content of an insult, the more highly that insult is evaluated. The other evaluation-related features that are shared by AAVE Sounding and NP Wording, however, are not shared by Turkish Dueling, including: (1) the pivotal role played by the audience in distinguishing this speech event from others (see Section 2.1 above as well as Oloruntoba 1992: 121–122); (2) the use of laugh-






Table 4. Evaluation of insults Evaluation of insults

AAVE sounds

NP words

Turkish duels

This game has winners and losers Losing player target of series of Sounds/Words The farther from the ‘proper’ norms of dominant culture, the better Audience and evaluation distinguish this from other speech events Laughter = main marker of positive evaluation Comment/exclamation = extreme approval Repeat = marker of extreme approval Negative comment = phony, weak, lame Left embedding gets positive evaluation Short, pithy coda gets positive evaluation Minimum change in form with maximum semantic change gets positive evaluation Losing player becomes target of whole group

L 335 78–80 Yes D 149 L 332 See 21 Yes D 141 L 324 F 212 53–63; 104–110 Yes D 133 L 325

eRXL

No

L 325 L 325 L 326 L 326 L 349 L 349 L 349

See eL See eX See eR See 116 See 21; 62 See 30; 95 See 121

No No No No No No No

L 329

10–13

No


ter, commentary, exclamation, and repetition by the audience to express their positive or negative evaluation of a particular insult (see examples (4) and (5) above); (3) the particularly positive evaluation given to left hand embedding, a pithy coda, and minimax forms (responses involving minimum syntactic change but maximum semantic change); and (4) the phenomenon whereby a losing player becomes the target of the entire audience (‘group wording’ as in utterances C2 and A3 in example (9) above). Coda and minimax forms from NP and AAVE are illustrated below: (12) NP Wording: A1: Si as yò hand go insayd làyk dis ting kíngkóng. ‘Look at how your hand is turned in like King Kong.’ B1: Pithy coda: Si yu. King òv pis. ‘Look at you. King of Piss.’ (play on King of Peace) (13) AAVE Sounding (Labov 1972: 349): A1: I’ll take you to the last man. B1: I’ll take your mother. C1: Minimax form: I took your mother.


Table 5. Interpretation of insults A = antagonist; B = opponent or relative; X = pejorative attribute; P = absurd proposition; e= audience; Z = body part, etc.; S = utterance Interpretation of insults If A says S in presence of B and e, referring to a target related to B in a proposition P and: It is an AB event that P is untrue, then S is a Sound/Word heard as “B is so X that P” B responds by asserting that A is so X’ that P’ P is so unlikely that it is recognized as untrue Hyperbole, exaggeration assumed

AAVE sounds

NP words

Turkish duels

L 338–339

See 13; 14 No

L 342 L 340 F 210

See 89–90 No See 40 No See 48 ?


. Comparison and contrast: Interpretation of insults In Table 5, it becomes apparent both how much AAVE Sounding shares with NP Wording in terms of interpretation of insults as well as how little Turkish Dueling shares with AAVE Sounding and NP Wording in this same area. In AAVE Sounding and NP Wording the absurd proposition (P) is so absurd, and hyperbole and exaggeration are such an integral part of this genre that when the opponent (B) hears the antagonist (A) utter an insult (S) referring to him/her (B) in a proposition (P) in the presence of an audience (e), both A and B interpret P as being untrue (it is an AB event that P is untrue) so that S is a Sound or Word heard as “B is so X that P”. B then responds by asserting that “A is so X’ that P”’. Turkish Dueling involves very different rules of interpretation, many of which involve the deciphering of symbolic and metaphorical references to sexual domination. In this respect Turkish Dueling is similar to that encountered elsewhere in the Mediterranean as well as in ritualized insult genres attested among adolescent males in Mexico. The absurd and non-sexual nature of most insults in AAVE Sounding and NP Wording is illustrated in the following examples of prose/anecdotal forms, which do not occur in Turkish Dueling at all: (14) AAVE Sounding (Labov 1972: 316): A1: Hey! I went up to C’s house, I say, I wanted to sit down, and then, you know, a roach jumped up and said “Sorry, this seat is taken.” B1: I went to D’s house, I saw the roaches walkin’ round in combat boots.






(15) NP Wording (free translation): A1: A white man gave us each some money to build a house. My house was fine. It had a television, a cassette recorder, and a video. This boy (B) had nothing. He just put his child in a box and whenever the white man came over and wanted to hear some music, this boy would poke his child with a stick and the child would cry [è è è]. That was his music box. B1: A white man gave us each 1000 Nayra to build a house. This boy (A) gambled away the 1000 Nayra. My house was fine. Whenever the white man came, we would play ball, put on the air conditioner, the ceiling fan and the radio. This boy had nothing. He molded some shit into a ball, tied a chicken to the ceiling, put some flies in a cushion, and put a goat and a chicken in a box. Whenever the white man came over and wanted to play ball, this boy would bring out the shit. Whenever the white man wanted to feel the breeze, this boy would beat the chicken on the ceiling and the chicken would flap its wings [vwww]. Whenever the white man wanted air conditioning, this boy would hit the cushion and the flies would buzz [vmmmm]. Whenever the white man wanted to hear some music, he would beat the box with a stick and the goat and chicken would cry [mééééé kòkòrókò].

. Comparison and contrast: Goffmann’s interactional framework for Sounding Labov (1972: 343–344) outlines an interactional framework for AAVE Sounding put forward by Erving Goffmann. As illustrated in Table 6, all four of the basic interactional properties isolated by Goffmann for AAVE Sounding also typify NP Wording. Goffmann’s first property, that the initial player opens the field for others to display their verbal talents is shared by AAVE Sounding, NP Wording, and Turkish Dueling. The other properties in Goffmann’s framework: (1) the necessity of a third person (audience); (2) the possibility of a third person becoming a player, and (3) the symbolic distance that is maintained to insulate Sounding/Wording from other kinds of verbal interaction, while characteristic of both AAVE Sounding and NP Wording, are not attested in Turkish Dueling.


Table 6. Goffmann’s interactional framework for Sounding A = antagonist; B = opponent or relative of opponent; X = pejorative attribute; P = absurd proposition; e= audience; Z = body part, etc. Goffmann’s interactional framework for Sounding Initial player opens field for others to display their talent at his/her expense Besides 2 players, 3rd person is necessary Any 3rd person can become a player, especially if one original player fails Symbolic distance maintained to insulate event from other kinds of verbal interaction

AAVE sounds

NP words

L 343–344 See 70–72 See 42–46 L 343–344 eRXL, 8–13 L 343–344 See 8–13; 78–80 L 343–344 See 11; 13; 24

Turkish duels

Yes D 152 No D 131 No No D 149

Key: L = Labov (1972); D = Dundes et al. (1972). Numbers under NP Sounds refer to utterances in the NP corpus found in the Appendix.

. Comparison and contrast: Possible social function of insults Various authors have proposed possible social functions for the ritualized insult exchanges that constitute AAVE Sounding. Foster (1974) stresses the role of AAVE Sounding in sharpening young people’s verbal survival skills. This function is also evident in NP Wording and Turkish Dueling. In both AAVE Sounding and NP Wording, players actively challenge each other to control their tempers and to express their feelings without losing their tempers (Oloruntoba 1992: 120). This particular dynamic is much less prominent in Turkish Dueling. It has been suggested that AAVE Sounding (Foster 1974: 211) and Turkish Dueling (Dundes et al. 1972: 159) are part of the process by which boys gradually sever their affective bonds to their mothers as they enter puberty. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that such a role can be attributed to NP Wording. In this connection, it is significant that Foster bases his claims on AAVE Sounding sessions involving young boys only. H. Rap Brown (in Foster 1974: 25–30) claims that girls are just as proficient sounders as are boys, a characteristic that NP Wording shares with AAVE Sounding. Perhaps Foster would have come to a different conclusion in this connection if he had included young women in his database.






Table 7. Possible social function of insults Possible social function

AAVE sounds

Teaches verbal survival techniques F 211 Teaches players to control tempers F 211–226 Expressing feelings w/o losing temper F 211 Aim: Get the other player to lose their temper F 214 Cut link between boy and mother F 211

NP words

Turkish duels

See 53–69 See 8 See 113–119 113–119, 128–130 No

Yes D 136 No D 156 No D 156 No D 156 Yes D 159

Key: F = Foster (1974); D = Dundes et al. (1972). Numbers under NP Sounds refer to utterances in the NP corpus found in the Appendix.

. Conclusion From the evidence presented in Section 2 above, we can conclude that both AAVE Sounding and NP Wording operate on the basis of essentially the same system in all respects, including their general characteristics, the parameters and interactional properties regulating the exchanges of insults, the social function of ritualized insults, and the rules that govern their production, evaluation, and interpretation. Turkish Dueling, while sharing some very general characteristics with both AAVE Sounding and NP Wording, differs significantly from both in terms of the overwhelming majority of features considered in this study. We conclude therefore that, while the limited number of similarities between Turkish Dueling on the one hand and AAVE Sounding/NP Wording on the other could plausibly be attributed to universals of human discourse, the much more numerous similarities between AAVE Sounding and NP Wording could only be attributed to cultural continuity between West Africa and the communities of the African diaspora in the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas. In terms of further research, the evidence suggests that AAVE Sounding and NP Wording may be part of an Afro-Caribbean ritualized insult tradition that includes calypso and other Caribbean insult genres and corresponds to the geographic zone covered by Afro-American English Lexifier Creole, which includes parts of the West Coast of Africa, the Lesser and Greater Antilles, and areas along the coasts of South, Central, and North America where the Northern European (English, Dutch, etc.) variety of colonial era plantation slavery played a major role in shaping society. Turkish Dueling on the other hand, may be part of a separate ritualized insult tradition that covers the Mediterranean Basin as well as parts of the Americas (Mexico, etc.) whose societies have been heavily influenced by Southern European (Spanish, Portuguese, etc.) cultures.


References Abrahams, Roger (1962). “Playing the dozens.” Journal of American Folklore, 75, 209–218. Berdie, R. F. (1947). “Playing the dozens.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 42, 110–140. Brown, H. Rap (1974). Die Nigger Die! New York: Dial Press. Dillard, Joey Lee (1970). “The creolist and the study of non-standard Negro dialect of the United States.” In D. H. Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages (pp. 105–139). London: Cambridge University Press. Dollard, John (1939). “The dozens: The dialect of insult.” American Image, 1, 3–24. Dundes, Alan, Jerry W. Leach, & Bora Ozkok (1972). “The strategy of Turkish boys’ verbal dueling rhymes.” In J. Gumperz & D. H. Hymes (Eds., 1972), 130–160. Faraclas, Nicholas (1990). “From Old Guinea to Papua New Guinea: A comparative study of Nigerian Pidgin and Tok Pisin.” In J. Verhaar (Ed.), Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin (pp. 91–169). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Faraclas, Nicholas (1996). Nigerian Pidgin. London: Routledge. Foster, H. L. (1974). Ribbin’, Jivin’ and Playin’ the Dozens: The Unrecognized Dilemma of Inner City Schools. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Press. Gumperz, John & Dell H. Hymes (Eds.). (1972). Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Maduka-Durunze, Omen M. (1991). “A linguistic analysis of an insult game in Nigerian Pidgin.” Lore and Language, 10, 47–58. Maduka-Durunze, Omen M. (1998). Phonosemantics: The Science of Ideophonic Sound Symbolism. Lagos: 21st Century Books. Oloruntoba, Christiana Iyetunde (1992). Sociocultural dimensions of Nigerian Pidgin usage (Western Niger Delta of Nigeria). Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.

Appendix: The NP Corpus Each utterance is preceded by a token number as well as by the initials of the codename of the speaker. Utterances are written in Nigerian Pidgin, using the NP orthography recommended in Faraclas (1996). A free translation into English is provided immediately below each utterance. Due to space constraints, only an English translation is provided for very long passages such as stories. If the audience responded to a given utterance, the response is noted to the right after the letter “e.” Tables 8 to 11 provide data on each player involved in each session.

KEY: R = Repeated; = Code Switch; e = Audience Evaluation; X = Exclamation; L = Laughter; [IP] = Ideophone; N 19A 2105–2307, etc. = Tape and Footage Numbers; NPT 8 78–110, etc. = Transcription Log and Page Numbers.






SESSION 1: N 19A 2105–2307 NPT 8 78–110 Table 8. Players in Session 1 Codename of player

Age

Gender

Years of formal education

EF AK BS K CR

10 10 17 11 11

F M F F M

3 5 7 5 6

1EF: 2AK: 3EF: 4AK:

5EF: 6AK:

7EF: 8BS: 9AK: 10BS:

11AK: 12EF: 13K:

14AK:

Yu, yù dè shit fayv taym evride nà. ‘You shit 5 times every day.’ Way yù dè shit longlong shit? ‘Why do you shit such long shits?’ eR Way yù dè shit fatfat shit? ‘Why do you shit such fat shits?’ Dì oda de yù shit shit we tol pas, yù kolam broda. Dì oda taym yù shit 2R, yù go kol yò màma se: ‘The other day you shit a really big shit, you called it your brother. The other time you shit and you called out to your mother’: eL Tokam fòr inglish nà, à no dè hyar dì ting we yù dè tok. ‘Say it in English now, I can’t understand you.’ À se yù shit et shit, go kol yò màma. Yò màma kom se weting hapun? Yù kom se màma: eX&L ‘I said that you shit 8 shits and then you called out to your mother. Your mother said, what’s wrong? You said’: À no hyar dì ting we yù dè tok nà. ‘I can’t understand you.’ (e Intervention): Ànóda won à beg. No veks. ‘Change the subject, please. Don’t lose your tempers.’ eX&L (Starts third person) Dis gel shit 3R. Ì stat tù faynd dì LCA. ‘This girl shit and then started to look for the Local Cleaning Authority.’ (Joins, due to EF’s poor performance, group wording): Yò fest taym yù gò ànáwneX sam fòr nyúspepa. ‘Your first one [menstruation], you’ll announce it in the newspaper.’ Dis gel bay ten kobo gràwnót. Im go R dè faynd fòr shit. ‘This girl bought 5 cents worth of peanuts, and recovered them later from her shit.’ Dì taym we ày dè tel yù se mek yu go bay mèntèlétem, se Màdám, yù get tòtòríto? ‘The time I sent you to buy Mentholatum yu asked the seller for totorito.’ (Joins, due to EF’s poor performance, group wording): Bìkós ov won sid òv grawnòt yù folo rat enta hol. (Hunger) ‘For the sake of one peanut, you chased a rat down its hole.’ eL If yò won kobo los, yù gò ànáwnsam fòr nyus. ‘If your half-penny goes missing, you’ll announce it in the news.’


15BS: 16AK: 17BS: 18AK:

19BS: 20AK: 21CR:

22AK: 23CR: 24AK: 25CR: 26AK: 27CR: 28AK: 29CR:

29AK:

30K:

30AK:

À blo kata yù se nà dì best àkàmú. ‘I blew some snot, yu said that it was the best porridge.’ eX À blo kata, ful bezin. Dis gel kari fifti kobo bred finisham. ‘I blew some snot, this girl brought a 25 cent loaf of bread and ate it all up.’ Wìt yò túmtúm bèle làyk [stràléwawa]. ‘With your noisy belly like [IP].’ eX&L Wì dè drink gàri. Dis gel don enta dì yad, dì gàri ton tù byábyá. ‘We were eating gari porridge. This girl came into the yard and the porridge turned to pubic hair.’ Yò noz òpùnópun làyk indya wel. ‘Your nose is turned out like India (whale?).’ Làyk eX ‘Like ’ (Joins, due to BS’s faltering performance, group wording): Ày shit làyk dis, yù tek pepa yù gò klinam se mek à klin dì shit fòr yù so dat yù gò tekam chop. ‘I defecated like this, then you wiped it with paper saying, “Let me clean it for you so that I can eat it”.’ (Left embedding, good word, but AK replies too quickly for e to respond.) eL Làyk yò big hed, làyk bì mà shit. ‘As your head is, so is my shit.’ Wìt yò big hed làyk kàtàpíla. ‘With your big head like a bulldozer.’ eL Yù mes kari toch dè fayndam. (Hunger, constipation) ‘Yu shit and you needed a flashlight to see it.’ Yù mes kari basket kóvaram. ‘Yu shit and covered it with a basket.’ eX Yù kom shit shit ànd layk tif mà toch. ‘You shit and then you wanted to steal my flashlight.’ À tok . Yù klamb ples à slip go ste. ‘I said You climbed into the place I sleep and waited there.’ eX&L À tok fòr dis boy kari Fanta kari stik put ínsáyd stat tù ton. ‘I said and this boy brought a Fanta, put a stick in it and stirred it up.’ eL À tel yù se mek yù go bay Izal fòr mi. Yù tok se yù get dat ting sèkúra hed. ‘I told you to go buy me some Izal disinfectant. Yu asked for the thing for ringworm.’ À tel dis boy tù go bay ays wòta fòr maket. Ì rich dea, Màdám, yù get dat botul we eL swet ì dè kòmót fòr bòdi? ‘I told this boy to buy ice water in the market. When he got there, he said: Madam, do you have that bottle that sweats?’ Nà won man aks yù <What is the matter?> Yù se nà mày sista nem nà Mata. eL ‘A man asked you <What is the matter?>. You answered that your sister’s name is Mata.’ eX&L À tel dis boy Ìm pak ol ìm lod stat tù go Wàri. ‘I told this boy . He packed up his things and took off for Warri.’






31K:

31CR: 32AK: 33CR: 34AK:

35CR:

36AK:

37CR: 38AK:

39CR: 40AK: 41CR 42AK: 43CR: 44AK:

45CR:

(Joins, due to CR’s faltering performance, group wording) Shot ì no shot, tol ì no tol. Ì bi làyk IPA getman. (Couplet, starter, [-realis]) ‘Short isn’t short, tall isn’t tall, he’s like the IPA security man.’ Shot ì no shot, tol ì no tol, bòt mòto dè wàka tol pas yu. ‘Short isn’t short, tall isn’t tall, but a car is taller than you.’ Shot ì no shot, tol ì no tol. Ì no bì yò fada chustik? ‘Short isn’t short, tall isn’t tall, isn’t that your father’s chewing stick?’ Yù mes. . . ‘You shit. . .’ (Comes in quickly and puts out a new challenge) Tif kom mà haws à kari brum pòsúam. Tif kom yò haws kari kandul put fòr yò jùju, put yò jùju kacham. eX ‘A thief broke into my house and I chased him with a broom. A thief came to your house and you lit a candle on your altar to get a spirit to chase the thief.’ Tif kom mà haws mày smol dog get sens pòsúam. Ì no bì se yù get big dog? Yò dog no gri pòsú dì tif. Dì tif enta yò haws tek évritíng. Wen dì tif don dè go áwtsáyd, dì eL dog ì gò kom kom, tif kom R ì don kom [barking]. ‘A thief came to my house and my small dog chased him. Don’t you have a big dog? Your dog didn’t want to chase the thief. The thief went into your house and took everything. Once the thief left, your dog started to bark [barking].’ STORY: ‘Me and this boy were walking and we saw a chicken. He started to chase the chicken and the police caught him. When they asked him what he was doing, he said: I saw a gbelegbele, and as I was chasing the gbelegbele, I heard a sangbolo.’ eX&L Wìt yò leg we long làyk wunch leg. ‘With your long legs like witch legs.’ STORY: (AK produces an appropriate reply to his last challenge, underscoring the inadequacy of CR’s last word.) ‘This boy and I were walking and we saw something and this boy stole it. The police caught him. When they asked him what he was holding in his hand, he said: I caught the ogbele <Without no mistake.>’ eL Wì yò làyk shit, rawnd shit. ‘With your like shit, round shit.’ Dis boy mes. Dì hol fish we de ínsáyd riva se . ‘This boy shit. Every single fish in the river said ’ Yù mes làyk Is Indya wea klos. (Bizarre image) ‘Yu shit like an East Indian wearing clothes.’ eX&L Yù kari big fes làyk , làyk nika. ‘You have a big face like <arompufe>, like underpants.’ Yò fes kom pas. . . ol dì hol. . . ‘Your face is more. . . than any other. . .’ (AK produces an appropriate reply to his last challenge, stressing the inadequacy eX&L of CR’s response) Làyk , làyk ‘Like <arompufe>, like .’ Wìt yò nem (?) làyk nama shit. ‘With your name (?) like cow shit.’


46AK:

47CR: 48AK 49CR: 50AK:

51CR:

52AK:

(AK produces an appropriate reply to his last challenge, stressing the inadequacy of CR’s response) Làyk , làyk àláji blòkós. eX&L ‘Like <arompufe>, like the alhaji’s scrotum.’ eX Yù mes. Ol dì hol àkàrá we de fòr nàjírya bìgín tù (riset karit ?). ‘You shit. Every single bean cake in Nigeria began to (recite Caritas?).’ eX&L Yù mes riva nayja dray. (Minimax) ‘You shit (and your shit) silted up the whole river Niger.’ Yù mes làyk dis, nà im dì hol riva fòr nàjirya bìgín tù dans. ‘You shit like this and then every river in Nigeria began to dance.’ Mi ànd dis boy wì dè go stedyum. Dis boy bay tu bigbig kpof (ovatruam?) o. Wátíng bì dì nem òv dis kpófkpóf? Ì se nà àláji blòkós. eL ‘This boy and I went to the stadium. He bought two big fried dough balls and (ate them up?). (He said) what do you call this kind of fried dough ball? (The seller) said: It’s the alhaji’s testicles.’ Ày mes làyk dis, mà on sawnd [kpro]. Yù mes ol on yò on as, yò on sawnd [aw aw aw]. eX&L ‘I shit like this, my shit sounded like [kpro]. You shit all over your ass, and your shit sounded like [aw aw aw].’ Dis boy mes. Ày mes. Mà on dè sawnd. Évribódi dè mes. Évribódi mes dè sawnd [pupu]. Dis boy mes, ìm mes stat tù sawnd [pàpàkípà pàpàkípà buguruotoendwos]. ebigL ‘This boy shit. I shit. My shit sounded like. . .. Everyone shits. Everyone’s shit sounds like [pupu]. This boy’s shit started to sound like [papakipa papakipa buguruotoendwos].’

SESSION 2: N 24B 1045–1425 NPT 15 22–41 Table 9. Players in Session 2 Codename of player

Age

Gender


I OG EM

12 8 10

M F M

4 1 3

53I:

Yù mes àkàrá wea kot. (Bizarre juxtapositions) ‘You shit, bean cake wears a coat.’ Yù mes ol dì hol got dè shawt. ‘You shit and all the goats cheered.’ Yù mes tu sista mis rod. ‘You shit and two sisters missed the road.’ Yù mes àkàrá dè get bèle. ‘You shit, the bean cake is pregnant.’

54OG: 55I: 56OG:

eX&L eX&L






57 I: 58OG:

59I:

60OG: 61I: 62OG: 63I: 64OG: 65I: 66OG: 67I: 68OG: 69EM:

Yù shit for kàtàpíla no fit jakam. eX ‘You shit and 4 bulldozers couldn’t pick it up.’ Mi ànd yu go fòr maket. Ày tel yù mek yù go bay eg. Mi ànd yu go fòr maket. Ày tel yù mek yù go bay àkàrá fòr mi. Yù tok se, màdám yù get dì won we dè shit làyk dis? ‘Me and you went to the market. I asked you to buy eggs. Me and you went to the market. I asked you to buy bean cakes for me. You said: ‘Madam, do you have the one that shits like this?” eL Yù mes. À send yù mètòlítòn. Yù go tel dì wuman, màdám, yù get tòtòrítò? ‘You shit. I sent you to the market to get Mentholatum. You asked the woman: ‘Madam, do you have totorito?” eL Yù shit, ol dì won lod dem de làyk kàtàpila. ‘You shit. The whole load was like a bulldozer.’ eR&L Yù mes R, ol dì sup we ìm de fòr ol dì wold ì sawa. ‘You shit, all the soup in the whole world went rotten.’ eX&L Yù mes, ol dì won we sup fòr we yò màma kuk dèm dè sawa [pípípí]. ‘You shit, all the soup that your mother cooked went sour [pipipi].’ Yù mes for kàtàpíla no fit jakam. ‘You shit and 4 bulldozers couldn’t pick it up.’ eX&L Yù mes. Òkílo dè tok se haw meni wayf we yù gò mari? (Politician) ‘You shit. Okilo asked you how many wives you wanted to marry.’ Shot ì no shot, tol ì no tol. Yù si às ì de làyk mày IPA getman. ‘Short isn’t short, tall isn’t tall, you see how she’s like my IPA security man.’ eX&L À blo kata. Yù kari won bred finish ol dis won mày kata. ‘I blew snot. You took some bread (and dipped it in the snot) and ate it all.’ Shot ì no tol, shot ì no shot. Si às yù de làyk mày . ‘Short isn’t tall, short isn’t short. See how you are like my .’ Yù mes Òkilo dè mari won wayf R. Yù gò mari . ‘You shit, Okilo marries one wife. You will marry an .’ eX&L Child’s story: monkey and pussycat

SESSION 3: N 24B 1045–1425 NPT 15 22–41 Table 10. Players in Session 3 Codename of player

Age

Gender


EZ BG AK

10 9 10

M F M

4 3 5

70EZ:

Yù dè kres. (Opener) ‘You are crazy.’


71BG: 72EZ: 73BG: 74EZ: 75BG: 76EZ: 77BG: 78EZ: 79BG: 80AK: 81EZ: 82AK: 83EZ: 84AK: 85EZ:

86AK: 87EZ:

88AK: 89EZ: 90AK:

À no dè kres, à no dè mad, bòt à no gò mari yò broda. (Set response) eX ‘I’m not crazy or mad, but I’m not going to marry your brother.’ À no dè kres, à no dè mad, bòt yù dè kari àkàrá bískít. (Customary response) ‘I’m not crazy or mad, but you are carrying bean cake biscuits.’ Yù mes àkàrá wea kot. ‘You shit, bean cake wears a coat.’ eX Wìt yò flat hed làyk Sàpèlé dòdo. ‘With your flat head like fried plantain slices from Sapele.’ Yù mes kpófkpóf get bèle. ‘You shit, fried dough ball is pregnant.’ eX&L Yù mes kom go Sètùmbántù. ‘You shit and went to Setumbantu.’ À blo kata ful ol dì ples, yù se nà yò . ‘I blew snot all over the place, you said that it was the best porridge in the world.’ eL Si, ày tink yu yù kom kom boroam Àyzíkì Boro bulet. ‘See, I think you borrowed Isaac Boro’s bullet.’ Yù dè kres. (Inappropriate response, gives AK the chance to take BG’s place). ‘You are crazy.’ À no dè kres, à no dè mad, bòt à dè mari yò sista. ‘I’m not crazy or mad, but I’m marrying your sister.’ À no dè kres, à no dè mad, bòt yù àkàrá bískít. ‘I’m not crazy or mad, but you are a bean cake biscuit.’ Làyk yò big hed làyk big man shit. ‘Your big head is like a grown man’s shit.’ Wìt yò flat hed làyk Sàpèlé dòdo. ‘With your flat head like fried plantain slices from Sapele.’ eX&L Làyk yò big bèle làyk òyìbó man nyash. ‘Your big belly is like a white man’s buttocks.’ Si? Won de won man se mek wì fròm ópstyá jomp. À jomp, noting du mì. Yù jomp kari bèle fòr grawnd se bàba à don tray. eX ‘See? One day a man told us to jump from the second floor. I jumped and nothing harmed me. You jumped and landed on your belly and said: ‘I did my best boss.” eX&L À de fòr tri pis dis boy fòr hed. Im se god don bles mì. ‘I climbed up a tree and pissed on this boy’s head. He said: ‘God has blessed me.” Won de mi ànd im go choch R. Évribodi dè sing . Ìm kom sing eX&L ‘One day he and I went to church. Everybody was singing . He sang .’ eRXL Yù don blo yò shit. Ày raytam krosam de no skul tùdé. ‘You ate your shit. I wrote it, (crossed it?), no school today.’ Yù shit yò shit dè kolam bebi. ‘You shit and called your shit ‘Baby.” eX Yù shit 3R, ày kolam Meri, Pat, ànd Jon. ‘You shit and I called it Mary, Pat, and John.’

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


91EZ: 92AK: 93EZ: 94AK: 95EZ: 96AK: 97EZ:

98AK: 99EZ:

100AK: 101EZ:

102AK: 103EZ: 104AK: 105EZ: 106AK: 107EZ: 108AK: 109EZ: 110AK:

Yù shit yò shit ày kolam . ‘You shit and I called your shit .’ Mek à shap yù làyk òkáfò pensul. eX ‘I should sharpen you like an okafor pencil.’ eX&L Wìt yò big prik làyk fayv-ò-for gya. ‘With your big penis like a (Peugeot) 504 stickshift.’ eX Si haw yò bòdi jos dè smel làyk sevun dez bebi shit. ‘Look at how your body smells like seven day old baby shit.’ eRXL Yò mawt jos dè smel làyk Àfíkpó dóstbín. ‘Your mouth smells like a rubbish bin from Afikpo.’ À don blo yù, làyk oyil. ‘I blew you like <arefila pinana> oil.’ STORY: ‘We went to eat at a restaurant. We ordered everything. When we finished, I paid for my food. He asked the owner to open the window because it was too hot. When he tried to escape through the window without paying, the woman poured hot soup all over his face. He said god. Wasn’t that you?’ STORY: ‘I told him to buy me some bean cakes. He went to the seller. The cooking fire had gone out and she asked him to bow it [fifi]. I just saw my buttocks.’ eX&L STORY: ‘We went to buy bean cakes. He stole one and put it under his hat. When he took off his cap, all of his hair had fallen out. I asked what was going on and he said it was just his ringworm.’ eL Wì dè drink gàri ànd dis boy jos kom dya. Dì gàri ton tù byábyá. ‘We were eating gari porridge and this boy arrived. The gari turned to pubic hair.’ Évribodi dè kari spun dè drink gàri. Im dè kari dat shovul we ìm broda dè kari ton shit. Nà im dè kari dè drink ìm on gàri. ‘Everyone was using spoons to eat gari porridge. He brought the shovel that his brother uses to scoop shit and used it to eat his porridge.’ eL Yù dè yus èbá dè chop plàntén. (Poverty) ‘You use gari to eat plantain.’ Wìt yò ting. . .. ‘With your thing. . .’ Yò gani nà kis mì trù dì nyash. ‘Your face is fit to kiss the inside of my buttocks.’ Yò gani nà . ‘Your face is .’ eX&L Yò gani nà tútòrìpéràm. ‘Your face is a gonorrhea killer.’ Yò gani nà jámìnà opun Tòrónto. (Bizarre juxtoposition) ‘Your face is jamina open Toronto.’ eX&L Yò prik dè wea ayglas. ‘Your penis wears eyeglasses.’ eL Yò ting làyk ìm no bòrílàfirà bulet. ‘Your thing is like. . .?’ eX Yò gani nà prik waynam. ‘Your penis winds up your face.’


111EZ: STORY: ‘A white man gave us each some money to build a house. My house was fine. It had a television, a cassette recorder, and a video. This boy had nothing. He just put his child in a box and whenever the white man came over and wanted to hear some music, this boy would poke his child with a stick and the child would cry [è è è]. That was his music box.’ 112AK: SAME STORY: ‘A white man gave us each 1000 Nayra to build a house. This boy gambled away the 1000 Nayra. My house was fine. Whenever the white man came, we would play ball, put on the air conditioner, the ceiling fan and the radio. This boy had nothing. He molded some shit into a ball, tied a chicken to the ceiling, put some flies in a cushion, and put a goat and a chicken in a box. Whenever the white man came over and wanted to play ball, this boy would bring out the shit. Whenever the white man wanted to feel the breeze, this boy would beat the chicken on the ceiling and the chicken would flap its wings [vwww]. Whenever the white man wanted air conditioning, this boy would hit the cushion and the flies would buzz [vmmmm]. Whenever the white man wanted to hear some music, he would beat the box with a stick and the goat and chicken would cry [mééééé kòkòrokò].’ eL

MISCELLANEOUS EXCERPTS FROM OTHER SESSIONS Table 11. Players in Excerpts 4–7 Codename of player

Age

Gender


CN FR AF K EF BS OL

10 8 8 11 10 17 14

M M M F F F F

4 2 1 5 3 7 6

Excerpt 4 113CN: Si yò hed nà sèkúra sèkúra. ‘Look at your head, full of ringworm.’ 114FR: Si yò mawt làyk [bùlùgúlú]. ‘Look at you mouth like [bulugulu].’ 115CN: (Loses his temper) Ày gò bit yu o. ‘I’m going to beat you.’ 116FR: (Ridicules CN’s response, but also invites CN to keep playing) Dis boy ìm mes ànd ron. ‘This boy shit and ran.’ 117CN: (Checks to make sure that FR is only playing) Sò yù wan wod mì? ‘So you want to ‘word’ me (play the dozens/sound with me)?’






118FR: Yes. ‘Yes.’ 119CN: (Continues with the game) Si yò flat leg làyk màmàtúnde fràynpán. ‘Look at your flat legs like Mamatunde’s fryingpan.’ 120AF: Si às yò hand go ínsáyd làyk dis ting kíngkóng. ‘Look at how your hand is turned in like King Kong.’ 121CN: Si yu. King òv pis. ‘(Look at you.) King of Piss [play on King of Peace].’ Excerpt 5 122K: Yò hea tu deti ‘Your hair is disgustingly dirty.’ 123EF: Yò màma. ‘Your mother.’ 124K: Yù dè smel wélwél, Àùsá ‘You really stink, (ethnic slur).’ 125EF: Yò fada. ‘Your father.’ 126BS: (Audience intervention as topic gets too close to taboo) Pis o. ‘Peace!’ Excerpt 6 127OL: Mòskíto làyk yu. ‘A mere mosquito like yourself.’ Excerpt 7 128AF: Yu sef. Yù dè baf fòr áwtsáyd. ‘You. You bathe outside.’ 129CN: Ày dè baf fòr áwtsáyd? Évritaym ày dè baf fòr toylet. Yù no baf sef. ‘I bathe outside? I always bathe in the bathroom. You don’t bathe at all.’ 130AF: Tùdé ày baf. ‘I bathed today.’

Rude sounds Kiss Teeth and negotiation of the public sphere Esther Figueroa Juniroa Productions, Inc. Hawai’i

Politeness is treated here as a political construct partly having to do with the management of human interaction and display in the public sphere. Kiss Teeth is a multi-functional embodied oral gesture found in Africa and the African Diaspora which can be used to defy as well as defend the received moral discourses which are part of the management of public spheres and systems of politeness. By studying Kiss Teeth we can better understand the role of performative language in the political contestation over public and counter-public spheres, and the negotiation of moral standing between individuals within the public sphere; as well as delve into the relationship between the public and private in language use and linguistic theory. Keywords: Kiss Teeth, politeness theory, interaction in public

.

Introduction The chupse is not a word, it is a whole language. There is the small effortless chupse of indifference; the thin hard chupse of mere disdain; the long, liquid, vibrating chupse which shakes the rafters and expresses every kind of defiance. It is the universal language of the West Indies, the passport to confidence from Jamaica to British South America. How dare the compiler degrade it to a mere word! (from The Barbados Advocate, quoted in Collymore 1970) “You’re holding up the line, ma’am.” (. . . ) “Ohhh! Sorry! Sorry sorry,” Clarise saying, looking round at the rest of the people waiting. “Sorry, son” she say to the boy waiting in the line behind her. From behind the boy where two women just roll up she hear one long suckteeth and somebody saying: “Steeewwppps! People like them do really embarrass me.”

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Esther Figueroa

“Yes, country-come-to-town.” (from Clarise Cumberbatch Want to Go Home, Joan Cambridge 1988: 30)

This paper looks at contestation over the public sphere, and the tension between the public and private in the management of human interaction in public places. Using the work of Erving Goffman, the oral gesture Kiss Teeth (description below) is discussed in terms of Goffman’s notions of the public sphere, social order, and language in relation to communication, with attention to his definitions of “public”, “expression given and expression given off ”, “management” of public behaviour, and “response cries”. The public sphere is also examined in relation to questions of politeness, whereby utterances which would be predicted by theories of politeness to be classified as rude, face threatening and leading to conflict, become publicly accommodated in a way that may be said to supercede both rationality and politeness. In discussing this accommodation, I will reference Brown and Levinson’s model of politeness, in particular questioning their positing intentional rationality as the universal basis of interaction. I will first give a description of Kiss Teeth based on previous work by Peter Patrick and myself (see Figueroa and Patrick 2000a, 2000b and forthcoming). Then, I will argue that Kiss Teeth’s ambiguity in regards to the public sphere and moral social order (being both monologic and dialogic, performed both in talking to oneself and in talking to others, and performed both for social control and resistance), as well as ambiguity in regards to linguistics and communication theory (existing in pre-para-and lexical forms, and performed both intentionally and unintentionally), makes problematic the public-private and linguistic-non linguistic divides. I will also be critiquing the rational, cooperative, social order model of communication which underlies Goffman’s work and much work done on politeness within the field of Pragmatics.1

. Why Kiss Teeth? Kiss Teeth is the primarily Jamaican name for an embodied oral gesture, which is more broadly known throughout the Caribbean and African Diaspora as suck-teeth, and also known as hiss-teeth, chups (with many variant spellings) and related to cho, chaw, and chut.2 Kiss Teeth is performed by an ingressive airstream captured in an air and saliva pocket created in the mouth through varying configurations of velar, dental and lip closures, and dental configurations such as pouting or protruding lips, lip slightly opened to one side, lips flat

Rude sounds

or compressed against upper teeth. Duration, pitch, continuity (steady versus staccato, for example), and intensity vary based on tongue position, lip tension, ability to hold one’s breath, and so forth. Kiss Teeth is an extremely flexible form with great phonetic, functional, signification and meaning variation. It is an extremely salient, prominent form, easily recognized and deeply ingrained in multilingual African, and African Diasporic communication. Labelling is itself complex: Kiss-teeth and suck-teeth are metalinguistic terms which name the gesture; chups is both label and ideophone – and all three can be used as both noun and verb (or verb-phrase). Cho! and kst! are pure interjections with no naming properties, though cho! has enough lexical content to appear invariably in print, unlike kst!. When this sound is represented in print, it tends to be realized in wholly idiosyncratic ways. To complicate matters further, in speech cho! may freely accompany or alternate with the exclamation kst! or chups!, or it may stand in for them with roughly the same range of meanings. The degree of lexicalization correlates with frequency of use in different linguistic genres (Figueroa and Patrick 2002a: 384). We have identified this regional distribution: Kiss-teeth is strictly a West Caribbean form. However hiss-teeth, which may be related, is found in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Jamaica. Suck-teeth is the most common form, found in North America, the West Caribbean, and the East Caribbean nexus of Barbados/Trinidad/Guyana; otherwise it is unattested in South America or the South Caribbean. Chups is predominant in the East Caribbean, where it is universally found, but it is absent from North America and the West Caribbean (except Jamaica). The probably Portuguese-influenced form chupa in South America and the South Caribbean, and the tuipe forms in Haiti, may be related. Cho! predominates in North America and the West Caribbean. It also occurs in the southeast corner of the Caribbean, in Barbados, Trinidad, and Guyana. It may be related to Surinam tjuu (Bilby fc. also suggests Kimbundu mushoshu as an etymon). Brazilian muxoxu and Saramaccan kòòn appear to be unrelated to the others. (Figueroa and Patrick 2002a: 384–386)

As Peter Patrick and I have argued elsewhere, Kiss Teeth has been typically understood as expressing negative affect, but can also express positive affect, and is performed to indicate moral positioning. Given that kissing one’s teeth at someone else is frequently considered a rude, face threatening, or confrontational gesture, and that these actions often occur in a highly politicized public

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Esther Figueroa

sphere, I believe that studying Kiss Teeth can add to existing work on politeness and public interaction. In this chapter I will focus on two applications for studying Kiss Teeth in relation to theories of politeness: Kiss Teeth in relation to social theories of communication; and, Kiss Teeth in relation to the boundaries of linguistic theory. In the first case, we get insight into the public sphere by looking at the aspects of Kiss Teeth which Peter Patrick and I have defined as: an interactional resource having multiple possibilities for sequential organization, frequently used to negotiate moral positioning among speakers and referents, and closely linked to community norms and expectations of conduct and attitude . . . a specific form which can be collectively or individually accessed within a generalized set of possible meanings and social functions, but the realization of the form only takes place within a highly contextualized performance. Performance takes place within a system of discourse which requires co-construction of intention by speaker and hearers . . . The flexibility of the performance context includes the audience. (Figueroa and Patrick 2002b: 10)

It is the way that publicly performed Kiss Teeth is used to make moral statements and negotiate moral positioning, with an audience of intended or unintended listeners, which can help us think about how the public sphere is contested. In the second case, by considering Kiss Teeth in its pre-lexical, paralinguistic and linguistic forms, we can study the simultaneous existence of communicable meaning from embodied sounds and gestures and lexicalized pragmatic and semantic meanings.3

. Kiss Teeth, the public sphere and rude sounds Now that insolent, annoying Jamaican habit of sucking teeth – so frequent did the custom ring in his ears that Sergeant Bastard ordered that particular noise to be seen as an act of insubordination and treated accordingly. Now ask an Englishman not to suck his teeth and see him shrug. Tell a Jamaican and see his face contort with the agony of denied self-expression. (. . . ) With a good long suck of teeth no longer available to us, we four saluted his back with the silent two-fingered symbol favoured by Churchill but, let me assure you, with its more vulgar meaning. (from Small Island, Andrea Levy 2004: 113) In many senses the Black body is one of the most regulated bodies in the Diaspora. Perhaps the most regulated body is the female body, any female body,

Rude sounds

but the Black body is a close and symbolic second. (from A Map to the Door of No Return, Dionne Brand 2002: 37)

I will begin with Goffman’s definition of the public: [. . . ] Traditionally, “public places” refer to any regions in a community freely accessible to members of that community; “private places” refer to soundproof regions where only members or invitees gather – the traditional concern for public order beginning only at the point where a private gathering begins to obtrude upon the neighbors. (Goffman 1963: 8–9)

In the sentence prior to the quote above, Goffman notes that the “norms supporting public order, (. . . ) regulate not only face-to-face interaction but also matters that need not entail immediate contact between persons” (Goffman 1963: 8–9) and the example he gives is the obligation to keep one’s pigs off the street. Goffman however does not address who, what or how the public sphere is regulated only that there are “norms supporting social order”. We have a presumption of social order as shared norms rather than as a power structure where norms are contested, frequently not shared, and whereby people are policed, regulated, coerced, forced (etc.) to comply. (See Narfisi 2004; Brand 2002; Foucault 1977; Kawash 1998.) And though Goffman often studies what might be considered acts of disregard, resistance, or manipulation of the social order, these acts of deviance are not presented in political terms. Let us look at the public sphere in the Caribbean. Carolyn Cooper in appropriating the notion of “border clash” to describe her work on popular culture in Jamaica, has noted that: “The ‘border clash,’ yet another frequent theme in dancehall music. . . more broadly images the hostile interfacing of ideological systems that coexist in Jamaican society and in the reluctant host societies to which Jamaicans constantly migrate” (Cooper 1993: X). Dionne Brand in her book A Map to the Door of No Return which amongst other things contemplates the consequences of slavery, says of the Trinidad in which she grew up: People here believe in uncontrollable passion, in mad rages, and in the brusque inevitability of death. Or damage. As if a face would not be a face without a scar, a finger not a finger without being broken, or a foot not a foot without a limp. Or a life not a life without tragedy. (. . . ) Someday the man with the bloody seam in his arm would catch the man and do him the same harm. This I saw when I was small. (Brand 2002: 11)

Richard D. E. Burton, in studying the evolution of Afro-Creole society in the Caribbean identifies two different types of historical resistance by enslaved

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Esther Figueroa

Africans in the Caribbean: physical resistance such as over 200 years of violent revolts and uprisings, and psychological resistance, including such acts as: [. . .] lying to or poking fun at Massa or Busha, stealing (or as the slaves put it, “taking”) plantation property, feigning illness and working slow (perhaps taking an inordinate time to “go to bush”), breaking tools, interfering with plantation machinery, and even – though here one is on the fringes of “physical” resistance – setting fire to the sugar fields just before they were to be harvested. In this context self-mutilation and suicide – acts whereby hostility to oppression is turned against the victim’s own person – may be construed as resistance, as can the high incidence among women, acting alone or with the help of slave midwives, of what has been called “gynaecological resistance”: infanticide and abortion. (Burton 1997: 47–48)

To Burton’s list we may add kissing teeth! Without making any claims to the exceptionality of the historical and political context of the Caribbean (human experiences of genocide, conquest, forced labour, racism, colonization, social inequities, displacement, etc. are global), there are real consequences to historical acts and socio-political structures into which humans are entangled – what Dionne Brand calls a “haunting”: “One enters a room and history follows; one enters a room and history precedes. History is already sitting in the chair in the empty room when one arrives” (Brand 2002: 25). It is in the particularities of every day life that one finds the traces of history in the contestations over the public sphere. If we keep in mind the sorts of contemporary and historical contexts for human interaction in the Caribbean mentioned above, we see that we cannot uncritically apply a model which privileges cooperation over conflict and which assumes shared norms in the public sphere. Instead we must also look at contestation over the public, and the existence of competing publics and counterpublics. It is not that there aren’t shared norms, of course there are shared norms, but who shares them and how they are shared is not categorical, norms are fluid, contingent and embattled and are signified through discourse.4 . Interpreting Kiss Teeth in the public sphere Lexographers have noted that Kiss Teeth is used to express disagreement, disdain, disgust, contempt, annoyance, displeasure, ill-nature, disrespect, insult, scorn, impatience, resentment, a sense of being wronged, self pity, frustration (see Cassidy and LePage 1980; Allsopp 1996). Given certain contexts of class, race, gender, age and other inequalities, the performance of Kiss Teeth is often an act of defiance, rebellion, insubordination.

Rude sounds

Consider the following two examples.5 The first example is taken from a collection of personal narratives by members of the Jamaican women’s theatre group Sistren. Doreen is a working-class Jamaican girl forced into domestic service, she goes unpaid by the employer whose child she cares for: ‘After you are here eating and have shelter. . . What pay do you want? I don’t make no arrangement to pay you.’ To how she talk is like she save me. Me react by getting neglectful. Me kiss-kiss me teeth every minute. She notice it. ‘Doreen you not going to bathe Angela?’ Me no say notten more dan me get up and do it, but me face swell up. (Sistren 1987: 121 [emphasis added])

Similarly, in the narrative Haitian film “Amina”, an unpaid domestic labourer who has been sent out to get milk, in expressing her sense of injustice at her exploited situation, she threatens to drink the milk and punctuates her threat by kissing her teeth. (Clip seen in the film “The Agronomist”, Jonathan Demme 2003.) Here we have a continuation of the psychological resistance referenced above. We also have Kiss Teeth performed as an act of agency within a situation which is stripping a person of agency. It is an act by the seemingly powerless to reject powerlessness, to restore face through active remediation. In Brown and Levinson’s (1978) terms of distinction between positive and negative face, Kiss Teeth as remediation is redeeming in both directions: it is an embracing of Negative Face (the desire for freedom) and of Positive Face (the desire for dignity). Given that acts of defiance and insubordination are punishable, how one performs Kiss Teeth is very crucial if one wants to escape negative consequences. Doreen “kiss-kiss me teeth every minute” but she is economically dependent and so ultimately does what her “employer” expects her to do. Luckily for those performing acts of insubordination, Kiss Teeth’s meaning and intent are dependent on uptake. Consider the following example which happened in May of 2004. In Jamaica at the University of the West Indies, Mona, there are security guards positioned at all major entrances and exits. There is a guard post at West Road where my brother lives. There is no way to enter or exit, whether on foot or driving, except via the post. This leads to forced encounters several times a day with the guard(s) on duty. It was twilight and I was exiting. As I approached the guard I went through the mental calculation of whether to say hello and if so how to say hello. Acknowledging someone else’s presence is one aspect of the negotiation of the public sphere. I decided to say “Good Evening” and did so. The guard replied “Good Evening” and then kissed her

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Esther Figueroa

teeth. I wasn’t able to see her, so I had no visual cues. Without asking her why she had kissed her teeth, or accusing her of some intentional disrespectful act towards me and then receiving her reply, there is no way I can know what was meant by her kissing her teeth. The list of possibilities are numerous and could have been directed at me or not. Assuming that the Kiss Teeth was directed at me it could have been a dismissal of my existence on several levels. Having been forced to recognize me in the public sphere via an exchange of greetings (a politeness ritual which would have some level of sincerity between intimates or equals but would be coerced discourse amongst unequals and have little to no sincerity in a contested space) she then dismisses me by extreme role distancing – distancing from the act of greeting, distancing from the act of being a security guard who admits or constrains access, and certainly distancing from any personal connection between us. Kiss Teeth not directed at me, but one either contextualized by this interaction, or just self directed, could express boredom, job exhaustion, momentary exasperation, etc. If there was someone else with her then the Kiss Teeth could have indicated to the other person the role distancing and rejection mentioned above, and could also have been related to a separate interaction. This list of possibilities is certainly not exhaustive!6 . Kiss Teeth and access to the public sphere Goffman in continuing his definition of the public goes on to admit that the division between the public and private spheres are not simply matters of architectual separation, because access to the public is not a universal right. “There are many social settings that persons of certain status are forbidden to enter.” And then he gives examples of exclusion such as rules of trespass, curfew, racial segregation pass laws and the like (Goffman 1963: 10). To illustrate the struggle over access to the public sphere, consider the following case reported in the The Observer, Dec. 10, 2000, under the headline “Why did the police stop this man 37 times?”: Delroy Lindo is a model member of Britain’s black community. He works with inner city children. . . He is articulate, well-dressed and charming. But over the last 15 years he has been stopped by police 37 times and charged with 18 alleged offences. His crimes? He has sucked his teeth in an ‘aggressive manner’ in the presence of a police officer. He has been apprehended driving with a dirty number plate. He has been questioned for carrying a copy of The Observer. In the last six months, the police have carried out 26 checks to see whether he was driv-

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ing a stolen vehicle. In all the 37 times he has been stopped, he has never been convicted of a single crime. . . Six weeks later [in summer 2000] Lindo was arrested again – this time for sucking his teeth aggressively. . . The inquiry team studied 93 individual intelligence reports on the Lindos, involving a total of 49 officers. A number of the incidents reported involved racially derogatory comments about the family. [emphasis added]

One of the basic controls over individual or collective freedoms has always been control over access to the public sphere. Goffman goes on to note: Where these rules of exclusion exist, it is plain that the individual’s mere presence, regardless of his conduct while present, communicates either that he possesses the entrance qualifications or that he is behaving improperly. Here we find one motive for either wanting to enter a particular place or wanting not to be seen in it. (Goffman 1963: 10)

Goffman here assumes that someone behaving “improperly” would not want to be seen. But clearly there are many cases where someone assumes the right to be someplace whether granted that right or not, and furthermore performs her or his right to an audience. Kiss Teeth is one way to defiantly demonstrate this assumed right: Hear Shake-up, “Weh my lickle customer Cutie deh?” So anodder lady seh, “Miss Jones can’t be disturbed now. She is in the manager’s office.” Eh-eh! Shake-up suck her teet tshwaah and walk bram-bram through de office towards de door mark ‘Private’. (Bennett 1993: 58 [emphasis added])

This example is from one of Louise Bennett’s “Aunty Roachy Seh” stories (radio monologues broadcast from 1965–1982), titled “Bad Manners”. It concerns a ‘walk-an-sell [w]oman’ named Shake-up who behaves in an “outa-order way” in an urban office, where she normally sells her wares to the secretaries. Her name “Shake-up” is of course an indication that she is not going along with the regulations of the public sphere and instead forcefully maintains her counter public sphere. In the gendered world of the public (see for example, Narfisi 2004; Gole 1997), it is males who typically have greater access and control over the public sphere, but this is certainly not the case in Jamaica for higglers, market women, “walk-an-sell oman”, the street, public areas and public transportation are their domain. Not only to sell, spreading out their wares as they see fit, but to address whomever, however they see fit. A door marked “Private”, or a public space with a sign “No Higglers” is no barrier to the expression of their desire.

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This issue of access to the public sphere also problematizes Goffman’s notion of the public being open spaces and the private being enclosed spaces. Apart from the fact that spacial organization in many types of Caribbean neighbourhoods does not conform to this public private spatial differentiation (the yard where one lives having no sound proofing and being quite open to both oral and visual public scrutiny; see for example, CLR James’ Minty Alley), there are issues of a more political nature. We know that even in the most individualist, and idealistic middle class sphere of the private, that “private” lives are legally regulated and policed down to the sort of sex one should or should not be having. And that in the age of the perpetual “War on Terrorism” and Homeland Security that political surveillance of the private sphere has increased. Furthermore, even though one can argue for ultimately an ideolectal level for all individual language usage (see Figueroa 1994), language itself is not an individual or private property so even the most private of auto-involved language games; thinking, day dreaming, musings, fantasy etc. are filled with public language – that is, whole structures, notions, frames, and content – huge chunks of preexisting language and knowledge that one inherits at a particular time in history. On the other hand the public sphere is riddled with the private. Nowadays people have entire “private” conversations on their cell phones in public with complete disregard for the physical presence of others. More and more areas of the commons are privatized such as natural resources, the air waves, water, open spaces, beaches, roads and access ways. In looking at the tension between the public and the private, Goffman has noted that part of management of behaviour in public places is control of auto involvement such as talking to oneself. Talking to oneself in public is often a sign of “madness”, or at least some form of mental distress and therefore needs to be managed if one wants to be considered sane and in control. But there is a certain margin of behaviour that one can get away with. Below Clarise who is constantly talking to herself and constantly kissing her teeth is happy to find that there are no negative consequences for these acts in her new public sphere – New York City: Eh-eh! This country like a blasted cross! Is that. It nice, yes, but it hard baaad. (. . . ) Watch at all-them things in de glass-case! Is when I ever going able buy anything so? Steewpps! Clarise talking to herself cool cool cause she know nobody digging cause is not she alone carrying on big-big-conversation with herself pon the road in New

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York. And people just passing them and nobody ain’t taking then on. Is only now people in Guyana getting accustom to madpeople, cause you seeing them more and more and more. (. . . ) The talking in the streets. They gone-off with the pressure. (Cambridge 1988: 95 [emphasis added])

Within Goffman’s management of public behaviour is the performance of what might be called manners, and so Goffman refers to etiquette books as resources for articulation of the strictures of behaviour in public. Let us therefore turn to the concept of “rudeness”, hinted at by Miss Lou’s choice of name for her piece “Bad Manners”. Rudeness is in part a violation of the type of managed public behaviour which can be called manners: how to enter and exit the public sphere, how to greet, how to acknowledge, ultimately how to share the public sphere with other human beings. . Kiss Teeth as a rude sound In considering the social variables that inform the performance and interpretation of Face Threatening Acts, Brown and Levinson (1978: 79) devise a formula whereby there is a relative ratio between the social distance, relative power and absolute ranking of the speakers and hearers which contextualizes pre-performance calculations, Speech Act performance and interpretation. Rudeness is a highly gendered, class, culture, and situational sensitive concept. It has been my experience, for example, that males in general and especially young males of ruling class ancestry in Jamaica are encouraged to be “rude” as a means of displaying their masculinity. By rude here is meant using dominant forms of language and attitude such as ordering others, disregarding other’s needs or feelings, flaunting codes of politeness, etc. I have seen young upper class male children as young as three ordering adults of lesser status such as a maid or yard man around and seen them receive not censure from their family but encouragement – applause at playing the “Big Man”. Similarly I’ve seen lower class males as young as two being encouraged to speak and behave in loud, aggressive, swaggering, and “vulgar” ways by older males of their class. A girl would usually not get away with such behavior and would be rebuked for being loud or aggressive. This despite the fact that it is normal for working class adult women to be loud and aggressive (see “Shake Up” below). Mark Figueroa has argued that it is this sort of gender differentiation; for example, that males must be “hard” and perform hardness in ways which include an aggressive verbal style; and male privileging which have led to male educational

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underachievement in Jamaica. (Figueroa 2004. For a discussion of Caribbean Masculinities see Reddock 2004.) Which leads us to Miss Lou’s character Shake Up. Shake Up does not adhere to middle-class notions of female comportment. She speaks loudly, she kisses her teeth, she acts aggressively and she refuses to be interfered with. In one public sphere (a middle-class office situation) she is behaving rudely (“outa order”) both as a female and as someone who is trespassing class barriers. However, in the counter public of the majority of Jamaicans, as a working class Jamaican women who must survive by her own ingenuity, will power, and force she is perfectly in order. In terms of the evolution of language and communication, it seems likely that there are certain sounds that iconically signal danger, or get attention, or agitate, or sooth etc. There are also cultural taboos, prohibitions and sensitivities about certain types of bodily functions and bodily fluids and sounds that represent these types of activities or caused by such fluids might also immediately indicate something problematic. It is possible that Kiss Teeth is a sound that is iconically disturbing and therefore lends itself to the performance of rudeness.

. Kiss Teeth as a “body idiom”, linguistic theory and the management of communication in public Basic to Goffman’s theory of language and communication is a distinction between expression/information given and expression/information given off.7 The former is intentional communication via lexicalized language and corresponds with what linguistic theory usually includes in the study of language; and the latter is unintentional and corresponds with what linguistic theory usually sees as outside the boundaries of linguistic theory, for example as body language (what Goffman calls “body idiom”),8 which more belongs to the realm of the study of animal behaviour or pre-linguistic communication. What of communication that doesn’t fit neatly into either category? Though Goffman takes this division as his starting point (possibly to better emphasize the neglected area of study that his investigation into the “expression given off ” addresses), his own work contradicts this categorical division: “Every linguistic message carries some expressive information, namely, that the sender is sending messages. In any case, most concrete messages combine linguistic and expressive components, the proportion of each differing widely from message to message” (Goffman 1963: 14).

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He then creates further distance from the linguistic non-linguistic divide by bringing attention to the class of “natural expressions” within which he includes “response cries”. These are “exclamatory interjections which are not full-fledged words. Oops! is an example” (Goffman 1981: 99). Through response cries we display “evidence of the alignment we take to events.” And we do this via “a discretely articulated, nonlexicalized expression as suddenly able to manage a truly, threatening set of circumstances, we deflect into nonlexicalized sound a dramatization of our relief and self-congratulation in the achievement” (Goffman 1981: 100–101). In the film “The Agronomist”, a documentary by Jonathan Demme about the Haitian journalist Jean Dominique who was murdered in 2000, Dominique talks about the importance of having Radio Haiti broadcast in Kreyol, and points out that Kreyol has sounds that carry more meaning than words. He then demonstrates what he means by performing a number of pre-lexical oral gestures, accompanied with facial gestures that would be difficult for me to represent in writing, but which once seen and heard would lead to an “ahah” of recognition. For example, he points out that within a Kiss Teeth along with a sequence of sounds something like “eh, ah, uh” are how many “Macout” were being mentioned by the speaker. Within these sounds, therefore, is the signification of what is not said as well as what is. The following example from literature further illustrates the role of silence, the role of what is not said, and the way Kiss Teeth is used to stand in for that which is left unarticulated yet understood by those with mutual knowledge: He paused. His usual pause. One word today, the next tomorrow, Astral Forde thought. That’s the way he speaks. And it’s like everything has to stop and wait on him when he stops. Sometimes he takes so long between words you think he’s done finish altogether. She didn’t mind, she understood. She also believed in taking her time. Sometimes when she was with Malvern she’d just stop in the middle of a sentence as if she didn’t intend saying another word. To besides, there wasn’t no need for a lot of talk between them. No need to be always explaining their explanatories. They were both from the same little two-by-four place, after all, and knew how things were done here, were said here: the unspoken that lay not only behinds the words spoken but in a look, the wave of a hand, a cut-eye, a suck-teeth. You talking to the other person but without having to say a word. So much in common between them. (Marshall 1991: 188 [emphasis added])

Are Kiss Teeth “response cries”? Certainly Kiss Teeth fits the “semi-word” description Goffman’s gives “response cries”, i.e. para-linguistic. Peter Patrick and I have argued that Kiss Teeth exists in pre-linguistic, para-linguistic and linguis-

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tic forms and that all of these forms are related. We have claimed that the Kiss Teeth continuum exists from a non-lexical sound-gesture to semi-lexical and fully lexical forms, and we have claimed that Kiss Teeth, stcheups, chups, and cho (and their regional variants) are functionally related. In terms of functionality, Kiss Teeth is both a response cry of the sort that happens when one is taken by surprise, such as when walking in public one trips, and is also part of the remedial work that takes place when this sort of embarrassing act occurs. In the first case, Kiss Teeth is performed unintentionally, one trips and almost falls then one kisses one’s teeth in an automatic physical response. In the second case, Kiss Teeth is performed intentionally, one trips and almost falls then one kisses one’s teeth to make a statement that one is amused, embarrassed, irritated, etc. It is through this remedial work that one reestablishes one’s momentarily disturbed presentation of self. Kiss Teeth, therefore can be performed both intentionally and unintentionally, directly and indirectly. One often finds oneself kissing one’s teeth unintentionally, a sort of immediate response to a range of disconcerting situations, or a sort of habitual embodied behaviour, like body posture, or facial expression, or repetitious physical behaviour (such as twirling one’s hair, or stroking one’s chin). Given that anyone hearing a Kiss Teeth might assign negative intentions, upon realizing that one has kissed one’s teeth unintentionally, if one does not wish to give offense it is a good idea to perform remedial work. As with any other remedial work (the unacknowledged wave “hello” that turns into hair grooming, for example) one can simply pretend the act never happened (go along innocently), one can mask the act (for example, with another sound like a cough), one can follow up with a seemingly intentional Kiss Teeth, followed by a verbal explanation that makes clear that the Kiss Teeth is self directed (KST!. . . “See mi trials, mi shoe just mash up!”), or other directed but not at anyone present (KST!. . . “But wait, di bus nah come?”).9 Kiss Teeth therefore has a role in the self-management of one’s presentation of self (below we will see how Kiss Teeth has a role in the management of other’s presentation of self). As an embodied form, Kiss Teeth also problematizes linguistic theory as to the relationship between language and communication, the place of multi-functional forms which exist within, without, and on the margins of linguistic theory, and the role of intentionality in defining linguistic acts.

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. Kiss Teeth, politeness and the moral imperative An act can, of course, be proper or improper only according to the judgment of a specific social group, and even within the confines of the smallest and warmest of groups there is likely to be some dissensus and doubt. (Goffman 1963: 5)

As I have already noted, Kiss Teeth is performed as moral commentary and moral positioning. Earlier I have stressed the resistance aspect of Kiss Teeth, but Kiss Teeth is also a marker and enforcer of shared norms, and can equally be used to show alignment with the dominant social order, received morality and accepted world views. It is also common place for a Kiss Teeth to be performed in public as a rebuking, censoring or punishing act in reaction to someone else’s transgression.10 . Shared norms Here are two examples where kiss teeth is used to express consensus. So Clarise don’t worry to tell Mavis, but she sit down staring in space like everybody else on the train and she remembering that the time does come when even the pittites begging starboy to ease up pon the man he beating up. Like, “Done, now. Stop! You want to kill he or what? Ow! Stop now, man, stop!” And if something happen and starboy get kill? Everybody going home disappoint cause nobody don’t like no picture that starboy die in. They say starboy don’t die. They leaving the cinema and they stewpsing stewpsing, sucking-up they teeth. They depress. Steewpps! Is how starboy could die, eh? Who ever hear bout starboy he dead? (Joan Cambridge 1988: 80 [emphasis added])

The “stewps” here emphasized the accepted public opinion that the star of a Western or Action film “can’t dead!”.11 A film which would kill off the star creates a deep sense of a social script gone wrong. In Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise, we have an example of two speakers who share the same moral positioning, a position positively reinforced in reaction to their disapproval of the transgressive behaviour of someone else. The character Sweetie is walking down a country road weeping: In the cab, the driver and his wife exchanged looks. Then the driver leaned out the window, twisting his head to holler at Sweetie’s back, “You need some help?” Sweetie did not turn her head or acknowledge the offer. The couple looked at each other and sucked teeth as the husband shifted into drive. (. . . ) The couple could see in the rearview mirror a passenger they didn’t know they

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had, running to join the pitiful, ill-raised creature who had not even said “No, thank you.” (Morrison 1997: 126 [emphasis added])

It has been a basic premise of work in politeness that natural to politeness is the avoidance of confrontation, that being polite consists of not threatening another’s face, avoiding divisive topics, avoiding making insulting, contradictory, disrespectful remarks, and so forth. But as Richard Watts has pointed out in his critique of the universality of theories of politeness, Conflict avoidance and maintaining the fabric of interpersonal relationships among the participants in a verbal interaction may indeed involve the use of many of the linguistic forms associated with the 18th century concept of politeness. However, it is also true that the fabric of interpersonal relationships can equally well involve several other types of linguistic behaviour not normally covered by the term “politeness”, e.g. directly expressed orders, warnings, threats, etc. teasing, insulting, making statements that are open to interpretations as bald on record face threats, etc. [. . . ] conflict might be right for certain types of social activity. (Watts 1992: 47–48)

Consider the following examples of Kiss Teeth amongst intimates. The first two are between Mavis and Clarise, best friends from their youth in Guyana, Mavis has been a long time resident in the US and Clarise is a new arrival. Mavis is showing Clarise around as well as trying to find her a job. She is constantly exasperated by Clarise’s volubility, naivete and what she considers inappropriate behaviour such as chatting with people on the Subway. Mavis is constantly trying to control Clarise’s public behaviour. Mavis is the first speaker in the excerpt below: “WAIT LIL! Shut up! Wait lil! Listen to me! Shut up for a change and listen good. You know what that mean?” “What what mean?” “Steewpps! That you don’t see any straydawg in New York, Clarise. God! You is a dunce or something? You know what that mean?” (Cambridge 1988: 67 [emphasis added])

Here Mavis is always trying to educate Clarise about her new environment while showing up Clarise’s existing knowledge as inadequate. The following conversation takes place in the privacy of Mavis’ home. Mavis is the first speaker in the exchange: “You don’t miss have your lil thing?” “How you mean, Mavis? Is three years, y’know? You ain’t see how much limewater I drinking to keep down my nature?” “Steewpps! Clarise, you lie, not three years! You couldn’t last three years pon

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limewater. That don’t help with a thing.” (Cambridge 1988: 117 [emphasis added])

In addition to Kiss Teeth (“Steewpps!”), we can note a number of face threatening or “impolite” verbal exchanges on the part of Mavis to her friend – “shut up”, “God!”, “you is a dunce”, “you lie”. In the first case we have Mavis basically calling Clarise an ignoramus because she has not figured out why there are no stray dogs in New York city (as opposed to the packs of mongrels in Guyana!), and in the second case she is ridiculing Clarise for thinking that drinking limewater could possibly have any suppressing effect on her sex drive (another sign of “backward” Guyanese folk thinking). One could argue that not only is Clarise’s intelligence and knowledge being insulted, but also her identity as a Guyanese, as well as her values in not having sex while waiting for and then trying to find her husband who has deserted her. Does Clarise react as if she has been insulted? In the first case she does feel the pressure of Mavis’ constant interference, but it doesn’t stop her from acting as she pleases (and continuing to embarrass Mavis in public), and despite Mavis’ concerns people in New York react positively to Clarise. Clarise and Mavis are very close, and she knows Mavis loves her, so she figures that Mavis is in her own bossy way just trying to help her get used to the new place so she can function. In the second case, she isn’t insulted by this exchange at all, they end up laughing because she realizes that she is in a somewhat absurd situation, and she also knows that despite Mavis’ bravado her sexual arrangements are not exactly ideal. What might be considered impolite language therefore, performed within these particular personal, situational and cultural contexts is unthreatening, and instead is a crucial and everyday part of intimate, interpersonal, communication. . Conflict management Let us look at an example between intimates who are antagonists: “Who tell you that she drive him?” Said Maisie, with greater heat. “The man was going all the time. Since Monday, every time he went out he was wearing two merinoes, two shirts, two drawers, and carrying clothes and socks and things in his pocket. I see him. It ain’t she who drive him. She made him go last night. But he was carrying his clothes, and when he had them I know he was going to leave her.” “That is true Maisie?” said Miss Atwell. “I never heard that.” “What I going to lie for? And Mrs. Rouse know, too. I don’t like to hear people

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talk too much darned nonsense.” She sucked her teeth in her annoyance. (C.L.R. James (1931) 1971: 92–93 [emphasis added])

In CLR James’ novel “Minty Alley”, Maisie is a young woman living in the tenement who is at odds with the women of the household, in particular her aunt the owner Mrs. Rouse whose common-law husband has left her for another woman and this is the topic of the conversation. Miss Atwell is an ally of Mrs. Rouse which is why she challenges Maisie’s claims as to the man’s intentions to leave Mrs. Rouse. Maisie who is always strongly defending herself (even when she knows that she is lying such as when she claims not to have stolen something when she has) is taking a very strong moral position as to veracity of her narrative as well as her dislike of other people’s inability to face the truth – “I don’t like to hear people talk too much darned nonsense” punctuated by kissing her teeth. Here Maisie means to be insulting and face threatening, it is what she does on a regular basis, which leads to constant conflict and verbal arguments between herself and Mrs. Rouse, and eventually a full on verbal and physical fight in the yard for any passerby to see and hear. Miss Atwell, however, is not the main object of her warfare, and so her contempt for Miss Atwell is not something to which she needs to give much attention. Miss Atwell, therefore will feel that she has been attacked by Maisie, and will feel again that the young woman is extremely rude and disrespectful to her elders, and she will withdraw to her room get away from Maisie’s animosity, but knowing that the real target is Mrs. Rouse removes most of the sting of the assault. In this way the ongoing domestic power struggle as evidenced through confrontational verbal spats remains as status quo. How then are differences and conflict managed? In Brown and Levinson’s model a means-ends calculation takes place accounting for the level of face threat, social distance, social roles, potential consequences of one’s actions etc. This calculation influences how a person will perform a face threatening act and for those of us who have rehearsed the request for a raise, or asking someone for a date, or begging for money etc. know this sort of calculation only too well. On the other hand, there is great likelihood that we have also been in situations which completely defy such calculations, where we or others have clearly acted in ways that go against any means-ends rationality, where despite “knowing better” one says the exact thing that will not get one the raise, the date, the money. And these irrational acts are repeated on grander scales as communities are locked in endless cycles of conflict and nations’ endless cycles of war. As already noted, to be on the receiving end of a Kiss Teeth can make one feel insulted, disrespected, dismissed, etc. In looking at instances when

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normally impolite behaviour is not received as rude or negative, it has been suggested that people make allowances for certain types of contexts such as urgent or life threatening situations. If a car is going to hit someone for example, one may scream at them to alert them or push them out of the way and no one would bother to accuse one of being rude. And as noted in the example above, there are types of interactions between intimates, as well as certain types of language games (such as teasing, provoking, sparring) where impolite language is not only acceptable but a required part of the interaction or language game. . Ideology and moral positions It seems to me that in Jamaica (and possibly the Caribbean generally), there is a type of highly emotional argumentative discourse that has the possibility of leading to serious conflict, physical violence and the like, but which usually doesn’t. I would suggest that this is because there is a certain ritualistic aspect to performance of the discourse of conflict, and because persons performing types of opinionated discourse are often given a type of latitude which greatly makes elastic (and often shatters) politeness boundaries.12 This type of discourse is often highly moralistic, whereby a person might be said to be passionately attached to a particular belief. This belief is often religious, metaphysical, political, or culturally value based in nature. The response of the audience is almost as if the speaker is granted a suspension from her/his responsibility as author and her/his role as a mundane person (as would be the case if s/he were in a trance or possessed), as if one can’t take these matters personally because the discourse is now on a meta-level above the individual, the person voicing a collectivity of some sort. Returning to Dionne Brand’s statement: “People here believe in uncontrollable passion, in mad rages (. . . ).” I will also argue that what is going on is the acceptance of and one might even say celebration of irrationality, and that this irrationality calls into question the universality of rationality as the exemplar of communication. For whatever reasons, whether avoidance of confrontation (knowing you won’t change someone’s deeply held beliefs); ingrained respect for “tradition”; wanting license to similarly be able to express one’s own beliefs with equal force; fear; etc., it is my experience that we usually make politeness allowances for strongly held and strongly expressed moral positions, even when (and maybe especially when) we ourselves don’t hold them. One of the most violently held opinions by Jamaicans is against homosexuality13 and there is no inhibition to publicly holding forth on the subject. Here are two examples:

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A friend in Toronto tells of having a taxi driver who she recognized as a “fellow Jamaican” and so they engaged in conversation about “the state of the nation (i.e. Canada)”. The driver “waxed eloquent on the sorry state of families in today’s society – where youth did not have any guidance, etc.” Then he commented on the decision of the courts to legalize same sex marriage. At this point he kissed his teeth and said, “Mi no know how come you could’a tink dat god would’a ever intend fi man and man to marry”. My friend felt that “there seemed to be a primal response to the issue – especially as his comments emerged ‘spontaneously’.” The driver continued in the same vein and his passenger chose not to dissuade or confront and left him to his monologue. (Mary Lou Soutar: personal communication [emphasis added])

An ongoing subject of public opinion in Jamaica is the concern that Jamaican boys have fallen behind Jamaican girls and that this is a grave crisis. The Gleaner along with religious and civic organizations organized a male only gathering to deal with this issue. Below is a report from the Sunday Gleaner Volume 65 No. 22, May 30 2004, with the headline: “‘Rescue the boys!” Special Intervention mooted for schools’. And topic sub-headline: ‘Ex-Jesuit Ruffles male feathers’. [. . . ] but it was Martin Schade, former Jesuit, who ruffled the masculine feathers of the audience with his presentation on ‘The sexual maturity (formation) of male clergy’ during which he quoted from the American Psychologists Association’s findings about the nature and origin of homosexuality. Reverand Aaron Dumas, who pens the ‘Dear Pastor’ columns in the STAR, seem particularly rankled by Schade’s assertion that homosexuality was not an anomaly or a disease, but had a genetic origin. “You must be crazy!” he muttered under his breath, and hissed his teeth, clearly agitated. The voice of dissent from other men in the audience rose to a steady rumble.14 [emphasis added]

In both these examples, Kiss Teeth accompanies a publicly expressed ideological opinion and moral positioning. In this type of discourse there seems to be very few filters or constraints on bald-on-record statements. And though one might be insulted by the person’s “leakage”, their inability to manage their public behaviour better, or one might feel assaulted, or one might violently disagree, politeness and rationality become irrelevant in the contestation of the public sphere.

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. Conclusion I have argued that Kiss Teeth is performed in public as an act of agency which both resists and reproduces normative discourse and power dynamics. I have argued that we get useful insight into the public sphere as a negotiated and contested space through the performance of Kiss Teeth, a widely used salient signifier of moral and political positioning. I have argued that social and communication models based solely on notions of shared norms and cooperation cannot account for conflict, counter normativity, differences etc. in a nonreductionist way, and that we therefore need methodologies that recognize multiplicity and complexity contextualized within the existing historical and contemporary political and ideological economies of the Caribbean. I have also argued that because of the flexibility and multifunctional nature of Kiss Teeth we get critical insight into social and linguistic theories of communication. As an embodied form, Kiss Teeth problematizes linguistic theory as to the relationship between language and communication, the place of multi-functional forms which exist within, without, and on the margins of linguistic theory. And I have argued against a rationalist model of interaction and communication as being the universal exemplar from which all others counter or deviate. Instead, I have argued that “irrational” behaviour is valued in Caribbean discourse, especially in regards to the expression of belief systems and that one does not have to see such behaviour as flouting or flaunting universals of rationality, but rather irrationality as also foundational to human discourse, interaction and communication. In the intersections between the public and private, the intentional and uninintentional, the rational and irrational, the linguistic and the pre- and para-linguistic we find the complexity of human cognition, interaction and communication.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Susanne Mühleisen for her helpful suggestions, support, and patience; Peter Patrick for his careful linguistic scholarship on Kiss Teeth and our previous collaborations; Ashwin Raj, Monica Ghosh and Kaori Okubo for crucial help with access to library materials; and my informants Nara and Peetra Anderson – Figueroa, and Mary Lou Soutar.

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Notes . Building on the work of Grice: his Cooperative Principle and series of logical maxims (quantity, quality, relation, manner) regulating interpersonal rhetorics, scholars within the field of Pragmatics such as Brown, Levinson, and Leech, developed the Principle of Politeness and further principles and maxims, all within a rationalist framework whereby interactional exchanges are means-ends logical moves performed by idealized agents. In this way Brown and Levinson posit two basic characteristics of their tongue in cheek Model Person “rationality and face” (Brown and Levinson 1978: 63). In fact it is rationality which is the basis for the claim as to universality. By positing a social order model where people cooperate within a rational social order we cannot account for conflict or irrationality except to see it as deviation from essential cooperative, rational principals. I find this to be reductionist in a way that privileges one form of human interaction over another based on ontological principles of a particular school of philosophy. (See for example Brown and Levinson’s 1978: 69–70 application of Aristotelian logic in the form of Kenny Logic as well as their application of deductive logic formulae to natural speech.) One can grant that all people have the ability to do means-ends calculations without making the leap to it being the basis of communication or having universal value. One cannot simply by supposition extend philosophical models of logic to the actual cognitive workings of the brain or distinctive human practices within highly contingent moments of history, culture, place, time, political-economy, etc. because such philosophical models have never been based on cognitive, ethnographic, political or empirical scholarship. . Peter Patrick and I have argued previously that: Kiss Teeth seems to belong to a universal category of physical/audible gestures which carry important phatic meanings which are typically not classified as words. In researching Kiss Teeth it was found that similar sounds exist in other languages with somewhat similar social meanings, though with less of a range than in the Caribbean. For example, in Samoa there is an act called Suck-teeth which is done with a series of short sounds made in the front of the mouth. It serves as a sort of warning that a person is about to make a social transgression (Caroline Sinavaiana). A similar sound is reported to be made in India which can be an expression of mild condescension or sympathy like the English tut tut (Manyu Malhotra). It is reported that there is a similar sound throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean which also is less intense both phonetically and in its force of meaning (Enam Al-Wer). It cannot be ruled out that (KST) has some universal sound-symbolic aspect. The forms known in English as pshaw and tche express disapproval, regret, sympathy and similar emotions, though they are milder in affect and more restricted in domain. The Rickfords note (1999: 169) that tche is only dated to 1844 by the OED and suggest it may derive from African sources. Indeed, it is not implausible that English usage might diminish the intensity and domesticate the range of the vibrant African forms, yet the two may well have arisen independently, too. The OED dates pshaw to 1673, but this is still not enough to determine direction; nor even is 1529 for tut(-tut), which however has Scots connections and a different sense, primarily impatience (it also connotes status difference as much as moral positioning). However, within this universal category, as demonstrated by the Rickfords (1976), we find a direct traceable relationship between the historical and contemporary usage of this

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cluster of forms in Africa, and the historical and contemporary usage of this cluster of forms in the African Diaspora (Figueroa & Patrick forthcoming). . As Kiss Teeth moves inwards from the edge of the linguistic system via lexicalization, while retaining a central place in the speech community’s expressive repertoire, Kiss Teeth illustrates aspects of grammaticalization rarely discussed for Creoles (e.g., Baker and Syea 1996). In considering the evolution of (KST); a cover term for a number of closely related forms.: kiss-teeth, suck-teeth, chups, cho! and kst! we propose the following developmental continuum: KST – pre-lexical, physical/audible gesture, not integrated into the linguistic system. CHO – ideophone, conventional form but fits no grammatical category, semi-lexical, must occur as an interjection. CHUPS/STEUPS – fully lexical (noun or verb), still an ideophone, can name gesture or directly represent the sound. KISS TEETH, SUCK TEETH – fully lexical (noun or verb), no longer an ideophone only names or refers to sound. Brief examples of each illustrate some typical uses: (1) Mum go out and say, “How it go?” Him kiss him teeth, “Me kick down de gal. . .” (Sistren 1987: 56) (Jamaican) (2) “The great people-them!” Malvern exclaimed and sucked her teeth. “They’s like the poor. We’ll always have them with us.” (Marshall 1991: 181) (US/Barbados) (3) From the time Slim reach my house he start to stchoops. He say the place too small, the turntable bad, the needle need changing. . . (Keens-Douglas 1990) (Grenadian) (4) “Is so you wan you pickney behave. Cho woman. Yu was always a fool.” (Senior 1987: 26) (Jamaican) (5) Eh-eh! Shake-up suck her teet tshwaah and walk bram-bram through de office towards de door mark ‘Private’. (Bennett 1993: 59) (Jamaican) (Figueroa and Patrick 2000a: 384) . For a discussion of publics and counter publics in relation to the African American Public Sphere see Public Culture Volume 7 #1 Fall 1994. In particular Baker, Brown and Gregory. . The examples in this study are taken from various sources: “real life” personal narratives, observation and narratives in fiction (for a discussion of linguistic choices in the novel and realistic sociolinguistic situations, cf. Fowler 1977). . I definitely experienced the experience as a negative assault on my person and played with the idea of escalating the interaction into outright verbal conflict to see what would happen and to also get a better definition of the performed Kiss Teeth. But of course I simply walked on and went about my business! . Goffman (1957: 9): The expressiveness of the individual (and therefore his capacity to give impressions) appears to involve two radically different kinds of sign activity: the expres-

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Esther Figueroa

sion that he gives and the expression that he gives off. The first involves verbal symbols or their substitutes which he uses admittedly and solely to convey the information that he and the others are known to attach to these symbols. This is communication in the traditional and narrow sense. The second involves a wide range of action that others can treat as symptomatic of the actor, the expectation being that the action was performed for reasons other than the information conveyed in this way. As we shall have to see, this distinction has an only initial validity. The individual does of course intentionally convey misinformation by means of both of these types of communication, the first involving deceit, the second feigning. . Goffman on “body idiom”: As already suggested, when individuals come into one another’s immediate presence in circumstances where no spoken communication is called for, they none the less inevitably engage one another in communication of a sort, for in all situations, significance is ascribed to certain matters that are not necessarily connected with particular verbal communications. These comprise bodily appearance and personal acts: dress, bearing, movement and position, sound level, physical gestures such as waving or saluting, facial decorations, and broad emotional expression. In every society these communication possibilities are institutionalized. (1963: 33) Although an individual can stop talking, he cannot stop communicating through body idiom; he must say either the right thing or the wrong things. He cannot say nothing. (1963: 35) . I must thank my informants, my nieces Peetra and Nara Anderson-Figueroa for discussing with me remedial work for inadvertent Kiss Teeth such as what one does with an “accidental” Kiss Teeth in class at school! . Kiss Teeth is often performed to put someone in their place (which is one of the possibilities for the security guard example) and to let them know that something about them is not right (s/he is too loud, too quiet, too “nuff ”, have no “manners”, etc.) and that they don’t belong (too the wrong colour/class, in the wrong neighbourhood, improperly dressed, etc.). For example, an adult might disapprove of the clothing of a teenager; maybe too revealing a dress on a female or too untidy clothing on a male; and exhibit disapproval by Kiss Teeth. Again, the possibilities for disapproval and censure are quite numerous! Of course one can play with these normative meanings to perform ironical, teasing, playful, flirting, interactions. . As similarly proclaimed by the protagonist Ivan (played by Jimmy Cliff) in the classic film “The Harder They Come”. . Argumentation is ritualized in different ways in different cultures. It is my experience that Jamaican culture (and possibly Caribbean culture generally) is a culture where one is expected to have strong opinions and where argument is a common discourse strategy without necessarily signifying profound conflict or disagreement. I have witnessed many an occasion (especially with males) where there is a robust, and loud ritualized verbal confrontation (and here I’m not referring to “playing the dozens” or anything codified like that) which has a threshold of escalation past which no one usually goes. If it seems like that

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threshold will be passed others intervene to cool down the situation and that is also part of the ritual. I have a 91 year old Jamaican friend who has not lived in Jamaica for over 50 years and who invites me over to sit with her on the verandah and then attempts to goad me into an argument by picking topics she suspects we are on opposite sides. This is an act of nostalgia. She wants to feel like she is whiling away the afternoon having a good Jamaican-style argument! . The situation is so extreme that Amnesty International has put Jamaica on its list of human rights abusers for openly allowing, encouraging and condoning violence against homosexuals. I find it interesting that the Gleaner reporter chose to use the term “hiss” rather than “kiss”. It is my intuition that saying someone “hissed” teeth carries less impolite weight than saying “kissed” teeth and therefore mitigates the Reverand’s dignity as a Pastor as well as upholds the Gleaner as an upstanding participant in civil society. . That homosexuality is seen as an affront to Patriarchy and male dominance and therefore of deep importance to those worrying about the slippage in male domination in Jamaica, is clear in the same Gleaner reportage: Dr. Las Newman, church historian, and regional secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), spoke about the feminisation of Christianity and its implications for men in the church. Still, he pointed to glimmers of hope for the leadership roll of men in the church. “I find it ironic that in a culture of feminised Christianity, men still run things, patriarchy still rules, we are still at the head of the church. Women still expect us to lead,” he said. See Cecil Gutzmore’s work on the subject of homophobia in Jamaica.

References Allsopp, Richard (Ed.). (1996). Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baker, Houston (1994). “Critical memory and the Black public sphere.” Public Culture, 7, 3–33. Baker, Philip & Anand Syea (Eds.). (1996). Changing Meanings, Changing Functions: Papers Relating to Grammaticalization in Contact Languages. Westminster Creolistics Series 2. London: University of Westminster. Bennett, Louise (1993). Aunty Roachy Seh (Ed. Mervyn Morris). Kingston: Sangster’s. Brand, Dionne (2002). A Map to the Door of No Return – Notes on Belonging. Toronto: Vantage Canada. Brown, Elsa Barkley (1994). “Negotiation and transforming the public Sphere: African American political life in the transition from slavery to freedom.” Public Culture, 7, 107–146. Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson (1978). “Universals in language usage: politeness phenomena”. In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction (pp. 56–289). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Burton, Richard D. E. (1997). Afro-Creole Power, Opposition, and Play in the Caribbean. Ithica: Cornell University Press. Cambridge, Joan (1988). Clarise Cumberbatch Want to Go Home. London: The Women’s Press. Cassidy, Frederic G. (1961). Jamaica Talk. London: Macmillan. Cassidy, Frederic G. & Robert B. Le Page (Eds.). (1980). Dictionary of Jamaican English (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Collymore, Frank (1970). Notes for a Glossary of Words and Phrases of Barbadian Dialect. Bridgetown: The Advocate. Cooper, Carolyn (1993). Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the ‘Vulgar’ Body of Jamaican Popular Culture. Warwick University Caribbean Studies. London: Macmillan Caribbean. Dawson, Michael (1994). “A Black counterpublic?: Economic earthquakes, racial agenda(s), and Black politics.” Public Culture, 7, 195–223. Demme, Jonathan (2003). “The Agronomist”. Documentary. Distributor: Think Films Inc. Figueroa, Esther (1994). Sociolinguistic Metatheory. London: Pergamon. Figueroa, Esther & Peter L. Patrick (2002a). “Kiss-teeth.” American Speech, 77, 383–397. Figueroa, Esther & Peter L. Patrick (2000b). “Kiss Teeth.” Paper Presented at the Society of Caribbean Linguistics. St. Augustine, Trinidad. Figueroa, Esther & Peter L. Patrick (forthc.). “The meaning of kiss-teeth.” In A. Spears & J. DeJongh (Eds.), Black Language in the US and Caribbean: Education, History, Structure, and Use. Figueroa, Mark (2004). “Male privileging and male academic underperformance in Jamaica”. In Rhoda Reddock (Ed.), Integrating Caribbean Masculinities. Mona: UWI Press. Foucault, Michel (1977 [1995]). Discipline and Punish. Translated from the French by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books. Goffman, Erving (1957 [1973]). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: The Overlook Press. Goffman, Erving (1961). Encounters. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. Goffman, Erving (1963). Behavior in Public Place. New York: The Free Press. Goffman, Erving (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Doubleday. Goffman, Erving (1969). Strategic Interaction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Goffman, Erving (1971). Relations in Public. New York: Harper Row. Goffman, Erving (1974). Frame Analysis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gole, Nilufer (1997). “The gendered nature of the public sphere.” Public Culture, 10, 61–81. Grice, H. P. (1981). “Logic and conversation”. In P. Cole (Ed.), Radical Pragmatics (pp. 41– 58). New York: Academic Press. “Presupposition and conversational implicature,” op. cit. (pp. 183–198). Gutzmore, Cecil (2004). “Casting the first stone: Policing of homo/sexuality in Jamaican popular culture.” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Special Issue, 6, 118–134.

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Gregory, Steven (1994). “Race, Identity and Political Activism: The Shifting Contours of the African American Public Sphere.” Public Culture, 7, 147–164. James, C. L. R. (1931 [1971]). Minty Alley. London: New Beacon Books. Kawash, Samira (1998). “The homeless body.” Public Culture, 10, 319–339. Leech, Geoffrey (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman. Levy, Andrea (2004). Small Island. London: Headline Book Publishing. Marshall, Paule (1991). Daughters. New York: Plume. Morrison, Toni (1997). Paradise. New York: Farrar Straus. Narfisi, Azar (2004). Reading Lolita in Tehran. A Memoir in Books. New York: Random House. Reddock, Rhoda (Ed.). (2004). Integrating Caribbean Masculinities. Mona: UWI Press. Rickford, John R. & Angela E. Rickford (1976). “Cut-eye and suck-teeth: African words and gestures in New World guise.” Journal of American Folklore, 89, 294–309. Reprinted in J. R. Rickford (1999), African American Vernacular English (pp. 157–173). Oxford: Blackwell. Sistren, with Honor Ford-Smith (1987). Lionheart Gal: Life Stories of Jamaican Women. Toronto: Sister Vision. Watts, Richard (1992). “Linguistic politeness and politic verbal behavior: reconsidering claims for universality”. In R. Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehlich (Eds.), Politeness in Language – Studies in its History, Theory, and Practice (pp. 43–69). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Faiya-bon The socio-pragmatics of homophobia in Jamaican (Dancehall) culture* Joseph T. Farquharson University of the West Indies, Jamaica

The rise of dancehall music in Jamaica has brought many taboo subjects into the public domain. Male artists appropriate the culture by using these taboos as a boost for their sales and image, as well as their masculinity. Since the late 80s dancehall music has come under focus for its virulently homophobic lyrics. But while the phenomenon has been decried, only very few, including Devonish (1996) have studied the origins or reasons for this phobia, let alone its pragmatic configurations. This chapter tackles the psycho-social phenomenon by first looking at the address terms which have been created in Jamaica to refer to homosexuals. Then it attempts to place these homophobic speech acts, what I have called faiya-bon, into proper socio-pragmatic perspective by showing how they represent the performance and maintenance of heterosexual norms. Finally, it looks at faiya-bon as a performative verb and the illocutionary and perlocutionary force of the utterances made by deejays during performance. The main focus is on how faiya-bon can be merely condemnatory or can incite others to violence against gays. The chapter closes with a treatment of the threats which faiya-bon as a commissive speech act presents to the face of homosexual hearers and how such threats are viewed. Keywords: Speech acts, masculinity, lexicon, face threatening acts, performativity, locutions

.

Introduction

Although dancehall music has received attention from cultural studies/popular culture critics such as Cooper (2000a [1993], 2000b) whose landmark work has

 Joseph T. Farquharson

inspired a proliferation of books and articles, less attention has been paid to the linguistic aspects of the genre. To date, the most significant attempts at applying linguistic theory to dancehall have been Winer (1990); Devonish (1996, 1998); and Edwards (1998). The door remains wide open for studies in areas such as the ethnography of communication, the lexicon and taboo subjects attached to that sub-culture and areas such as stress and rhyming patterns. The objective of this study is not to contend with the morality of either homophobia or homosexuality, but rather to explore the ways in which the linguistic performance of the former negotiates a notion of masculinity in dancehall (and in Jamaican culture as a whole). Bearing in mind that within pragmatics we are concerned with language usage, my intention here is to make an intervention into the phenomenon of homophobia in Jamaican dancehall culture and the psycho-social significance of its linguistic manifestation in songs. Essentially, homophobic speech and lyrics as performed by Jamaicans are interesting to the linguist because they constitute ways of speaking (see Hymes 1972: 58) with their own participants (speaker-hearer; artist-audience), and their own communicative norms. These “ways of speaking” are culturally intertwined with acts of sexual identity which are themselves mediated through the negotiation of face. Section 2 will give a very brief socio-historical overview of homophobia in dancehall music to put the theme of the present chapter into its proper context.

. Dancehall, homophobia: From “boom bye bye” to “chi-chi man” Not everyone is agreed on whether Dancehall music is separate from Reggae or its modern form, but most will agree that it is one of the more recent results of the evolution of Jamaican music on the whole. While both Reggae and Dancehall are used for social commentary and rebellion against the “system”, the former tends to be associated with cultural, “conscious”, even spiritual values, while the latter is famed for its sexually explicit lyrics (slackness), and its glorification of guns and rude boy culture. Dancehall, while providing both a voice and a social space for entertainment for lower-class people, is viewed by many middle- and upper-class persons as a decadent art form promoting debased values and morals to young people. Nevertheless, the genre continues to evolve and flourish, attracting the loyalty of hundreds of thousands of young people and adults in Jamaica and internationally. Although homophobia has been a feature of Jamaican culture for a long time now, the phenomenon really gained international attention in 1992 with the release of reggae/dancehall1

Faiya-bon 

artist, Buju Banton’s “Boom Bye Bye”. The song caused a major stir in the United States of America and Britain where homosexual lobby groups called for the song to be banned owing to its violent anti-homosexual content.2 The entire song speaks in a disapproving manner about homosexuality and while stanza four commands: ‘Shuut di bati-bwai, kom mek wi shat dem ded’ [Shoot the gay men, come let us shoot them dead], the chorus is the real clincher which is a summary of the deejay’s (artist’s) stance on the issue and his attitude towards homosexuality: (1) Iz laik bum bai bai ina bati bwai ed, Ruud bwai naa promuot no naasi man, dem hafi ded. [It’s like, gun shots in gay men’s head, “Rude boys” won’t encourage nasty men, they must die.]

The expression “boom bye bye”, which is imitative of shots being fired, is a phonosymbolic expression employed in a metonymic manner, to represent the shots themselves. Despite the international pressure over the years, homosexuality continues to be a taboo in Jamaica, a Protestant society which draws many of its values from the Bible. There is also support from Rastafari(anism), a modern indigenous Jamaican religion which views homosexuality as an importation from the morally decadent Western societies of North America and Europe which seek to disrupt the natural order of God. Along this same line, Farquharson (2002) accounts for homophobia in Jamaican culture by subjecting the phenomenon to a postcolonial analysis: Homosexuality is viewed as an imitation of European culture which is seen as effeminate, too refined even, since aggression and coarseness are synonymous with masculinity. The postcolonial male is allowed the privilege to possess and dominate his own woman, a privilege which had been denied him under colonial rule, since both were possessions of the coloniser. Hence, it is seen as morally, if not politically wrong for a man to allow himself to be possessed and dominated by another man. For the typical Jamaican male, homosexuality threatens to infringe on the only space in which he is seen as dominant (3–4).

This view is very much in line with Hutton (1999) who posits that Jamaican homophobia is one manifestation of the resistance against white values. One of the most popular features of Jamaican dancehall is the policing of sexuality through the medium of lyrics which condemn sexual practices such as homosexuality and oral sex. Heterosexism, i.e. the privileging of heterosexuality (Marshall 1998) is one of the defining features of Jamaican society whereby

 Joseph T. Farquharson

the norms dictate compulsory heterosexuality for men while covertly allowing optional homosexuality for women. This seems to be a cross-cultural phenomenon and White posits that “lesbianism may be encouraged for its entertainment value to male spectators but never the swains shall meet” (2001: 193). This ambivalence also results in the popular belief that the homo- in the word homosexual means ‘man’.3 Beauvoir notes that: “The male homosexual, the pederast, arouses hostility in heterosexual males and females, for both these require man to be a dominating subject; both sexes, on the contrary, spontaneously view lesbians with indulgence” (1997: 427). To further compound the issue, Jamaican law still views male homosexuality (buggery) as a crime but makes no mention of females who engage in homosexual acts. The few dancehall songs which speak out against female homosexuality such as “Man Royal” by Beenie Man pale in the shadow of the dozens which condemn the male practice: (2)

Mi no waahn no man raayal, gyal, gyal Gimi di gyal dem wid di riil-baan siiriyal Gyal kom a daans jres op ina man matiiriyal [. . .] Enitaim mi si dem pan di schriit mi hafi laaf Som gyal we a waak wid aal dem hed baal aaf Schrang laik a Samsn, laik a wiet dem pap aaf Mi hafi jraa fi mi maas, wol aan de. Mi nuo a man raayal gyal niem Juon Feminin kriicho ful a man haamuonz [I don’t want any dykes Give me the girls with the natural serial Girl come to the dance dressed in male clothing. (. . .) Everytime I see them on the street I have to laugh Some girls who are walking around with bald heads As strong as Samson, as if they are lifting weights I have to take out my mask, Hold on! I know a dyke named Joan Feminine creature full of male hormones.]

As Devonish (1996) points out, the researcher cannot divorce the speech events represented by these dancehall songs from their cultural context since the words (signs) while sometimes resembling English do not always coincide with the meanings which Jamaican speakers assign to them.

Faiya-bon 

. Destructive innovation: Culture “breeding” the lexicon4 When there were increased attempts from “officialdom” to censure homophobic lyrics, the artists retreated into metaphors and other figures of speech and invented more creative ways of registering their disapproval of homosexuality. The many lexical entries which this cultural phenomenon has added to Jamaican Creole demonstrate that the relationship between language and culture is clearly not a Whorfian one. Homophobia was not created by the language and there is no structural feature of JC which makes it more homophobic than any other language. However, homophobia has been a part of Jamaican culture, and the innovation in person references for gays, and gay-bashing terminology came as a result of a rebellion against attempts to foist “foreign” values on Jamaicans, and the refusal of many to accept those values. This makes interesting study for the psychology of language, where we may investigate what kinds of cultural practices trigger language change, in this case lexical innovation, under what kind of stimuli. In light of the phenomenon under study, one realises that the psycho-social realities of a group give birth to linguistic machinery for talking about those realities. It is difficult to miss the glaring gender bias in our corpus of lexical innovations (see Appendix). The overwhelming concern is with male homosexuality. These lexical items represent the various ways of saying ‘homosexual’ in Jamaica and it is interesting to note that out of about twenty-five such terms, there is only one item which designates ‘homosexual female’ i.e. lezi5 which is a clipped form of English ‘lesbian’. All the other items denote ‘homosexual male’, a fact which says a lot about the societal interpretation of (and stance on) homosexuality. From the corpus we can see that Jamaicans have made use of several of the word-formation processes available in Jamaican Creole (JC)) and English, and even combinations of these processes: compounding, analogy, semantic broadening, derivation (affixation), clipping. For example, botomologist and rompist are formed through affixation by the addition of the popular English suffixes -log(ist) and -ist to the bases botom “bottom” and romp “rump” respectively. The corpus shows extensive use of compounding in words such as bati-man, biips-man, foni-man, mod-pusha, and pung-gai, among others. Quite conspicuous is the employment of -man in several of the terms, a popular second element in many Jamaican compounds which signifies ‘a man who is or does or deals in/with x’, where x refers to the thing denoted by the first element of the compound.

 Joseph T. Farquharson

Particularly telling is the intricacy behind the creation of chi-chi-man, one of the more recent terms for a homosexual. Chi-chi is the Jamaican term for “the dry-wood termite” (Cassidy and Le Page 2002), to this is attached the suffix -man. The true meaning of the compound cannot, however, be unravelled without the proper cultural and linguistic tools to do so. The JC word ud is homonymous and signifies both “wood” and “penis”; chi-chi is an insect which eats ud “wood”. Hence, a man who eats ud “penis” is a chi-chi-man, in other words, a human termite. Currently, chi-chi man, which is also the name of a song, is one of the most popular terms for homosexual male and the many songs which include this epithet are gaining attention by international groups who would like to suppress the music and what it represents. The Jamaican inventory of words for “homosexual (male)” also exhibits a directness which is probably not so prevalent in some other societies. Most of the terms make explicit reference to sexual activity, which is no doubt linked to the absence of a need for Jamaicans to be politically correct in this regard. Compare American and British terms such as camp, fag(got), gay, queer (see White 2001: 189–190). All the JC terms are viewed as extremely insulting and there is hardly any nice or politically correct way of calling a man gay in Jamaica.6 Many of the attempts to create such terms have resorted to anglicising existing ones such as bottom-man from translating bati-man, which produces jocular forms that may only shift attitudes from aggression to ridicule. It is also important to note that the homophobic sections of dancehall songs are normally sung in Jamaican Creole. This is so for two reasons: (i) Jamaican Creole being the native language of most Jamaicans is understandably selected to express strong emotions; and (ii) English is seen as the “pretty up” language used for beating around the bush and hypocrisy.

. Staging (hetero-)sexual identity A significant part of the construction of masculinity and by extension heterosexual identity for Jamaican males is the aggressive public condemnation of homosexuality. The public staging of heterosexual masculinity in dancehall is the society’s way of illustrating some of the behaviour patterns and linguistic norms which constitute “true” masculinity. In terms of linguistic behaviour, this public condemnation can take the form of various utterances: faiya-bon ‘fire burn’; bon faiya fi (smadi) ‘to burn fire for someone’; bon out ‘burn out’; bon dong ‘burn down’; schring dem op an heng dem op alaiv ‘string them up and

Faiya-bon 

hang them alive’; bum bai bai ‘shoot’; etc. Throughout this chapter, I will use faiya-bon as a cover term for all these various expressions. Dancehall therefore provides space for the discursive production of masculinity with its own rules of interaction and negotiation. This negotiation is an ungoing process, hence, it is not uncommon to find in songs which deal predominantly with male-female sexual encounters, a line which faiya-bon homosexuals. This is aptly illustrated by the song “Badman Nuh Pet Gal” done by deejays, Alozade, Chico and Kiprich in which the two stanzas deal strictly with male-female sex, but the chorus which is made up of two repeated lines, while heralding their preference for the ladies has a faiya-bon phrase inserted: “Uman wi enjai, faiya bon a bati-bwai / Uman wi emplai enitaim wi want a work.” [We enjoy women, faiya-bon a gay boy / It is women (that) we employ anytime we want a work (i.e. anytime we want to have sex).] This linguistic construction of (hetero-)sexual identity forms a part of the communicative competence of Jamaican males (and females), and is associated with a whole set of paralinguistic norms of social interaction. One projects a heterosexual identity by publicly denouncing a homosexual one with no regard to the feelings of the other. Gay-bashing is one of the ways in which (young) Jamaican men construct a heterosexual identity – which is the same cultural practice embodied in the public performance done on stage by dancehall artists. Pereira corroborates this view when he states that “in several songs, one of the techniques for inflating male sexual prowess is to parallel a denounced homosexuality” (1994: 21). In other words, sexuality, which is related to gender in some tenuous way, is essentially performative and members of society have to construct their sexual identity by going through a series of social actions which gain them membership and status. According to Le Page: Each speech-act is an announcement: “to this extent I wish to be thought of as my own man, to this extent like [or unlike] A, to this extent like [or unlike] B, to this extent like [or unlike] C . . .” and so on, where A, B, and C – and myself, and their properties, are the speaker’s own constructs’. (1978: 13)

Cameron also informs us that sexuality “has constantly to be reaffirmed and publicly displayed by repeatedly performing particular acts in accordance with the cultural norms (themselves historically and socially constructed” (1999: 444). In terms of the non-linguistic norms which accompany faiya-bon, it is common for deejays to request that fans raise their hands, put up their “gun finger” or “flash up their (cigarette) lighters” to indicate that they are not/do not like gay men. Even if a male member has no opinion on the issue of homosexuality, or is tolerant, in the instance of the speech act, he is expected

 Joseph T. Farquharson

to comply with the deejay’s commands for fear of being branded as gay. The significance of this behaviour will become clearer when we come to look at the perlocutionary aspect of faiya-bon. The best support for the claims I have made in this section can be found in Bounty Killer’s “Cyan Believe Mi Yeye”: (3) Wel a kyaahn biliiv a ou bati-man get so buol Mi kyaahn biliiv se Rasta-man a ton pusi-uol Mi kyaahn biliiv di likl teka dem get so kuol Mi kyaahn biliiv mi yai, mi kyaahn biliiv mi yai Mi kyaahn biliiv som niem we mi ier a men Mi kyaahn biliiv se tait pans kom iin agen Mi kyaahn biliiv se gon-man an bati-man a fren Mi kyaahn biliiv mi yai, mi kyaahn biliiv mi yai Mi kyaahn biliiv se bati-man a ron piipl plies Mi kyaahn biliiv di shata dem a bliich out dem fies Mi kyaahn biliiv se sortn man a kom pan wi bies Mi kyaahn biliiv mi yai, mi kyaahn biliiv mi yai Mi kyaahn biliiv di gyal dem a go di ada wie Mi neva nuo se Jamieka ha so moch gie Mi kyaahn biliiv di govament ina foul plie Mi kyaahn biliiv mi yai, mi kyaahn biliiv mi yai. [Well I can’t believe how gay men have got so bold I can’t believe that Rastafarian men are becoming pussies I can’t believe how the petty thieves have got so cold I can’t believe my eyes, I can’t believe my eyes. I can’t believe some names I am hearing are gay I can’t believe that tight pants are back in style I can’t believe that gun men and gay men are friends I can’t believe my eyes (rept.) I can’t believe that gay men are governing our place I can’t believe the rude boys are bleaching their faces I can’ believe that certain men are coming on our turf I can’t believe my eyes (rept.) I can’t believe the girls are “going the other way” [becoming lesbians] I didn’t know Jamaica had so many gays I can’t believe the government is involved in foul play I can’t believe my eyes (rept.)]

The artist informs us that he never knew there were so many gays in Jamaica (line 14), and the previous lines tell us why he has been miscalculating all along.

Faiya-bon 

For him, like many Jamaicans, the image of the homosexual has been that of the stereotypical uman-man (effeminate man). Directly after the verses quoted above, he has two others which reveal the dialectic: “Wel if sumadi did tel mi, mi uda se a lai / Se sortn man an sortn man, an sortn man a gai” [If somebody had told I would have said it’s a lie / That certain men, (rept. x2) are gays]. Because these men projected a “bad man” image, the artist never harboured the thought that they could be gay. This means essentially that to some extent, homosexuality has more to do with how one behaves in public than one’s actual sexual orientation. Being biologically male does not make one masculine, one needs to perform one’s masculinity. While Bounty Killer did mention women “going the other way” unlike his depiction of the male homosexual, he gives no outward signs. Based on stereotypes, the artist identified homosexual men by their dress (tight pants) and the bleaching of the face which is considered a female practice. Furthermore, he is left bewildered as gun men are now friends with gay men.

. Faiya-bon as performance and threat Faiya-bon is a performative verb which means that it performs what it denotes and in the moment of utterance, the speaker is simultaneously carrying out the action of the verb. We can place the speech act of faiya-bon in the class of performative verbs called commissives which includes threats. A threat is essentially a promise with a negative reward/ consequence/outcome, and so can be viewed as a negative commissive. In offering a definition of threats, Vanderveken informs us that, “[a] threat is a commitment that is made to a hearer to do something with the special preparatory condition that it is bad for him” (1991: 155). This is evident from lyrics such as the following: (4) a.

Buju Banton’s “Boom Bye Bye”: Bum bai bai ina bati bwai ed Ruud bwai naa sopuot naasi man dem hafi ded. [Gun shots in gay men’s heads Rude boys won’t support nasty men, they must die.] b. Capleton’s ‘Cuyah Cuyah’: An mi se bon bugaman, bon lezbiyan! [And I say ‘burn gay men, burn lesbians.’] c. T.O.K.’s “Chi chi Man”: If dem bring it tu wi, ful dem op a kapa shat

 Joseph T. Farquharson

Ra-ta-tat evri chi-chi man dem hafi get flat [. . .] Chi-chi man fi ded an dats a fak. [If they approach us with it (homosexuality), pump them full of copper shots (bullets) Ra-ta-tat, every gay has to get flat (?lie on the ground dodging bullets) (. . .) Gay men should die and that’s a fact.] d. Capleton’s “Hang Dem Up”: Schring dem op an heng dem op alaiv, Dis mama ort se non kyaahn sovaiv. [Tie them up and hang them alive, Disrespect Mother Earth, (so) none of them can survive.]

As a performative utterance/locution, it carries both illocutionary and perlocutionary force which I shall elaborate on in Sections 5.2 and 5.3. . Threats My aim here is to give the reader a basic idea of the nature of threatening in JC and not to provide a final theoretical framework for threats in JC. Generally, threats are executed in a “to-whom-it-may-concern” manner whereby the act only applies to the speaker if the speaker meets or fails to meet certain requirements or expectations of the speaker. This way of indirectly insulting or threatening someone without calling names is encapsulated in the Jamaican saying Chruo mi kaan mi no kaal no foul (‘[I] threw my corn, but I did not call any fowls’) which is the equivalent of English “If the cap fits, wear it”. Most homophobic threats both within and without Dancehall music, take this “to-whom-it-may-concern” form i.e. they are not usually addressed directly to homosexuals, and so any punishment they promise only applies to H (hearer) if H is gay. The major difference between a promise and a threat is the nature of the reward. The reward for the former has a positive value while the latter has a negative value. With regards to punishment for breach of societal/sexual contract, faiya-bon as condemnation is the most popular form where faiya-bon at once represents S’s (speaker’s/singer’s) denouncement of homosexuality and his invocation of a metaphorical (divine?) punishment by fire for homosexuals.

Faiya-bon

The other sense of faiya-bon as threat can be classified with those threats in JC which promise punishment at the hands of the speaker or other human agents: (5) a. b. c. d.

If you do/do not do X then I will do Y Do X and see. . . Tag question: Dwiit no? “Why don’t you (go ahead and) do it?” If you ever do X to me. . .

Within youth culture, there is also a habit among males to greet each other using chi-chi man, bati-bwai in a jocular manner. However, this too is a linguistic play, probably a subtle way to see if the person is really gay by observing his reaction to the greeting. Sexuality is constantly being policed. . Faiya-bon as face threatening act Briefly, we turn to Brown and Levinson (1987: 61) whose notion of face as: “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself ”is based on Goffman’s (1974) work on face-work. Since dancehall is heterosexual space, the absence of the homosexual male in the interaction is worthy of note. The homosexual male is “talked” about but never invited into the dialogue. While Brown and Levinson suggest that “normally everyone’s face depend’s on everyone else’s being maintained” (61) faiya-bon is a threat, a speech act which presents a threat to both the positive and negative face of the hearer (H). Although faiya-bon lyrics represent dialogue between heterosexual males, homosexuals also hear and listen to the lyrics, and as such I have found it necesary to distinguish between the heterosexual hearer (Hp ) and the homosexual hearer (Hb ). There is no such distinction for the deejay (S), since he is expected to be heterosexual. S’s use of faiya-bon threatens Hb ’s negative-face want by signalling that S does not intend to avoid impeding the freedom of action of Hb . This kind of threat is normally carried out by an act that predicates some future act A of H, which constrains H to do (or avoid doing) the act A. Brown and Levison’s notion of the speech act of threatening can be applied to Dancehall music since it presents this kind of threat to the positive face of Hb . Such acts indicate that S will impose a sanction on H if he fails to fulfill act A. In other words, the face-want of homosexuals that society be tolerant of their lifestyle is countered by dancehall which disregards this desire for their actions to be unimpeded. In addition, faiya-bon also threatens the positive-face want of Hb since S can state quite baldly that he does not care about Hb ’s feelings, nor are his (Hb ’s) wants desirable to him. S (the deejay) will indicate this by





Joseph T. Farquharson

employing a range of rhetorical and psychological strategies, including expressions of violence, the creation of stigmatised person references, the constant foregrounding of homosexuality in his lyrics, etc. These sub-components of faiya-bon acts demonstrate that there is no room for negotiation; S is covertly sanctioned by society in employing such strategies and Hb must either conform or face the faiya ‘fire’.7 In the act of faiya-bon there is no direct threat to the face of S, but several non-linguistic threats can accrue due to external factors. Owing to pressure from homosexual lobby groups and the need to remain viable in the international market, S has often had to offer defenses of the lyrics. In an aim to not apologise (i.e. admit that he regrets having done the FTA), S resorts to self-contradiction, whereby he claims that the act was not a faiya-bon act, or claims that the person reference he used does not mean homosexual.8 Obviously, self-contradiction is less damaging to S’s face than an apology. These facts demonstrate that the concept of face does not incude a notion of equality – not everyone’s face has the same value, and that some norms actually dictate that we totally disregard H’s face in order to maintain our own. . Illocutionary force From the foregoing we can see that the most obvious act which faiya-bon performs is condemnation. In such circumstances the utterance is not normally addressed to anyone in particular, but is a renunciation of homosexuality for the purpose of projecting a heterosexual image, or making a political or religious statement. In these instances, the rhetoric is normally mixed with references to the judgement of God as visited upon Sodom and Gomorrah, among other Biblical allusions. Take for example the following three lines from Spragga Benz’s “Nuh Funny Guy Thing” [No Gay Business]: (6) Wi naa jain no sadomatikal sistim A brimstuon an faiya dat a go bring, bring, bring [. . .] Ja-Ja a go dismangkl aal a dem kliik [We will not join any sodomitical system Brimstone and fire it will, bring, bring, bring. (. . . ) God is going to dismantle their clique.]

Faiya-bon

The various locutions which are used to accomplish this act include faiya bon fi “may the fire burn”. This class tends to be more figurative/poetical a view which is corroborated by Capleton, a deejay who is famous for faiya-bon: Is not really a physical fire. Is really a spiritual fire, and a wordical fire, and a musical fire. You see the fire is all about a livity. But is people get it on the wrong term. (Kenner 2003) [It is not really a physical fire. It is really a spiritual fire, and an oratorical fire, and a musical fire. You see, the fire is all about a way of life. But, it is people who misinterpret it.]

. Perlocutionary force Now I move into the treatment of that aspect of the locution which has brought faiya-bon into focus. If the songs being studied did nothing but condemn homosexuality there might not have been so much attention paid to them. However, illocutions normally cause hearers to act in particular ways, and to that extent, they are perlocutions. It is thought that much of the lyrics of dancehall songs promote violence against gays. The major fear is that the consequential effect (perlocutionary force) of faiya-bon has/will have a dangerous effect on heterosexual males. The claim by some is that anti-homosexual lyrics incite heterosexuals to verbally or physically abuse gay men. When one surveys the kinds of expressions used in this group compared to those discussed above, they appear to be more direct and are always phrased in the imperative: ful dem op a kappa shat ‘fill them with (copper) shots’; schring dem op an heng dem op alaiv ‘tie them up and hang them alive’; bon out “burn out”; bon/bliez faiya fi ‘burn/blaze fire for’; step pan ‘step on’, etc. This also has a perlocutionary effect on homosexual male listeners, i.e. it serves to frighten them into staying in line with the heterosexual code (or stay in hiding).

. Conclusion In this chapter, I have attempted to look at the phenomenon of homophobia in Jamaican dancehall music without imposing my approval or disapproval on the practice. We have seen that dancehall which is a heterosexual institution provides space for talking about acts which transgress heterosexual norms. One strategy used is the dizzying creation of new (derogatory) terms of address






for homosexuality and male participants. On stage, homophobic lyrics, what I have termed faiya-bon, is utilised by deejays to perform their heterosexuality by denouncing homosexuality. These locutions are sanctioned threats to both the negative and positive face of homosexual listeners who do not have a voice in the discourse. The analysis revealed that in terms of male sexuality, homophobic Speech Acts (faiya-bon) in dancehall constitute a crucial site for the disregard, rather than the satisfaction of the face wants of homosexuals. There is always an irreconcilable conflict between the negative face wants of homosexual men and the positive face wants of their heterosexual counterparts. The resolution of the conflict is achieved through the violation of the face wants of the former group through homophobic faiya-bon lyrics.

Notes * By placing “dancehall” in parentheses I am suggesting that the analysis and basic conclusions would still hold true if we omitted the word. I would like to thank Allan Bernard, Kathryn Brodber, Denise Chin, Nicole Scott, Nadeen Spence, Renée Steele, Machel Stewart, who were kind enough to lend me materials for this study. Special thanks also to Allan Bernard, Lindy Jones, Bartlett Morgan, Avagay Simpson who engaged me in discussions or read and commented on preliminary versions of this paper. . Reggae is usually defined as a type of music which developed in Jamaica in the mid-1960s, having a heavy four-beat rhythm with accents on one and three (rather than rock’s two and four), and “emotional lyrics often expressing rejection of established “white-man” culture’ (Cassidy and Le Page 1980: 504)” (Winer 1990: 34). . For a fuller account of the background to the Buju Banton story, see Devonish (1996). . The homo- in homosexual comes from the Greek word homos which means ‘same’. This is often confused with the Latin homo which means ‘man’ (see the SOED). . In Jamaican Creole the verb breed is a multifunctional item which when intransitive means ‘to be pregnant’, but when transitive means ‘to impregnate’ or ‘to be a cause of great distress to’. My use of the word breed(ing) makes use of both transitive senses since the lexicon has expanded due to the increase (penetration) of more direct homophobic sentiments, and also that this state of affairs is a cause of great distress for those who are the target of such sentiments. . All JC words and the transcription of dancehall songs are given in the latest version of the Jamaican orthography developed by the Jamaican Language Unit of the University of the West Indies. This orthography is a revision of the Cassidy (1961: 433) system. . British and American English do have more derogatory terms, but the JC lexicon is marked by the absence of any such local creation by which male homosexuals may refer to themselves. While the metropolitan varieties offer homosexuals terms such as camp, gay, and queer for self-ascription, the Jamaican case only provides words in the vein of faggot.

Faiya-bon . That S is covertly sanctioned to perform faiya-bon acts, has been made plain by a recent columnist in a local newspaper who recognises that deejays in live stage shows normally resort to homophobic lyrics if their performance is not going too well. This normally captures the audience’s support and turns the performance around (Cooke 2004). . This was the case a few years ago with a group of young men called T.O.K. whose song “Chi-chi Man” climbed the music charts and came under the scrutiny of lobby groups. Their explanation was that the term chi-chi man refers to a destructive person, not to gays (the Jamaican public knew better), and that the instructions in the song for violence against such persons was figurative.

References Beauvoir, Simone de (1997 [1949]). The Second Sex. H. M. Parshley (Trans. & Ed.). London: Vintage. Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cameron, Deborah (1999). “Performing gender identity: Young men’s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity.” In A. Jaworski & N. Coupland (Eds.), The Discourse Reader (pp. 442–458). London: Routledge. Cassidy, Frederic G. (1961). Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica. London: Macmillan. Cassidy, Frederic G. & Robert Le Page (2002). Dictionary of Jamaican English. Kingston: UWI Press. Previously published as Cassidy, F. G. & R. LePage (1967). Dictionary of Jamaican English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cooke, Mel (2004). “Deejays and the bottom line.” Jamaica Gleaner. 1 July. Cooper, Carolyn (2000a [1993]). “Virginity revamped: Representations of female sexuality in the lyrics of Bob Marley and Shabba Ranks.” In K. Owusu (Ed.), Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader (pp. 347–357). London: Routledge. Cooper, Carolyn (2000b). Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender, and the “Vulgar” Body of Jamaican Popular Culture. Durham: Duke University Press. Devonish, Hubert (1998). “Electronic orature: The deejay’s discovery.” Social and Economic Research 47: 33–53. Devonish, Hubert (1996). “Kom groun Jamiekan daans haal liriks: Memba se a plie wi a plie (Contextualizing Jamaican ‘Dance Hall’ music: Jamaican language at play in a speech event).” English World-Wide, 17, 213–238. Edwards, Walter F. (1998). “Sociolinguistic features of Rap lyrics: Comparisons with Reggae.” In P. Christie, B. Lalla, V. Pollard, & L. Carrington (Eds.), Studies in Caribbean Language II (pp. 128–146). St. Augustine: Society for Caribbean Linguistics. Farquharson, Joseph T. (2002). Subversive discourse and covert self-affirmation through humour. Ms. University of Cambridge. Goffman, Erving (1974). “On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction.” In B. Blount (Ed.), Language, Culture and Society: A Book of Readings (pp. 224–249). Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publisher.

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Gumperz, John J. & Dell Hymes (Eds.). (1972). Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Hutton, Clinton (1999). The gyalification of man: The expression of male male conflict in Jamaica and the roots of homoeroticism in the political ideology, ontology and praxis of white supremacy. Ms. University of the West Indies, Mona. Hymes, Dell (1972). “Models of the interaction of language and social life.” In J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.), 35–71. Jamlex 1.0 [Database of the Jamaican Lexicography Project (in prep.)]. Kenner, Rob (2003). “Capleton’s biography” http://www.vprecords.com/bio.php?artiste _number=25VP Downloaded 18 February 2003. Le Page, R. B. (1978). “Projection, Focussing, Diffusion”. Society for Caribbean Linguistics Occasional Paper, 9. Little, William et al. (Eds.). (1987). Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. C. T. Onions (Rev. & Ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Marshall, Gordon (Ed.). (1998). A Dictionary of Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Partridge, Eric (2002). A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Paul Beale (Ed.). London: Routledge. Patrick, Peter L. (1995). “Recent Jamaican words in sociolinguistic context.” American Speech 70, 227–264. Pereira, Joe (1994). “Gun talk and girls’ talk: The DJ clash.” Caribbean Studies, 27, 208–223. SOED see Little et al. Vanderveken, Daniel (1991). Meaning and Speech Acts. Vol. 2: Formal Semantics of Success and Satisfaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. White, Edmund (2001). “The political vocabulary of homosexuality.” In L. Burke, T. Crowley, & A. Girvin (Eds.), The Routledge Language and Cultural Theory Reader (pp. 189–196). London: Routledge. Winer, Lise (1990). “Intelligibility of Reggae lyrics in North America: Dread ina Babylon.” English World-Wide, 11, 33–58.

Discography Allsopp, Richard (1996). Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Oxford: OUP. Alozade, Chico, & Kiprich (2000). ‘Bad Man Nuh Pet Gal’. Mo Music. Beenie Man (2000). ‘Nuff Gal’. Best of Beenie Man. VP Records. Beenie Man (2000). ‘Who Am I?’ Best of Beenie Man. VP Records. Capleton (2000). ‘Pure Sodom’. More Fire. VP Records. T.O.K. (2001). ‘Chi-Chi Man’. My Crew My Dawgs. VP Records.

Faiya-bon

Appendix This section draws on the lexicographic work of Cassidy and LePage (2002), Patrick (1995), Allsopp (1996), and Jamlex 1.0, a lexicographic database of Jamaican being prepared by the Jamaican Lexicography Project. Adam an’ Steve Rhyming slang based on the combination ‘Adam and Eve’ used euphemistically to refer to homosexual men. In a predominantly Christian (Protestant) society, the Biblical allusion helps to reinforce the popular belief that homosexuality contravenes God’s intended order. babat-man [babat < batty + man] The form babat occurs in baby talk. bati-bwai [< batty “bottucks, anus” + boy] bati-man [< batty < bottom + man] See prec. biips-man, biips [< beeps etym. unknown + -man] botomist [bottom + -ist] botom-man [< bottom ‘buttocks’ + man] Like many -man compounds in Jamaican Creole, the second element denotes a man who does x, where x stands for the first element of the compound. Hence, one who does bottoms. This contrasts with (h)udz-man, or kaks-man “cocks-man”. botomologist [< bottom “buttocks” + -logy ‘a subject of study’] One whose main “concentration” is the buttocks, i.e. has more knowledge of it than usual. buga-man [< bugger + man] A man who does or is involved in buggering “buggery”. chi-chi man [< chi-chi “termite” + -man] The reference is to oral sex. The Jamaican word ud can mean both wood and penis. Since the chi-chi ‘termite’ eats ud “wood”, a homosexual is like the insect, since he eats ud “penis”. Normally abbreviated to

chi-chi. In rare instances one will hear chi-chi girl, but the term sounds strange to many persons. iki-man Probably a clipped version of freaky-man or sticky-man. it 3rd pl. personal pronoun. A belief that the homosexual is neither he (male) nor she (female) but a kind of third sex – it. fela [< fellow] With the equation of masculinity with aggression, fela is used to signify a soft or dainty man. fish see Partridge (2002) fish 2. ‘A man. Gen. derogatively [. . . ] Also often, in C.20, poor fish, a weak or inferior fellow.’ foni-man [< funny “strange” + -man] A homosexual is a man who acts funny “strange”, i.e. he is not playing by the rules. Also foni bwai [< funny + boy] and foni-gai [< funny + guy]. friiki-man [freaky + man] friik gie-gai [< gay + guy] Also appears in short form, guy. One derivation is gie-man [< gay + -man] which suggests that the word “gay” was not borrowed into the language with a [+ male] meaning, hence “man” has been compounded to it to give the reading of [+ male + homosexual]. lezi Clipped form of lesbian. maama-man [< mama + -man] Used generally to refer to an effeminate or weak man. mampala, mampala-man Same as prec.






men (always used in the plural) An allusion to “the swains meeting”, more than one man in a sexual relation.

rompis [< rump + -ist ‘denoting a person who uses something’ COED] Rupe Paul

mod-pusha [< mud + pusher] is a slightly euphemistic reference to anal sex which employs mud as a metaphor for “faeces”.

pup-man [< fart + -man]

pungga-man [< pungga etym. unknown + man] also pung-gai. Move punggish [< pungga + ish adjectival suffix] to behave in an effeminate manner, exhibit homosexual tendencies.

uman-man [< woman + man] An effeminate man. The lexical head of the compound is the second constituent “man”. The first element is being used attributively.

P II

Face attention and the public and private self

Greeting and social change* Bettina Migge University College Dublin

This paper discusses greeting routines in the Eastern Maroon community of Suriname and French Guiana. The paper argues that there are two broad sets of greeting routines. They have different origins, linguistic structures and distinct social meanings (e.g. setting, social groups, social relationship). As a result of social changes in the community, their social distribution, frequency and their social meanings are currently changing. The ‘urban’ greetings are being extended to all kinds of new social spheres and are increasingly losing their negative or subculture connotations while the ‘village’ greetings are becoming restricted to a relatively small set of situations and kinds of interactions. Moreover, new kinds of greeting practices emerge to symbolically assert existing social distinctions and to mark newly emerging social realities. Keywords: Greeting, structure of greetings, social relations, social change, Eastern Maroon community

.

Introduction

Greetings have been a recurrent object of inquiry in several disciplines such as ethnology, linguistics, anthropology and sociology (see Duranti 1997, 2001 for an overview). While in ethnological research greetings were “studied as a means to uncovering some of the evolutionary bases of human behavior” (Duranti 1997: 64), linguistic research has mainly concentrated on the sequential nature of greetings (Schegloff 1968, 1979, 1986; Schegloff and Sacks 1973; Sacks 1975). Ethnographic studies (Goody 1972; Irvine 1974; Salmond 1974; Youssouf, Grimshaw, and Bird 1976; Caton 1986; Duranti 1992, 1997, 2001) provide thorough formal descriptions of greetings in different societies. They focus on their structure, their verbal content, sometimes also their non-verbal acts (cf. Duranti 1992), the contexts of their use, and their interactional mean-

 Bettina Migge

ings. They reveal that greetings play an important role in defining the nature of social relationships, interlocutors’ social status or rank and their social identities. Irvine’s (1974) study of greeting among the Wolof of Senegal, for instance, shows that the way people participate in a greeting activity (e.g. as initiator or as respondent of a sequence) defines their social status or identities. In situations in which the two parties “do not readily fall into a tacit agreement on their relative positions” (Irvine 1974: 175), they will try to negotiate their status by manipulating their participation in the greeting activity. For example, the most important strategy to claim a “lower” social position, possibly to ward off financial obligations, is to try to initiate the various adjacency pairs that make up the greeting activity. Other ethnographic studies discuss how greetings define or rather reflect the nature of the social relationship between interlocutors. Discussing greeting among the sayyid ‘descendants of the prophet Mohamed’ and qabili ‘tribesmen’ of the Highlands of Yemen, Cato (1986) shows that the two groups employ different kinds of greetings that iconically index the differences in the nature of the relationship and the social ideology between the two groups. While the former employ asymmetrical greetings to highlight the honor, piety and elevated status of the interlocutor, the greeting exchanges among the latter are symmetrical – “the balance in the give-and-take of communication being an icon of the balance and equality of social relationships” (302). Finally, Duranti’s (1992) highly insightful discussion of ceremonial greetings in formal events such as a fono ‘council meeting’ in Western Samoa illustrates two other important aspects about greetings. First, they are not just verbal activities but also crucially involve non-verbal aspects (e.g. eyegaze, movement). Second, greetings perform important social functions. They initiate and index a formal interaction and function “as relatively short but complex activities whereby participants can communicate and bystanders find out information about someone’s social status or expected role in a particular setting” (683). Although greetings provide important insights into the social structure and linguistic practices of a community, there are not, to my knowledge, any studies that deal with greeting exchanges in creole communities (but see Fenigsen; Tessonneau this volume). In this paper I investigate the linguistic structure, social distribution, meanings and functions of greeting exchanges in the Eastern Maroon (EM) community of Suriname and French Guiana (Guyane) based on data from audio-recordings, long-term observation and participation in the

Greeting and social change 

community and focused discussions with selected members. The data come mostly from the Pamaka community. The investigation of the general features of these greetings is based on Duranti (1997) and the analysis of their interactional meanings draws on Goffman’s (1967) theory of social face. Goffman argues that an individual’s social face is an image of a person pieced together from the expressive implications of events s/he engages in. It is the positive social value a person effectively claims for him/herself or attributes to another person by the line others assume s/he has taken during a particular contact. To maintain or defend this positive social image, interlocutors engage in face-work, i.e., actions (e.g. avoidance of face-threats) taken by a person to make what s/he or another person is doing consistent with their face. The study is divided into six sections. Section 1 briefly presents the EM community. Section 2 discusses some of the general aspects of greetings. Sections 3 and 4 investigate the structure and the social meanings of greetings, respectively. Section 5 looks at greetings in the urban context and the last part summarizes the findings and discusses their implications.

. The Eastern Maroon community The EM community consists of three autonomous groups, the Aluku or Boni, the Ndyuka or Okanisi, and the Pamaka. Their traditional villages (konde) are mostly located in the interior of the tropical rain forest of Suriname and Guyane along the Marowijne river (Pamaka) and its tributaries, the Lawa river (Aluku) and the Tapanahoni river (Ndyuka). There are also significant Ndyuka settlements along the upper and lower Marowijne River, the Cottica River, and the Sara Creek. The latter two communities are partially autonomous and are locally referred to as the Saakiiki and the Kotika, respectively. Due to migratory movements from the interior toward the coastal region and from Suriname to Guyane, the (French) lower Marowijne region, including the two Aluku villages in that area, has in the last decades become rather multiethnic in nature. It holds important settlements (kampu) from all three communities and several mixed settlements in which members from these communities and other maroon groups (e.g. Saamaka and Kotika) live together. These migrations also brought mostly young maroons to the coastal urban centers of the region. Initially, the capital of Suriname, Paramaribo, the border town of Albina and the areas around them were the main center of attraction. However, following the civil war in Suriname and the country’s economic de-

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cline in the late 1980s and 1990s, a significant number of EMs has moved to towns in the French overseas department, and particularly to the border town of St. Laurent du Maroni, but also to Mana, Kourou and Cayenne. The mother tongue and primary community language of the EM communities is the Eastern Maroon Creole (EMC). It is classified as a conservative English-lexified Creole. The community recognizes three major EMC varieties that coincide with the three existing EM groups (Aluku, Ndyuka, Pamaka).1 They are direct descendants of the creole varieties that emerged on the plantations of Suriname between 1680 and 1720 (cf. Migge 2002a, 2003). The three varieties are mutually intelligible but differ slightly on the phonological and the lexical level (cf. Bilby 2002; Goury and Migge 2003). These differences largely function as ethnic markers. The community also recognizes at least three styles of speaking, lesipeki taki ‘respect speech,’ yunkuman or wakaman taki ‘young man’s or traveller’s speech,’ and kowounu taki ‘common speech.’ They are associated with different greeting practices. Despite contacts with local and increasingly also European urban centers (e.g. Amsterdam, Paris), in the everyday life of EMs stratification still plays an important role in what is still a ‘traditional’ type of social organization. Adults are divided into three broad groups: titled persons, elders and “regular” adults. Titled persons are the members of a maroon government. The official head of an EM community is the gaaman ‘paramount chief.’ The kabiten head the different (sub)lineages or villages and the male and female basia assist the kabiten and the gaaman.2 The kabiten (and gaaman) carry out the ritual and official business of the community, represent it to the outside and are responsible for keeping it together. Male elders are essentially men above the age of 40 or 45 who lead a respectable life. They aid the titled persons in their work and critically overlook it. Some of them head the extended family groups that make up the different (sub)lineages, lead the organization and carry out minor ritual ceremonies and arbitrate minor disputes. Female elders often serve as medium for avenging spirits and/or organize and overlook the actions of the women of their sublineage or village. “Regular” adults are women and men roughly above the age of 16. However, adulthood seems to be much more closely tied to certain “social achievements” rather than age. A woman is, for example, said to be an adult when she has children, even if she is only 15 years old. Her status increases with her age but also with the number of children she has at her charge and by the way she maintains her family and household.3 Men are considered to be of age when they take on responsibility, i.e., when they take a wife and have children, and obtain the necessary means for being self-sufficient – traditionally, a boat and

Greeting and social change

an outboard motor, a house, tools for preparing fields, building houses etc. Their social standing increases with their age, their achievements, and their relative participation in the socio-political life of the community.4 The latter is, however, crucially dependent on the knowledge of local traditions, which are acquired gradually throughout one’s life. As a result of their young age, young men are generally not considered to be very knowledgeable and therefore tend to be assigned a relatively low social status in the traditional hierarchy. In the EM community all adults are due respect, but titled persons, elders and older “regular” adults are due special respect. When interacting with them, it is customary to apply or approximate norms of formal or respectful conduct (cf. Migge 2004).

. When to greet EM greetings (odi), like greetings in other societies, function to identify “a group of people as members of the class of individuals with whom we communicate in public or public arenas” (Duranti 1997: 71). They are obligatorily employed to initiate a focused interaction (Goffman 1967: 7) with an adult who does not belong to one’s household or to acknowledge such a person;5 the greeting of children and youngsters appears to be optional. In the village setting where people generally know each other, mere co-presence or “unfocused interaction” that do not require greetings is rare. It is, however, found in the urban context. Here, members from different communities (e.g. Amerindians, Haitians, Hmongs, Saamaka, Aluku, Ndyuka, local creoles, Europeans) who do not know each other may come to occupy the same space or pass closely by each other without greeting. With members from other communities, EMs generally employ the greetings from the dominant European language, e.g. bonjour in Guyane and daag in Suriname. An adult who does not greet another adult they know is usually considered to lack proper manners (án sabi kiyo). When it recurs, it is taken as an indication that there is a “problem” and/or that the person lacks proper respect for the other because they treat them as if they are non-proper conversationalists and “not worth the attention implied by the use of greetings” (Duranti 1997: 71). This is an offence that disrupts the social harmony. The wronged person usually complains to the elders of the other person and less commonly to the person her- or himself in an effort to work out the problem and to receive the proper recognition they are due.6 However, if the “wronged” person has reasons to believe that the other (younger) person does not know them,

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they introduce themselves by giving their name and explaining the nature of their family relationship. Greetings in the EM community “are [also] constitutive of the interactants’ public recognition of each other’s presence in the same perceptual field” (Duranti 1997: 68) since they occur as soon as two people come into close proximity, roughly within one or two meters of each other. They are typically the first words that interlocutors exchange when they become aware of each other. Usually, it is the person arriving at some location, e.g. house, riverside, who initiates a greeting. However, if they cannot see the person in the location, the latter may also initiate the greeting. When passing by a location in which another (adult) person is visibly located, e.g. when they can be seen sitting in the shade or heard doing things in their house, people feel obliged to greet (bali odi). The passing person typically briefly comes to meet the other person in their location, i.e., makes a detour or minimally pauses “in their tracks” during the greeting. Simply calling out a greeting in passing is interpreted as a sign of lack of respect. However, if time constraints do not allow otherwise, it is necessary to either apologize, e.g. give a reason for one’s rush, or to try to pass by unseen. When both parties are in motion or meet in the public areas of the village, e.g. the paths, the riverside, the part of the village where “ritual” matters are carried out, the person who first sees the other initiates a greeting procedure and both persons minimally pause for a few moments. If there is a difference in social status between the two people, however, it is the person with lower social rank who is expected to initiate the greeting. Elders, for instance, often “pretend” not to see younger people until they are being greeted by them. In the case that several people are gathered in the same location, such as a group of women who sit around a cassava roasting pan, or elders gathered for a meeting, the person arriving or passing by generally greets everybody collectively and receives a collective or chorus reply from them. Following a collective greeting, they may then also move to address a greeting at one of the persons present to show them special respect, e.g. in the case of high-ranking persons, or to initiate a focused interaction with that person. Upon initiation of a greeting sequence, previous verbal interactions, e.g. discussions between several persons, cease but are usually continued once the greeting is over. If the visiting person is of higher social status than the persons present in the location and/or is not familiar with them, talk usually does not resume (quickly). Non-verbal activities (e.g. food processing, boat-building etc.) are often continued during greetings or resumed immediately thereafter, particularly if the persons greeting know each other well. The people greeting only enter into physical contact, e.g. embrace or shake hands, if they know each

Greeting and social change 

other well and had not met for a while. The person(s) being greeted also do not usually get up and/or move towards the arriving person(s) but typically remain in their space. Finally, it is considered disrespectful to directly look at a person when greeting them, particularly if they are of higher social status.

. The structural properties of greetings in the EM community In the EM community, as among the Wolof (Irvine 1974: 168), the behavior that may fill the greeting slot is clearly defined. There are two broad sets of greetings in use in the community that differ from each other on structural and socio-pragmatic grounds. This section explores their structural properties. EM greetings constitute a separate type of exchange that consists of one or more adjacency pairs, “in which the first pair part by one party (A) invites, constrains, and creates the expectation for a particular type of reply by another party (B)” (Duranti 1997: 69). This format allows interlocutors to take part in a joint activity and thereby display “some evidence of mutual recognition and mutual understanding” (Duranti 1997: 69). The greetings in the first set are quite formulaic in nature. They consist of one statement–statement adjacency pair followed by an acknowledgement (1). The formula uttered by the initiator of the greeting (A) has coupled with it a standard reply given by the addressee (B) that is followed by an acknowledgement also uttered by (A). Although (A)’s and (B)’s utterances are essentially the same, they can still be distinguished from each other on the basis of peripheral features. (A)’s utterance is usually combined with a vocative phrase consisting of (B)’s official name (1a) or of their title of courtesy (1b) or function title (1c). It is either a summons (1a, e) and precedes the greeting or it functions as a form of address (1b–c) and follows the greeting.7 Moreover, the emphatic marker oo generally (but optionally) also modifies the formula. oo is obligatory, however, if (A) greets several people at the same time (1d). B’s statement is always preceded by the affirmation expressing word (i)ya ‘yes,’ and the assertion-marking particle yee or the politeness marker baa typically follows it. Moreover, it is also possible to alter the paralinguistic features, e.g. loudness, tempo, pitch, of (B)’s statement to convey one’s feelings. The greetings in (1) are typically delivered at a relatively slow speaking speed but when (A) or (B) speaks in a very soft voice and very slowly, drawing out the vowel of the assertion marker, it is usually understood that they are suffering some discomfort. Finally, the acknowledge-

 Bettina Migge

ment is usually expressed by one of the words for ‘yes’ (eeya, (i)ya), or by the politeness marker (m)baa. (1) a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

A: Sa Moiboto, a booko u (baka) oo. B: Iya, a booko u (baka) yee/baa. A: Eeya/Iya. A: A kiin u (baka) oo, mma.

‘Sa M., it dawned on us (again).’ ‘Yes, it dawned on us (again)!’ ‘Yes’. ‘It became day (again), (female) elder’ (lit. ‘it cleared us again’). B: Iya, a kiin u (baka) yee/baa. ‘Yes, it became day (again)!’ A: Eeya/Iya. ‘Yes’. A: U weki oo, gaaman. ‘We have awoken, paramount chief.’ B: Iya, u weki yee/baa. ‘Yes, we have awoken!’ A: Eeya/Iya. ‘Yes’. A: U miti oo. ‘We meet.’ B, C: Iya, u miti (baka) yee/baa, papa. ‘Yes, we meet (again), elder!’ A: Eeya/Iya. ‘Yes’. A: Dda, a tapu u (baka) oo. ‘(Male) elder, it (the night) has fallen (again)’ (lit. ‘it covers us’). B: Iya, a tapu u yee. ‘Yes, it has fallen!’ A: Eeya/Iya. ‘Yes’. A: Kabiten, odi oo. ‘Kabiten, hello’ (lit. ‘greeting’). B: Iya, odi yee/baa. ‘Yes, hello!’ A: Eeya/Iya. ‘Yes’.

When someone returns after having been away for a long time, one of the persons in the location, (A), initiates the semantically opaque greeting in (2) as (B) is approaching. (2) A: Wada oo! B: Fiiman baa/yee/oo

‘???free person!’

Upon arrival, (A) and (B) hug calling out atuu at the same time. (A) then initiates the greeting in (3). EMs argue that this greeting dates from the time of their ancestors’ flight where it was used as a “password” for allowing access to the runaway’s villages. Before admitting someone to their village, the runaway slaves would first try to establish the person’s identity by checking their knowledge of maroon traditions such as greetings. The second set of greetings consists of question–answer adjacency pairs. Some of these greetings, the indigenous EM ones, involve two adjacency pairs and an acknowledgment. As illustrated in (3) and (4), they are “complicated”

Greeting and social change 

chains (cf. Goffman 1981; Caton 1986: 297) because (B)’s first turn consists of the second pair part of the first adjacency pair initiated by (A) and a first pair part of the second exchange. Note that (3) is sometimes preceded by an embrace. (3) A1 : Mma Gainsa, da u de (mooi)? B1 : Iya, u de (mooi/masimasi) yee/baa!

U seefi de (mooi)? A2 : Iya, u de (mooi) yee/baa. B: Iya/Eeya.

‘Mrs. G., then, are you well?’ (lit. ‘then we/you (pl.) exist’) ‘Yes, I am well/weak!’ (lit. ‘we/you (pl.) exist nicely/weakly for sure’) ‘And yourself are you also well?’ (lit. ‘we/you (pl.) self exist nicely’) ‘Yes, I am well.’ (lit. ‘we/you (pl.) exist nicely for sure’) ‘Yes’.

(4) A1 : Dda Siliman, da u doo en (mooi)?

‘Mr. S. did you sleep well?’ (lit. ‘then we/you (pl.) arrive at it [the day] nicely’) B1 : Iya, u doo en (mooi/masimasi) yee/baa! ‘Yes, I slept well/badly!’ U seefi? (u doo en (mooi)?) ‘(How about) yourself? (Did you sleep well?)’ A2 : Iya, u doo en (mooi) yee/baa!8 ‘Yes, I slept well!’ B: Mbaa ‘Yes’.

The question parts have the linear order of a declarative sentence but a question intonation is applied. The question part of the first adjacency pair, (A1 ), usually involves a vocative form as in the case of the greetings in (1) while the question part of the second adjacency pair, to my knowledge, never includes such a form. Both also contain a personal address form, the pronoun u. It is the first and second person plural pronoun, which is also employed in formal contexts to politely address only one person (Huttar and Huttar 1994: 462), as in (3 & 4).9 The answer parts, (B1 ) and (A2 ), are syntactically identical to the question part but have a statement intonation. As in the case of the examples in (1), they are always preceded by the affirmation-expressing word (i)ya ‘yes’ and are also typically followed by the assertion-marking particle yee or the politeness marker baa. Like the greetings in (1)–(2), (3)–(4) are generally delivered in a relatively slow tempo.

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As indicated by the brackets in (3) and (4), it is possible to emphasize a positive attitude by modifying the question and/or the answer part of the adjacency pair with the property item mooi ‘nice.’ The second part of the adjacency pairs, (B1 ) and (A2 ), can also be modified by the property item masimasi ‘weak, bad’ or in the case of (3) by the phrase a wan ana ‘at one hand’ to overtly convey some discomfort. However, in line with the preference for agreement (Sacks 1987), people normally just use the positive reply in (3) and express discomfort using paralinguistic features, if at all. The greetings in (1)–(4) may also be linked to make up a (“mixed”) discourse chain (cf. Goffman 1981; Caton 1986: 298). The greeting in (3) can be preceded by any of the greetings in (1) while the greeting in (4) may only be preceded by (1a–c) – see (5) for an illustration. Moreover, (4), possibly preceded by (1a–c), may also be followed by (3). (5) A1 : Ba Aseengi, u miti oo. B1 : Iya, u miti yee, sisa. A2 : (Iya.) Da u de? B2 : Iya, u de yee! U seefi de? A3 : Iya, u de baa. B3 : Iya/Eeya.

‘Mr. A., we meet.’ ‘Yes, we meet, my female friend!’ (‘Yes.’) ‘Then, are you well?’ (lit. ‘then we exist’) ‘Yes, I am well !’ (lit. ‘yes, we exist for sure’) ‘You are also well ?’ (lit. ‘we self exist’) ‘Yes, I am well. (lit. ‘yes, we exist’) ‘Yes.’

The inquiry into each other’s health (3) is usually initiated by (A) who may or may not officially acknowledge the end of the first greeting. Finally, the “mixed” chains (5) may be even further extended by adding one or more adjacency pairs that are an inquiry into the well being of A’s family – mother, wife, father and/or children. They have the format in (6) and are typically heard if (A) and (B) (and their families) had not seen each other for a long time.10 (6) B: Fa fi i mma? (A de mooi?) or A mma fi i, a de mooi? A: A de (mooi yee).

‘How about your mother? (Is she well?)’ ‘Your mother, is she well?’ ‘She is well (!)’

As in the case of the greetings (1)–(4), (B)’s reply is relatively standardized but other replies (e.g. a e siki ‘he is (constantly) sick,’ a go a pareis/holansi ‘She left to go to Paris or France/Netherlands’) are also possible and are often heard.


The other greetings in the second set involve a simple question–answer adjacency pair usually but are not obligatorily followed by an acknowledgment. The question part involves the question word fa ‘how’ and may also involve a vocative form. In contrast to the greetings in (1)–(4), the reply (8) is not a repetition of the question phrase (7). There are several possible replies available (8)–(9) although in actual practice (8a–b) are most frequently used in response to (7a–e). (B)’s response is usually positive (8) but indifference (9a–b) or discomfort (9c–d) may also be conveyed. These exchanges are usually not part of a discourse chain – but see (12) for an exception. (7) a. b. c. d. e. f.

A: (name/sisa/baala), fa i tan? A: (name), fa i du? A: (name), fa a e go? A: (name), on fa? A: (name), fa waka? A: A e go (name)?

‘Sister/brother, how are you?’ ‘How are you doing?’ ‘How is it going?’ ‘How?’ (‘What’s up’) ‘What’s happening (lit. walk)?’ ‘What’s up?’ (lit. ‘is it going?’)

(8) a. b. c.

B: Saaf(i)saafi!/Saflio! B: Mi de (oo)! B: A e go!

‘Okay (lit. ‘soft’)?’ ‘I am well!’ ‘I am okay!’ (lit. ‘it is going’)

(9) a. b. c. d.

B: Wan wan namo! B: Mi de namo! B: So wanse-wanse! B: A ná e go!

‘Okay’ (lit. ‘one one only’) ‘I am just fine.’ ‘Soso’ ‘Things aren’t going well!’ (lit. ‘it is not going’)

While the greetings in (1)–(4) are considered to be proper native Eastern Maroon or Pamaka greetings, the greetings in (7)–(9) are said to belong to the coastal, non-maroon Afro-Surinamese population of Suriname, the so-called fotonenge lit. ‘fort or Paramaribo people,’ who generally speak Sranan Tongo, the related urban creole, as their mother tongue.11 EMs, however, practice sociolinguistic erasure and associate these greetings most closely with young working class men of Afro-Surinamese descent. Today, with the emergence of Sranan Tongo as the main lingua franca in Suriname and parts of Guyane, these greetings are also used in interethnic and sometimes also intra-ethnic encounters by members of other local ethnic groups such as Surinamese-Chinese, Surinamese-Indonesian, Surinamese-Amerindian etc.

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. The social meaning and distribution of greetings in the EM community On the most general level, the referential content of some of the EM greetings establishes specific temporal units (Duranti 1997: 70). They refer to activities (e.g. rise of sun/dawning, awaking, fall of night) that take place at specific times of the day and come to index these periods of the day. Other greetings, e.g. (1f), (3), (7)–(9), do not refer to a specific time period. (1f) only acknowledges presence while (3) and (7)–(9) are an inquiry into health. Because of their “timeless” content, they can be employed at any time of the day. (1d) acknowledges the mutual presence of the interlocutors. It used to be only employed in the period between midday and the fall of night; however, in recent years it is also increasingly used to greet people in the evening, after dusk, thus replacing (1e). More importantly, however, “the occurrence of greetings and the ways in which they are carried out identify a particular [social] class of people” (Duranti 1997: 71) and index different kinds of social relationships between interlocutors. The greetings in (1) convey a relatively great social distance between the interlocutors and constitute the encounter being opened as formal. (A) and (B) only establish a minimal common ground, pay each other respect and construct each other as respectable persons in two ways. First, they do not directly and personally address each other. (A) only employs a vocative form to get (B)’s attention and to identify them as the recipient of the greeting. The only permissible vocative forms are the formal forms of address that invoke (B)’s official or positional social identity. (B) does not use personal address forms. Second, (A) does not elicit (personal) information from (B) but just acknowledges (B)’s presence (1f) or states to (B) an obvious and uncontroversial fact that relates to both of them (1a–e), e.g. they both survived the night and that the next day is opening itself up to them (again). (B) supports (A)’s positive face and definition of the relationship when confirming (A)’s assertion and emphasizing its correctness. In accordance with their emphasis on social distance, the greetings in (1) are used to open up encounters that require greater attention to participants’ face. This includes formal events (e.g. appeals, council meetings) and interactions that involve a certain kind of social distance between the interlocutors and/or invoke positional identities, e.g. meetings between elders or between elders or titled persons and younger adults. Young untitled persons typically address elders and titled persons using the greetings in (1) or (3)–(4) to pay them respect and to stage themselves as


respectful persons. Among young untitled men, these greetings are generally not used for two main reasons: first, their relationships tend to be relatively informal and solidarity-based. Moreover, from the point of view of the traditional ideology, they all have the same (low) social status.12 Second, they consider them to be old fashioned because they are an integral part of the traditional EM way of life. Young maroons tend to aspire to a modern (urban) life-style and are eager to rid themselves of the stigma of what they consider “rural backwardness.” In everyday situations, e.g. daily greetings between neighbors or people who regularly meet each other and maintain a cordial relationship, only the three-part sequences in (1) are employed while, in more formal contexts the exchange is extended by (3) or (4), see (5). The extension of the greeting ritual indexes the exceptional or greater formal character of the encounter (cf. Duranti 1997). (A) may also further underscore their respect for (B) by selecting one of the greetings that are widely considered to be older (1a–b and possibly 1e). Younger people often direct such greetings at elders to display their knowledge of local traditions and their (temporary) alignment with the traditional system. In contrast, elders sometimes direct them at younger people to test their knowledge of local traditions. Overall, the greetings in (3) and (4) convey somewhat less social distance between interlocutors than the greetings in (1).13 There appear to be two reasons for this. First, (A)’s and (B)’s utterances are somewhat less formulaic. The question parts may be adverbially modified and the answer part may even overtly contradict the question part. Second, the verbal content of the adjacency pairs implies a greater degree of familiarity or a closer relationship between (A) and (B) than those in (1). In (3)–(4) interlocutors exchange personal information (e.g. about their state of health) and directly relate to each other using pronominal forms of address. The first or second person plural pronoun u is typically employed because it conveys greater respect, but people who know each other very well (e.g. siblings or close acquaintances) also employ the second person singular pronoun i. Employing these greetings, (A) and (B) pay respect to each other but they also convey that they maintain (at least overtly) a cordial relationship. Like the greetings in (1), (3) and (4) are mainly used to initiate interactions between and with high-ranking persons and people who deserve special respect such as in-laws. Young untitled persons do not usually employ them among each other. While (4) can be employed every morning, (3) is usually employed

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after the interlocutors have not seen each other for a while or in situations involving a relatively great social distance. According to EMs, including those who frequently use them, the greetings in (7)–(9) invoke very little respect. They are closely associated with young urban working class men of Afro-Surinamese descent, so-called fotonenge, who enjoy little prestige in the traditional EM ideology. These young men are closely associated with the coastal cash-labor industry such as the building industry and the transportation industry and with hanging out on street-corners and in bars.14 Moreover, they are said to have very little serious interest in local traditions and are closely associated with notions of positive politeness (Brown and Levinson 1989). This way of life is clearly at odds with the (traditional) EM social ideology, which strongly emphasizes social status, negative politeness, kinship relationships and a close commitment to the local community and its traditions. The world beyond the local community, particularly the public urban domain such as the street and bars, are considered to be vulgar and lacking in respect and are hence to be avoided. The verbal content of these greetings also conveys an absence of proper respect from a traditional EM point of view. First, (A) employs a direct question, involving a question word in the case of (7a–e), to enquire about (B)’s health. In the traditional EM ideology, overt questions are considered to be an imposition. They are usually only directed at people of low social status and possibly those with whom one maintains a close relationship. Second, (A) usually does not employ status-indicating vocative forms or pronouns – only the person’s common name or the lowest titles of courtesy (baala) and the second person singular pronoun i are used or implied (7c–f). They invoke a solidarity-based relationship between (A) and (B). (B)’s response is typically positive but negative answers are also possible. Finally, these greetings are usually delivered in a relatively loud voice and in a much faster tempo than the greetings in (1)–(3). Greetings (7)–(9) are generally not employed with and among elders and (elderly) titled persons. It would be taken to imply that the initiator of the greeting is disregarding the addressee’s elevated social status and suggesting that (A) and (B) are social equals.15 Even among elders and titled persons, this assumption bears a potential for conflict. Moreover, (A) would construct her/himself as impolite and ignorant. The greetings in (7)–(9) are, however, commonly employed among young EM men (kiyo). The notions of positive politeness associated with them adequately symbolize the informal crew-like solidarity-based relationships that these men (claim to) maintain among each other. These notions and the greetings’ close association with young urban working class men whose life-styles


are closely aligned with norms and values that contrast with traditional EM ones also function to symbolize the young men’s (partial) opposition to the (traditional) EM social ideology and life-style. They appropriate these greetings, just like other features associated with the modern or urban world (cf. Migge 2002b), to constitute a separate powerful “young EM (working) men” identity; in the traditional EM ideology young men depend on their elders for all socio-political matters even though they fill most of the financial needs of the community. This group identity and the means to constitute it have their roots in the early migrations of EMs to the coastal region of Suriname. Starting in the 1950s, young EM men increasingly started spending part of the year in the coastal urban region, e.g. the capital Paramaribo or the border town of Albina, or in interior work camps, e.g. the construction of the Afobaka hydroelectric dam, the bauxite mining industry, to engage in cash labor work such as factory work, construction or mining jobs. As part of their acculturation to these multiethnic settings, they learned the various social practices of their urban peers who dominated these settings. This crucially involved learning Sranan Tongo, the related urban creole and main lingua franca of Suriname, and the various social practices associated with its urban varieties such as the greetings in (7)–(9). As in other bi- or multilingual settings, they eventually adopted linguistic features (e.g. intonational patterns, words) and interactional routines from Sranan Tongo when interacting among themselves as part of their everyday speech repertoire. These symbolized their common urban “working man” experience.16 Later EM migrants adopted them as part of their acculturation to the coastal EM community and thereby reinforced their social functions. Today, even young men living in the villages draw on these “urban-EM” practices to project a trendy (modo) urban identity and to convey their opposition to the EM establishment.

. Greeting in the 21st century Since the end of the 20th century the EM maroon communities have been undergoing significant social change.17 The civil war in Suriname in the late 1980s and the country’s economic decline in the years following it caused many maroons to migrate to the urban centers of French Guiana or to the emerging multiethnic settlements in the interior of French Guiana along the Marowijne River (Apatou, Gaan Santi/Gransanti) and the Lawa River (Maipasula/Maripasoula). These recent migratory movements differ from previous



 Bettina Migge

ones in several respects. First, most people leave their villages permanently and only return once in a while for a holiday or for ritual activities, e.g. burials, healings. Second, most of the recent migrants are women and their children who either follow their husband or family, or leave on their own in search of a “better life” through access to cash labor opportunities, French legal papers and schooling for their children.18 This migration has left many interior villages depopulated, and due to changes in the daily activities of people and the overall setting in the urban context, extended family and lineage units and the traditional EM socio-political structure and its institutions are increasingly losing social significance. In the village setting, people’s daily activities are determined by social factors such as gender and age. Women are responsible for the domestic sphere and spend most of their time in the village (konde) or their horticultural camp (kampu). They take care of their own and their husband’s house, the well being of their family members (children, elders) and the food production (farming) and preparation. The women from the same extended family unit or lineage typically carry out these tasks together and heavily rely on each other for most of their activities.19 In contrast to women, (young) men are associated with heavy physical labor and the external public sphere. They build the houses, prepare fields using a slash-and-burn method, hunt, secure transportation, and engage in mostly temporary cash-labor outside of the local community to secure the financial needs of the community. They tend to frequently interact among themselves and with young men from other communities. Their relations with (male) elders tend to be somewhat strained. (Male) elders and titled persons for their part manage the socio-political matters of the community and spend most of their time in the local community. They head the community and its units, represent them to the outside, direct their overall development and keep them together by giving advice to their members, by arbitrating disputes and by organizing and carrying out of ritual ceremonies. As a result, they have a considerable amount of social power, enjoy a great amount of social prestige and are due special respect from the other two social groups. On the coast, however, the traditional social and occupational differentiation is increasingly being eroded due to the changes in people’s social and economic lives. While women, for instance, are usually still responsible for the domestic sphere, they typically also engage in various cash-labor activities to increase the household income. Women with no or very little formal schooling do domestic-type work, reselling and some farming while women with a formal education increasingly try to take up jobs in government offices and the educational system, the most important employers in the region. These

Greeting and social change 

work opportunities and/or the various social benefits that a good number of (young) maroon women nowadays receive from the French government often provide them with greater financial means than their partners or elders. This in turn is increasingly leading to an erosion of traditional status differences and dependencies between women and men/elders. As a result of their financial means, women are able to exercise greater social power over elders and their male partners.20 Moreover, in the urban setting, where members of the same extended family often do not live in close proximity of each other, women tend to create new social networks with women from other ethnic groups and families who live nearby, and they thereby further decrease their reliance on traditional networks. The situation is different for elders. In the urban setting, their traditional social functions and superior social standing are being slowly eroded and their life-styles are converging with those of the younger or lower status persons in the community. While at least some of the elders and titled persons are frequently called on to organize and to perform various ceremonies (e.g. burials, end of mourning periods, cleansings) and to help arbitrate disputes, a number of these and other traditional social functions are increasingly being taken over by the various institutions of the national governments (e.g. police, courts, social workers). Moreover, most elders and titled persons tend to be relatively isolated from their equals/peers, are dependent on their younger family members for their living or have to compete with them in the cash-labor market to make a living. As a result of these changes, their elevated social status is slowly being leveled. The other members of the community and most elders themselves, for the most part, no longer perceive as great a social distance between the members of the different traditional status groups. In everyday settings, younger persons therefore generally no longer feel the need to engage in a great number of special respect rituals towards elders and titled persons, and elders and titled persons, for their part, no longer feel the need to insist on such rituals. This new way of life, often referred to as bakaa libi ‘European’ life-style, is also spreading to the village setting, though not as rapidly partly because the living circumstances are changing at a much slower pace in that context. Greeting practices in the community have, as a matter of course, also been affected by these changes. The most important change has taken place in the overall distribution of the different kinds of greetings. Among the urban EM population, greetings (7)–(9) are much more widely employed than the indigenous EM greetings (1)–(5). This is partly due to two things. First, there are more young and middle-aged EMs than elders living in the urban context. Second, these greetings are historically associated with the urban setting.

 Bettina Migge

However, in recent years greetings (7a–c) are also increasingly used by younger people to elders and sometimes also among the latter. This is somewhat surprising because, from a traditional point of view, by using these greetings, (A) suggests that they are socially equal to (B), maintain a solidarity-based relationship with (B) and construct themselves and (B) as persons with low social status. In the urban context, these overt social meanings are generally not considered to be face-threatening anymore, particularly by elders who have spent a considerable amount of time in the urban coastal centers. In everyday interactions with young urban EMs, they commonly employ and “accept” particularly greetings (7)–(9) as the default greetings; these greetings convey their solidarity with young urban men and their membership in the currently prestigious young enterprising community rather than the subsistence-based rural village setting. The use of formal greetings automatically produces the expectation that the initiator of the greeting is intending to discuss official matters, e.g. local politics, making requests or appeals etc. Although the greetings in (7)–(9) are generally associated with solidarity and equality among interlocutors, it is still possible to index social distinctions. Essentially, with elders (and among elders), some of their informal properties are exchanged with respect-inducing ones that are also characteristic of the indigenous greetings in (1)–(4). For example, the more familiarity-conveying second person singular pronoun i and the first person singular pronoun mi are replaced with the respect-conveying second person plural pronoun u. Names are combined with titles or the Dutch/Sranan Tongo-derived titles Omu ‘uncle’ and Tante ‘aunt’ are used in place of names. Moreover, the greetings are delivered in a relatively slow tempo (10). I have also heard people adding the emphatic particle oo or the politeness marker baa to emphasize the respectful nature of the interaction. This blending effectively constructs the relative leveling of status differences. (10) A: Papa A., fa u tan (oo)? B: Papa, u de (baa).

‘Elder A., how are we doing?’ ‘Elder, we are well.’

The emerging mainstream character particularly of the greetings in (7a–c) and the resulting loss of their earlier ‘subculture’ association is also motivating young EM men to find new linguistic means for indexing their separate group identity. Among young men, the greetings in (7d–f) are currently more commonly used than (7a–c), for example. Moreover, young men also continuously invent or adopt new greetings for use among themselves to maintain and affirm their difference to both women and elders (11). These newly emerg-

Greeting and social change 

ing greetings are very short sequences that either consist of one word (11) or just of a visual sign, such as thumbs up, when passing each other. They underscore this group’s desire to distance themselves from what are often felt to be “time-consuming” and outdated politeness practices. (11) A: Cool/orgi? B: Cool/orgi!

‘Is everything cool/okay?’ ‘Everything is cool/okay!’

In the urban context, the greetings in (1)–(5) are generally considered very ritualistic and old-fashioned because they invoke traditional social hierarchies, positional social identities and identify the person using them as someone who is intimately associated with the traditional EM life-style. They have therefore come to be largely reserved for events and situations in which these matters are central to the interaction. They are obligatorily used among people gathering for formal events, e.g. kuutu ‘council meeting’ events and all kinds of ritual ceremonies, and by persons who want to initiate official business, e.g. make a formal appeal. They are also employed on a regular basis with and among elders and titled persons who are closely aligned with the upriver community, e.g. people who live there and/or who command a great amount of social power in the community, and among in-laws, e.g. son in-law to mother in-law and among sisters in-law. It would still today be difficult to address these groups of people using anything other that the greetings in (1)–(4). However, persons of higher social status have the opportunity to change the footing of the interaction to a more informal one by addressing their interlocutors using one of the greetings in (7)–(9). Such informal greetings (12c) typically follow more formal ones (12a–b) initiated by the younger/lower status person (12). (12) a. b.

c.

A: U miti oo, gaaman. B: Ya, u miti yee, sisa. Da u de? A: Ya u de yee! U seefi de? B: Ya, u de baa. A: Iya. B: Beti, on fa? A: Saaflio.

‘We meet, paramount chief!’ (good afternoon) ‘Yes, we meet, (madam)!’ ‘Are we well?’ ‘Yes, we are well!’ ‘How about yourself?’ ‘Yes, we are well.’ ‘Yes’. ‘What’s up Beti?’ ‘(I am) okay.’

 Bettina Migge

. Conclusion The two (or three) sets of greeting routines that are in common usage in the EM community have clear social meanings and contextual associations that are partially constituted by their linguistic form. While the indigenous and highly formulaic ones (cf. 1) index a (great) social distance between interlocutors and invoke positional identities, the very “direct” urban ones (cf. 7–9) construct a great common ground between interlocutors and constitute them as social equals. The possible third set (cf. (3)–(4)) is intermediate between these two sets. By drawing on their social meanings and contextual associations, greetings are habitually employed to negotiate social relationships and people’s social image. They are being affirmed by picking a contextually appropriate greeting to open up an encounter, but they are being challenged or undermined by selecting one that does not conventionally fit the context or when omitting to greet. In the migratory context, where “modern” or “urban” social norms and living circumstances exert pressure on the social relationships and identities of people, greeting routines are employed in different or new ways to constitute the newly emerging realities. For instance, the indigenous, formulaic greetings become restricted to a few exceptional contexts while the urban, direct greetings are adopted as the default greeting by most members of the community. Moreover, new greetings emerge, existing greeting routines are being modified, and the indigenous and “urban” greetings are combined. These new forms function to affirm existing social differences in the new context and to construct newly emerging differences, as well as symbolize people’s critical distance to the traditional EM social hierarchy. The investigation of greeting routines also provides important insights into the social structure of the community and its social and linguistic categories. In relation to the former, it reveals that the EM community is traditionally a relatively stratified society. Social group membership is based on gender, age, and social activity, achievements and knowledge of local traditions. With respect to the latter, the study suggests that the members of the community recognize two broad types of life-styles which I will call businenge libi ‘maroon life’ and bakaa libi ‘European life,’ respectively. While the businenge libi involves the use of the EMC and knowledge of and adherence to traditional EM traditions, the latter approximates Sranan Tongo practices and is associated with local urban norms and values. The businenge libi also emphasizes positional identities and social relationships that are based on social distance and mutual respect. Bakaa libi, on the contrary, is locally perceived to stand for social norms such as informal-


ity, solidarity and directness. Moreover, the study provides further evidence of the existence of a focused formal style in the EMC (cf. Migge 2004).

Notes * This paper has benefited from comments by George Huttar, Susanne Mühleisen and Raimund Schieß. All remaining errors are, of course, my own responsibility. . Saakiiki, Kotika and the Ndyuka spoken on the lower Marowijne differ somewhat from the Ndyuka varieties spoken on the Tapanahoni but still share the main distinctive features with that variety. . Until recently, only men could hold a kabiten position. However, due to pressure from the government of Suriname, the Pamaka and Ndyuka recently also created separate women kabiten positions. . There is also a right of passage ceremony for women, gi pangi ‘give wrap-around-skirt.’ Girls take part in it when they are about 15 years old. The ceremony for boys, gi kamisa ‘give a kind of loincloth,’ is quite rare nowadays. . Note that the notions of ‘to be old’ and ‘to be honorable/knowledgeable’ are both expressed by the same word, gaandi. . Pamakas usually say that people who siibi a wan osu ná e gi odi ‘people who sleep in the same house do not greet each other.’ . Complaints about improper greeting behavior are quite frequent and tend to be indicative of more serious interpersonal problems. . There are three female (sa, tia/tante, mma) and male (ba, tii/omu, dda/ppa) titles of courtesy and several function titles (e.g. gaaman ‘paramount chief,’ kabiten ‘(sub)lineage head’). While sa is used with women of low social status, mma is employed with women of great social importance, and tia/tante is the title for women of intermediate rank (cf. Migge 2001). Note that participants’ relative age and the nature of their relationship also play a role in the assignment of titles. For instance, a man who is in his thirties will address a man who is in his forties and with whom he is not very familiar using the title Omu/Tii or even Ppa/Dda if he wants to pay special respect. . It is also possible to say Iya, u doo en (mooi) yee baa mama/papa. . It is not really clear whether the polite usage of u is related to/derived from its first or second person plural usage. In (1c) it seems best to argue that u includes the speaker and the addressee. This inclusion possibly functions as a further device of indirectness to effect politeness (G. Huttar p.c., August 2004). However, in examples (3)–(4) it does not appear to include the speaker but just the addressee and possibly by implication also her/his family. See also Mühleisen (this volume) for a discussion of this issue. . It may also be employed if (B) does not know (A)’s family. . They are the descendants of slaves who remained on the plantations.



 Bettina Migge . For young men it is generally much more difficult to gain social rank than for young women because for them social rank is tied to traditional knowledge (see above). They therefore tend to be much more opposed to the traditional system than young women. Moreover, as a result of their engagement in the cash labor industry, they are much more closely aligned with urban norms and values than young women. . An informant pointed out that (1c) conveys less respect than (4). This appears to be mainly due to the fact that (4) is considered to be older. . Earning money in itself is not a problem; however, when this becomes the only thing that someone is interested in, it is considered problematic because it tends to lead to jealousy and community problems. . I once observed a situation in which a young man used (7c) to greet a youngster who was arriving in a boat with several other people. One of the elders in the boat thought that he was being addressed and immediately protested this status-inappropriate greeting: Baala, piimisi, mi anga i, u ná biya. ‘Brother, we are not persons of the same age group.’ . Women still today make much more careful use of Sranan Tongo features because they carry (negative) associations that are much more difficult to sustain for women (cf. Migge 2002b). . As has been made abundantly clear in Price and Price’s (1999) book on maroon art, the maroon societies of Suriname, just like any community, have never been static societies but have always been subject to change. However, it seems as if the current social changes are on a different scale compared with previous ones. They may easily result in their members’ complete integration into local mainstream culture and thus a complete loss of these societies’ current distinctive properties (cf. Price and Price 2003). . Most children, particularly older ones, in traditional villages do not have easy access to schools, and boarding opportunities are rare and expensive in both Guyane and Suriname. Note also that a great number of maroon children have a right to French citizenship because they are mostly born in the hospital of St. Laurent. Finally, French resident cards or citizenship do not only allow an easier access to the world but they also mean access to all kinds of social money which is a great help in an economically quite depressed region. . Not just blood relations but also in-laws tend to collaborate for all kinds of daily activities. The strength of either of these networks depends on residence patterns. . Among EMs living in St. Laurent, there is currently much talk about how women are dominating their male partners because of their financial means. . In recent years more and more elders have been “obliged” to move to the coast mainly because most or all of their children now reside on the coast.

References Bilby, Kennth (2002). “L’aluku: Un créole surinamien en territoire français.” Amerindia, 26/27, 279–292.

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Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson (1989). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Caton, Steven C. (1986). “‘Salam tahiyah’: Greetings from the highlands of Yemen.” American Ethnologist, 13, 290–308. Duranti, Alessandro (1992). “Language and bodies in social space: Samoan ceremonial greetings.” American Anthropologist, 94, 657–691. Duranti, Alessandro (1997). “Universal and culture-specific properties of greetings.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 7, 63–97. Duranti, Alessandro (2001). “Universal and culture-specific properties of greetings.” In A. Duranti (Ed.), Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader (pp. 208–238). Oxford: Blackwell. Fenigsen, Janina (this volume). “Meaningful routines: Meaning-making and the face value of Barbadian greetings”. Goffman, Erving (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Anchor Books. Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Goody, Esther (1972). “Greeting, begging, and the presentation of respect.” In J. S. La Fontaine (Ed.), Interpretation of Ritual (pp. 39–71). London: Tavistock. Goury, Laurence & Bettina Migge (2003). Grammaire du nengee. Introduction aux langues aluku, ndjuka et pamaka. Collection Didactique. Paris: Editions IRD. Huttar, George L. & Mary L. Huttar (1994). Ndyuka. London: Routledge. Irvine, Judith (1974). “Strategies for status manipulation in the Wolof greeting.” In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking (pp. 167–191). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Migge, Bettina (2001). “Communicating gender in the Eastern Maroon Creole of Suriname.” In M. Hellinger & H. Bussmann (Eds.), Gender across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men, Vol. I (pp. 85–104). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Migge, Bettina (2002a). “The origin of the copulas (d/n)a and de in the Eastern Maroon Creole.” Diachronica, 19, 81–133. Migge, Bettina (2002b). “Code-Mixing, gender and social identities among Eastern Maroons.” Paper presented at the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, 14th Biennial Conference. The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago. Migge, Bettina (2003). Creole Formation as Language Contact: The Case of the Suriname Creoles. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Migge, Bettina (2004). “The speech event kuutu in the Eastern Maroon community.” In G. Escure & A. Schwegler (Eds.), Creoles, Contact and Language Change: Linguistic and Social Implications (pp. 285–306). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Mühleisen, Susanne (this volume). “Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles: The presentation of selves and others in the Caribbean context.” Price, Sally & Richard Price (1999). Maroon Arts: Cultural Vitality in the African Diaspora. Boston: Beacon Press. Price, Richard & Sally Price (2003). Les Marrons. Châteauneuf-le-Rouge: Vents d’ailleurs. Sacks, Harvey (1975). “Everyone has to lie.” In M. Sanches & B. G. Blount (Eds.), Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use (pp. 57–80). New York: Academic Press.

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Sacks, Harvey (1987). “On the preference for agreement and contiguity in sequences in conversation.” In G. Button & J. R. E. Lee (Eds.), Talk and Social Organization (pp. 54–69). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Salmond, Anne (1974). “Rituals of encounter among the Maori: Sociolinguistic study of a scene.” In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking (pp. 192–212). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, Emanuel (1968). “Sequencing in conversational openings.” American Anthropologist, 70, 1075–1095. Schegloff, Emanuel (1979). “Identification and recognition in telephone conversation openings.” In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology (pp. 23–78). New York: Irvington. Schegloff, Emanuel (1986). “The routine as achievement.” Human Studies, 9, 111–151. Schegloff, Emanuel & Harvey Sacks (1973). “Opening up closings.” Semiotica, 7, 289–327. Tessonneau, Alex-Louise (this volume). “Learning respect in Guadeloupe: Greetings and politeness rituals.” Youssouf, Ibrahim, Allen D. Grimshaw, & Charles S. Bird (1976). “Greeting in the desert.” American Ethnologist, 3, 797–824.

Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village and the interactional organization of uncertainty Jack Sidnell University of Toronto

Drawing on the techniques of Conversation Analysis, this paper examines the interactional organization of uncertainty and expertise in the giving and receipt of advice in an Indo-Guyanese village. Through a detailed analysis of fragments of recorded conversation, it is shown that phenomena such as expertise and uncertainty, often understood to be attributes of singular individuals are, in fact, the products of a complex interactional organization of turns-at-talk. Participants work to locate, display and co-construct uncertainty as a precondition and warrant of giving advice, displaying expertise about the matter under discussion and having this expertise acknowledged by others; they orient to it as an intersubjectively sustained aspect of the activity. The analysis reveals an interactional structure to advice-giving and receipt in which opportunities are created for a potential advice-recipient to display uncertainty. If the recipient displays uncertainty, advice follows as a warranted and reasonable next activity. However, if advice-recipient displays certainty in the opportunity space created, potential advice givers may seek an alternate warrant such as suggesting the advisee’s incompetence with respect to matters of ritual procedure. The analysis focuses on a specific occasion in which a woman whose husband had just committed suicide visits with her sister and brother-in-law and the three participants discuss her plan to conduct a ritual that routinely follows a death in the village. Keywords: Advice, Conversation Analysis, Goffman, interaction, uncertainty, expertise

Not, then, men and their moments. Rather moments and their men. (Goffman, Interaction Ritual 1967: 3)

 Jack Sidnell

.

Introduction

One afternoon in a rural, and predominantly Hindu, Guyanese village a woman in her early thirties named Sun arrived back at her tiny one-room house to find that her husband, Mohun, had hanged himself. Several days of grief and mourning followed. People argued about the possible reasons for the suicide and discussed the situation of the widow. Talk soon turned to the matter of death rituals which are routinely staged in such circumstances. It was decided that, in this case, Sun’s own impoverished patrilocal group would host and conduct the appropriate death rituals and that Sun would take the lead role in executing them.1 Three days after Mohun’s suicide, Sun came to visit her sister and brotherin-law. The relations between these people in terms of kinship and marriage are shown in Figure 1. The occasion was audio-recorded by the ethnographer and forms the basis for the analysis presented here. Close examination of the talk will show that the participants used this occasion to invite, give, receive, block and resist advice regarding the proper execution of the ritual “dead work.” It is the specific practices of speaking through which such actions were implemented that are the focus of the following analysis. I am in particular concerned with the ways in which advice was offered, solicited and resisted in and through an organization of turns-at-talk. It will be suggested that some phenomena which are typically understood as properties of “individuals” – variously, in the anthro-

PLG #1

PLG #2

PLG #3

= Gigi

Indar

= Pria

Sun

Mohun

Advice-Giving

Figure 1. Relations of kinship and marriage between participants (PLG = Patrilocal Group)

Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village 

pological literature, “selves,” “persons,” “social actors” – might be seen to be, in the first place, inferences drawn from the observable relations between turnsat-talk. Here lies the import of the opening epigram: This paper pursues a line of thinking invoked but relatively undeveloped in Goffman’s writings. Specifically, I focus not so much on individuals but rather on the cohort-independent structures of interaction within which actions such as giving and receiving advice are made to happen. Thus, rather than on face, my analysis centers on an organization of turns-at-talk and the sequences which they constitute, and I attempt to show how the “trajectory of the interaction shapes the participants” rather than the other way around (Schegloff 1988: 100).

. Interactional structure in advice-giving and -receipt The activities of advising provided an opportunity for Sun’s brother-in-law, Indar, to display his expertise with respect to matters of ritual procedure and to have that expertise implicitly acknowledged by others. However, in order to deliver the advice, it was necessary to locate and display a warrant or reason for giving it. The analysis which follows reveals an interactional structure to advice-giving and -receipt in which opportunities are created for a potential advice-recipient to display uncertainty. If the recipient displays uncertainty, advice follows as a warranted and reasonable next activity. However, if the advice-recipient displays certainty in the opportunity space created, potential advice givers may seek an alternate warrant. In the case to be examined here, when the advice-giving was blocked by a display of certainty the advice giver talked in such a way as to suggest the advisee’s incompetence with respect to matters of ritual procedure.

. Ritual and knowledge in the village Knowledge about the procedural aspects of ritual, that is, how and when to do them, is not distributed evenly within the community. Pandits, professional religious practitioners, are generally recognized as authoritative with respect to matters of Hindu ritual. However, for most people in the village, contact with pandits is quite limited. Pandits assiduously avoid socializing in public places such as rumshops and the road and generally lead a life apart. In most cases, then, pandits are not available to give advice. There are, however, a number of villagers who, although not pandits, are widely considered to have some ex-

 Jack Sidnell

pertise in conducting particular rituals. Such experts come by their publicly acknowledged position in a number of different ways. Some are involved in the administration of the local Mandir and by virtue of this fact are understood to have more extensive knowledge of religious doctrine as well as stronger contacts with local pandits. Others make it their business to assist in any ritual to which they are invited. In this way they develop a competence that exceeds that of their peers. Books are also available and play an important role in the reproduction and legitimation of religious knowledge in Guyana. As Jayawardena (1966) notes, the availability of books, such as the Ramayana, was an important feature that allowed for the ascendancy of the Sanatan Dharma sect in Guyana. Knowledge pertaining to particular Hindu rituals is thus monopolized by a select number of men in the village. Women, though they may be considered pious, do not engage with esoteric ritual knowledge in the same way. With the exception of certain wedding rituals, namely dig dutty or mati kore, women do not conduct rituals without the assistance of a brother, husband or son under normal circumstances. Furthermore, although many families do an annual Jandi as well as other forms of ritual work during the course of the year, relatively few men take an active interest in the more technical aspects of ritual practice. Those that do are thus distinguished by their greater competence. Members of this group of local experts know and occasionally consult one another. The group is, in this sense, self-sustaining although, ultimately, they depend upon non-experts to ratify their expertise. One aspect of this dependence can be examined through close attention to activities such as the giving of advice. Specifically, it is possible to see the way manifestations of expertise are tied to advice-recipients’ displays of uncertainty or exposed incompetencies. In the village, there is a strong expectation that a person will look to an expert within their own patrilocal group for instruction, guidance and advice about such matters as ritual conduct. Such activities are seen as an appropriate form of engagement between members of the same group. Patrilocal groups strive to project self-sufficiency in all things and particularly with respect to the sacred. As a result, instruction or advice given from someone outside the group provides the basis for potentially unwelcome and untoward inferences. Through the giving and receiving of advice, participants are formulated as expert and novice respectively. Such an alignment is not problematic when the roles are appropriately distributed within a single patrilocal group. However, in cases like the one to be examined here, where participants are distributed across two groups the possibility arises of projecting such participant formulations as “expert” and “novice” onto the groups which the individuals represent. At the

Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village 

same time, advice giving between groups offers an important opportunity for the ratification and legitimation of expertise. An advice-giver’s expertise is ratified by the very fact that another seeks him out despite the problems inherent in staging such communicative events across patrilocal group boundaries.

. The interactional organization of advice-giving and -receipt The analysis that follows will show that the participants handled the situation by talking in such a way as to make visible the reasonable grounds for giving the advice.2 For instance, in various places within the unfolding course of the talk, the participants located and displayed uncertainty about future courses of action. Such expressions of uncertainty were treated by the co-participants as a solicitation of advice. In other places, however the would-be recipient of advice guarded against such a finding of uncertainty. In these cases, the advice-giver then talked in such a way as to uncover or ferret out certain incompetencies with respect to particular aspects of ritual procedure. Once revealed, these incompetencies served as a warrant for giving advice. The activity of advising is of particular anthropological interest because, in its course, issues having to do with the interactional organization of knowledge and those having to do with its social distribution are intertwined. A number of studies have demonstrated that speakers are continually making assumptions about what an interlocutor does or does not know and that such assumptions inform the design of their talk. Sacks (1995: Vol. II, 438) suggests that a very general rule in conversation is: “A speaker should orient to the talk’s recipient,” and he goes on to suggest that one consequence of this is that “if you’ve already told something to someone then you shouldn’t tell it to them again, or if you know in other ways that they know it then you shouldn’t tell it to them at all” (Sacks 1995: Vol. II, 438). Goodwin (1979) has elaborated some of the consequences of this rule showing, for instance, that speakers use it in selecting a recipient for their talk. Goodwin (1987) has also shown that a speaker can invite co-participation in the emergent course of talk through displays of not-knowing – for example through a display of forgetting. Pomerantz (1980) discusses cases in which speakers’ tellings of limited access such as “I’ve been calling for hours but yer phone has been busy” are used to elicit explanations. Finally, Labov (1971) discusses similar aspects of discourse organization in terms of A events, B events and AB events, where A events are those known by A, B events those known by B, and AB events those known by both. On the basis of such a categorization of the participants, Labov develops the rule “If A

 Jack Sidnell

makes a statement about a B-event, it is heard as a request for confirmation.” So together these studies and others clearly indicate that assumptions about what another knows play a basic and pervasive role in shaping the turn-at-talk and the sequences of which it is a part. To put it another way, participants orient to the assumed knowledge of their interlocutor(s) and display that orientation in both the design and the interpretation of talk. These studies are primarily concerned with the interactional consequences of the uneven distribution of knowledge. In recent work, a number of linguistic anthropologists have turned their attention to the manner in which this interactional organization articulates with the social distribution of knowledge. For instance, McElhinny (1999) discusses the way in which police officers on call use questions and answers not only to display knowledge of the street but also to suggest that their interlocutors are not revealing all that they know about a situation. Recent studies by both Cicourel (1995, 1999) and Goodwin (1994) have examined related issues having to do with the interactional organization of expertise, showing the various ways in which the social distribution and interactional organization of knowledge co-articulate. The analysis that follows focuses not only on the interactional organization of expertise but also on displays of uncertainty and findings of incompetence. It is suggested that the exposure of uncertainty and incompetence serves the participants as a warrant or reason for the giving of advice.

. Locating and displaying uncertainty in advice-initiation When Sun arrived at her sister’s house, greetings were exchanged and the participants began to talk about Sun’s situation. What happened next can be glossed as follows: Gigi, Indar’s sister, expressed sympathy for Sun saying: Gyal, Sun, na tek ting tu had, wel wa yu gu duu, hi don gaan. Yu ga beg gad fo giyuu helt an strengt jos fu main yu chrii piknii. ‘Girl, Sun, don’t take things too hard, well what can you do? He’s dead. You have to beg God to give you health and strength just to look after your three children.’ A few minutes later, at the point where the transcript given as Extract 1 begins, Sun indicated that she was preparing to leave, saying abi-gaan ‘we’re outta here’ (she had her seven-yearold daughter with her). However, before she could depart, Indar asked her wa yu gu du? ‘What will you do?’ following this up with aiyu du ded wok an soo? ‘Are you (pl.) doing dead work?’ (lines 98–100).3 Sun’s answer to this question, mi na noo wa ma gu duu ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ explicitly man-

Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village

ifested uncertainty as to what to do and, in this way, Sun situated herself as a possible recipient of advice. Extract 1 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114

Sun:

>abi gaan. ma ga gu fo sii piknii nou. Gigi: oo:: Sun: an in dis cheenj, -in shi bin gu bai ting an di cheenj na bin rait. Gigi: soo we yu gu, Ormii? o yeso Sun: Indar: → soo wa yu a duu.= =wa ya duu.= =aiyu duu ded wok an soo? Sun: → mi no noo wa ma gu duu. [mi ( ) ] Indar: [(ii de:::)] (1.0) Gigi: → wel=ia wa yu kyan do= wa lil aiyu kyan afoord, ee ten and toortiin ((truck passes)) Indar: ( ) or wa. ] [a i y u- a i y u Gigi: [>wa lil o aiyu kyan afooo ] Indar: na diisaid if ya guyu mait giv op for am. rait de

We’re outta here. I have to go collect the children now. Oh. And then there is the change She went to buy something and the change wasn’t correct So where are you going, Ermi? yes So what are you doing? What are you doing? Are you (pl.) doing dead work? I don’t know what I’m going to do. I

Well here’s what you can do. What little you (pl.) can afford Eight, ten, and thirteen Or whatever You (pl.), You (pl.) What little you (pl.) can afford Did you decide whether youyou might give up for him right there

Sun’s response to Indar’s question in line 101, mi na noo wa ma gu duu ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ is “problem-indicative” (Heritage & Sefi 1992) and conveys a clear sense of uncertainty. At line 105, Gigi recycles portions of this problem-indicative response in her own turn – she says Wel ia wa yu kyan duu. By reusing select pieces of Sun’s talk, Gigi indicates that the advice given is tied to the uncertainty which Sun’s response manifested. Gigi uses the uncertainty revealed in Sun’s response to Indar’s question to build a preface to advice. These materials illustrate, then, the way in which participants treat such an expression of uncertainty as an invitation to give advice. This is shown not only in the sequencing of turns – that is, in the way





Jack Sidnell

Sun: Mi na noo Main Clause Gigi: Wel hia

gu

duu “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

wa

ma

C

PRO AUX V

wa

yu

kyan duu “Well here is what you can do.”

clausal complement

Figure 2. Tying advice to uncertainty

advice follows a display of uncertainty – but also in the lexical and grammatical features of their design. The grammatical parallelism is shown in Figure 2. So, in this example, we see a clear pattern of talk in which a display of uncertainty sets up and occasions the giving of advice. Indar asks what Sun intends to do, she responds with an expression of uncertainty, and Gigi uses this as an interactional opening to offer advice. However, Indar redirects the talk at lines 110 and 112 asking aiyu na diisaid if yu mait giv op for am rait de ‘Did you not decide whether you – you might give up for him right there.’ We may note of this turn that, first of all, it, like Gigi’s turn just analyzed, is tied to Sun’s problem-indicative-response. Whereas Gigi displayed a relation between her talk and Sun’s by reusing certain key words, here Indar draws on the sense or meaning of Sun’s turn. Sun says: mi na noo wa ma gu duu – that she does not know what to do. But there are a number of respects in which this could be the case – so, for instance, she might not know what food to serve, what to say, when to do it etc. Indar’s turn here attempts to clarify the nature of the uncertainty which Sun’s earlier response conveyed. Specifically, Indar proposes that the uncertainty might be related to the decision of where this ritual is to be held – “give up for him” refers to the ritual itself while rait de ‘right there’ refers in this case to Sun’s house. We may notice the way Indar formats his talk as a question about the making or reaching of decisions and in this way clearly attributes uncertainty to the question’s recipient.

. Certainty and advice closure We have seen that in the course of initiating advice, the participants talk in ways which locate, display and organize uncertainty as a specific, interactionallyrelevant, phenomenon. As further evidence of this, notice that in the following


extract, when the advice-recipient does not sustain the sense of uncertainty, the warrant for the advice is withdrawn. Such interactional moves routinely serve to close the advice-giving sequence underway. Extract 2 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215

Indar:

=an (.) waeva ting Moohun gu nii:d, kyan put wansaid. a shiir Ram said o a gu wan said.o Sun: → ya. o i=tel=mi=put=am=de.o o Indar: ( )o Pria: goo sii mi lef wan

and Whatever Mohun will need can be put on one side. All and only “Ram’s” things go on one side. Ya, s/he told me to put them there. Go and see that I left a

Here Indar describes the way in which objects should be placed in the course of the ritual. In line 213, Sun responds to Indar’s advice first with an agreement token, ya, and, following this, with an assertion of knowledge and a clear expression of certainty about the way to proceed. The agreement token marks Indar’s preceding turn as uninformative by suggesting that Sun has an independent basis of knowledge from which she can agree. We can see the work that ya does here by considering alternatives such as ‘oh’ which would mark the preceding turn as news. Sun’s o i tel mi put am de.o ‘s/he told me to put them there’ describes the basis of the independent knowledge which the ya has claimed. Indar says something barely audible and the talk then turns to other matters. The organization of this response and its interactional consequences show the participants’ orientation to the issues of knowledge, competence and certainty, which underpin the activity of giving and receiving advice. In asserting knowledge of the facts on which she is being advised, Sun effectively closes the sequence. So, just as advice-sequences may be initiated by turns which display or reveal uncertainty or a lack of relevant knowledge, so they may be closed by assertions of certainty or competence. Sun’s turn in line 213 indicates that the uncertainty revealed earlier does not obtain with respect to the matters under discussion in the immediately preceding talk. The warrant for advice-giving is thus withdrawn and the sequence closed. These examples show that potential advice recipients play an important role in establishing and sustaining the uncertainty which serves as warrant for advice. Advice recipients may also talk in ways that reshape or redefine the uncertainty and by this transform the advice-giving activity underway. Consider in this respect Extract 3:

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 Jack Sidnell

Extract 3 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265

Gigi: Indar:

na kal noobadii:: mek (0.2) kopl lil hantouwil an yu stoorii don. Gigi: ya >laik mi se na kal nonbadii gya:l Indar: mi gu asist yuu:, Gigi: na strech yu han: we yu han (.) kyaan riich. Indar: ( ) lisn tu mi Gigi: giv fu tek out Sun: → eniikain=fud ma ku:k? Indar: ye:::s Sun: eniting? Pria: noo::: (0.4) daa:l an rais [an Indar: [boo:jan fuud. Gigi: noo:, wa=shi=miin, na: mii:t an soo:: Pria: Gigi: noo:. >shi noo yu kyaan iit reng= bo=shi miin if a aal-enikainaal kaina ting yu [iit.< Indar: [yu ga tuu: kain. yu ga chrii: kain. na ga speshil kain. (0.5) rait?= Gigi: =kuk balanjii an eda::, balanjii an aluu:, aluu korii:, or bajii: an daa:l an [rais, Indar: [waeva lil bit yu kyan oford Gigi: mangoo chotnii

Don’t invite anybody. Make a couple of hand towels and your business will be done. Ya, like I said don’t invite anybody, girl. I will assist you. Don’t stretch your hand where your hand can’t reach. Listen to me Put in to take out. Can I cook anykind of food? Yes. Anything? No. Daal and rice and Bojan food. No, what she means is Not meat and such No. She knows you can’t eat meat but she means if-all-anykind all kinds of thing you can eat. You have two kinds, you have three kinds there are no special kinds. Right? Cook eggplant and edo eggplant and potato potato curry or spinach and daal and rice Whatever little bit you can afford. Mango chutney.

The extract begins with Indar and Gigi continuing the delivery of advice. Notice the way that Indar and Gigi do this together not just in the sense that they do it at the same time but in that they do it collaboratively, as a joint action. So, for instance, in line 235, Gigi prefaces what is explicitly marked as a redoing


with ya saying ya >laik mi se na kal nonbadii gya:l ‘Ya, like I said don’t invite anybody, girl.’ in this way indicating that she is monitoring Indar’s talk, which is characterized as an elaboration of something Gigi has already said. Sun is facing a virtual barrage of advice here, and her lack of uptake perhaps signals some quiet resistance to the role in which she has been cast (see Heritage and Sefi 1992). In line 240, Indar’s “listen to me” projects another extended and perhaps grave course of advice. Sun, however, intercepts this line of action asking whether there are restrictions on what she can cook for the event. Here, by shifting and re-specifying the domain of uncertainty, the advice-recipient transforms the activity in a number of ways. First, by turning the talk and the advice to the matter of food, Sun undercuts the expertise that Indar claims for himself. Although men often do the most publicly visible aspects of food preparation at ritual events, women are not excluded from this activity. Furthermore, “what to serve” is a decidedly non-esoteric feature of the ritual. As Indar himself remarks about the food in line 256, “there are no special kinds.” In re-specifying the domain of uncertainty, then, Sun creates a context in which advice from Gigi and Pria, who do not claim any expertise in the more esoteric and technical aspects of ritual, is just as authoritative as that given by Indar. Although it is Indar who initially responds to the query, he is subsequently corrected by Pria in line 245. Indar then attempts to clarify his initial yes and to show that he meant the same thing as Pria when she said daal an rais. But it is Gigi who ends up delivering the most explicit and complete advice on this issue (lines 259–262).

. Blocking advice: Finding an alternate warrant In Extract 1, Sun’s response to Indar’s question displayed uncertainty, and the participants treated this as an invitation to advise her. In the final extract to be examined, Sun’s response is constructed in a wholly different manner to display competence and certainty rather than uncertainty. When Sun, in this way, does not go along with Indar in constructing a warrant of uncertainty, Indar talks so as to suggest inadequacies in the descriptions of her intended course of action. The sequence begins with another question from Indar. Here he asks about ritual objects saying wa yu kyer ‘What will you take with you?’. When Sun responds by initiating repair with mhm? Indar rephrases the question asking more generally what she intends to do at the canal. Such inquiries invoke a domain of esoteric knowledge associated with the ritual. Indar is thus directing

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 Jack Sidnell

the talk to matters over which he claims expertise and in this way he usurps the role of advice-giver from Gigi and the other participants. Extract 4 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171

Indar:→ Sun: Indar:→ Sun: →

Sun: →

Baby: Sun: Gigi: Indar: Sun: Baby: Indar:

→ Sun: Indar: → →

wa yu kyer mhm? wa yu gu duu a kanal? ii tel mi kyer piis laplii::z, an di langfinga, an gu beed. (0.2) yuu noo wa a miin beed an chroo an see somting. (2.0) [mmmmhmmmm] [( )] wa yu son neem? huu da? Chachii, [Harii dadii [wiidipaniii wach mii. (.) wel yu-yu-yo-yo, rait. yu kyan du yu work. wel ai noo:: yu kyaan wel, (0.2) rait we yu gu de, we yu waak todee yu gu tomara marnin, (1.5) yu gatu get som tin. wa? gu a Malsing an bai som tin. i gu noo: a wa. >jos see yu waan tin. tek kopl griin liif di maarnin kom pon a seem branch sii wa(wa moos siim laik i de.) rait? an yu beed,

What will you take with you? mhm? What will you do at the canal? (She) told me to take a piece Lapis, and the longfinger, and then bathe. You know what I mean? Bathe and throw and say something. mmmmhmmmm What is your son’s name? Who (told you to do that)? Chachii, Harry’s Daddy () Look here. Well yo-yo-yo-yo, right. You can do your work. Well, I know you can Well, right where you were, Where you were today You go there tommorow morning You have to get some tin. What? Go to Malsing and buy some tin. He will know what it is. Just say you want some tin. Take a couple of green leaves in the morning which come from the same branch see what ( ) Right?, and then you bathe


172

an yu chroo di wata ova yu.

and you throw the water over you.

. . . Advice continues. . .

Of course, like any ritual, the one under discussion in this extract is understood to have certain constitutive rules and can therefore be done correctly or incorrectly. By invoking this framework of correct and incorrect conduct, Indar designs his turn, at line 139, as an exam question. Searle suggests that: “In real questions the speaker wants to know (find out) the answer; in exam questions, the speaker wants to know if the hearer knows“ (Searle 1969: 66; see also Heritage 1984: 284). Indar is clearly not asking this question so that he can be informed. Rather, the questions at line 137 and 139 project an evaluation of Sun’s competence in this area. Sun’s description of what she intends to do and carry is clearly to be evaluated in relation to an understanding of the ways in which this ritual is properly and correctly conducted, and by asking these questions Indar situates himself as one who could determine the adequacy of the answer. Sun first attempts to answer Indar’s question by detailing the items she intends to take with her to the canal. However, when this is not met with a positive evaluation (e.g. some indication that she will be able, with these items, to satisfy the requirements of the ritual), she goes on to mention bathing and “saying something” (145). Sun reaches the possible completion of her turn, first at the end of 142 and again, when Sun twice recompletes the turn, in lines 144 and 145. At each of these points, Sun has produced a turn that is grammatically, prosodically and pragmatically complete. At any of these points, another

140 Sun:

ii tel mi kyer piis

141

laplii::z, an di langfinga,

142

an gu beed.

143

(0.2)

144

yuu noo wa a miin

145

beed an chroo an see somting.

146

(0.2)

Points of Possible Completion

Figure 3. Points of possible completion in Sun’s answer turn

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 Jack Sidnell

Indar’s questions wa yu kyer? wa yu gu duu a kanal? wa yu go duu a kanal?

Aspect Ritual Objects: Ritual Actions: Location:

Sun’s response piis lapiliiz, an di langfinga kyer, beed, chroo, see somting beed

Figure 4. Answering the question

speaker could have taken a turn without being heard as interruptive. Indar is thus provided several places where he could evaluate and comment upon Sun’s intended course of action as she has described it. An exam question such as the one Indar has posed creates a position not only for an answer but also for an evaluation of that answer in third position. By withholding a third turn receipt, evaluation or comment after Sun reaches possible completion, Indar treats her answer as incomplete. Indeed, Sun orients to Indar’s lack of uptake and receipt by issuing a standard understanding check – yu noo wa a miin? ‘You know what I mean?’. This, then, is a pivotal point in the sequence as it unfolds. By not speaking in the place provided, Indar suggests inadequacies in Sun’s description of her intended course of action.4 Indar’s initial inquiry then opens up a field of esoteric-specialist knowledge as a domain of scrutiny. In her response to the inquiry, Sun displays an understanding of the practices and objects constitutive of the ritual event. Her response does not convey uncertainty or doubt. On the contrary, Suns’ response is designed to answer explicitly each aspect of the question that has been posed of her. Note then that Indar’s question invokes three aspects of ritual practice: ritual objects through the use of kyer, ritual actions through the use of duu and a location through the mention of kanal. Sun responds to each component of the question. This is illustrated in Figure 4. So whereas in the earlier sequences Sun appeared to invite the advice given, here, by responding to each component of the question with an expression of certainty, she attempts to block it. However, the question was designed in such a way that any omission from the list of ritual objects could be taken as evidence of Sun’s incompetence. We have seen that by withholding third-turn receipt, Indar suggests inadequacies in Sun’s descriptions. When he eventually does respond, Indar initiates repair of the pronoun used in line 140. In asking huu da, Indar requests the name of the person who has instructed her in the execution of the ritual. In doing so, Indar is once again delaying his response to Sun’s description of her intended course of action. Such delay routinely turns out to preface and

Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village 

project disaffiliation, particularly when the means for doing it is repair. Also, in repairing the pronoun, Indar is attempting to clarify with whom exactly he is disaffiliating. Sun gives the names in lines 151–152 and Indar then begins a turn with “watch me” in line 153. Although this turn contains the advice, that action is again severely delayed by other talk. This other talk includes an attempt to formulate what follows it as standing in “agreement” with what Sun has said. This is seen in Indar’s use of rait ‘right’ and in his explicit acknowledgement of Sun’s ability to do the work. We can see here some of the practices of speaking which participants use to contextualize talk within a regulated and unevenly distributed framework of expertise and esoteric knowledge. Indar’s question redirected the talk to a limited field of knowledge within which he could claim authority as an expert (see Schutz 1964; Lambek 1993). Now, in delivering the advice, Indar foregrounds his own expertise and brokers access to esoteric ritual knowledge. Indar refers to tin which is pronounced in a way that suggests it was designed to be misheard. When Sun fails to recognize the object so referenced and initiates repair, Indar does not attempt to inform her, but rather indicates that Malsing will know what it is. He says i gu noo a wa. jos see yu waan tin ‘He will know what it is. Just say you want some tin.’ He is clearly suggesting that Sun need not know what tin is, but only know to ask for it, Indar thus defines a domain of esoteric knowledge and practice which he and co-experts alone command. At the same time, Sun is cast in the role of one lacking in competence. The talk situates her as “the woman on the street”: one for whom “recipes indicate procedures which can be trusted even though they are not clearly understood” (Schutz 1964: 122). For a person such as this, “the desired result can be attained without questioning why the procedural steps have to be taken and taken exactly in the sequence prescribed” (Schutz 1964: 122). In advice-giving activities such as those that have been examined here, the uncertainty and incompetence predicated of the advice-recipient have a flipside in the expertise and authority of the advice-giver. Over the course of giving advice, “uncertainty” and “authority,” “incompetence” and “expertise,” though derived as pragmatic inferences from sequences of talk and action, are available to the participants as real and interactionally consequential phenomena.

. Ritual procedure, advise and the finite clause What we have been considering is just a piece of the practical underpinning of a practice – a discussion or conversation in which the external and constraining

 Jack Sidnell Form

Line number Example

Stem [N ø V]

159 171-172

yu gu tomara marnin an yu beed, rait?, an yu chroo di wata ova yu.

Imperative [ø V]

163 165 166-168

gu a Malsing an bai som tin. jos see yu waan tin. tek kopl griin liif di maarnin kom pon a seem branch

Modal [N gatu V]

161

yu gatu get som tin.

Irrealis [N gu V]

not used

yu gu gu tomara marnin

Imperfective not [N a/doz V] used

yu a gu, yu doz gu

Figure 5. Advice formats: Alternative grammatical packaging

features of the ritual are located, described and debated so that the relevant practices may be held up and evaluated against them. I want to consider briefly the way this is done in and through the talk between Indar, Sun, Gigi and Seeta focusing in particular on the structure of the finite clause – the verb and its modification by various preverbal elements as well as its relation to associated core arguments. Returning to Extract 4, we can notice that in the very first line of the transcript Indar employs the stem form of the verb with no pre-verbal marking. The default interpretation of the stem form with dynamic verbs (such as kyer ‘carry’) is perfective – that is, as completed action viewed as a whole, and, by implication, past. Now here, that interpretation is at odds with the participants’ apparently shared understanding of recent events. Although Sun has begun some of the early preparations for the ritual she has not at this point yet performed it. It is not surprising then that what follows this turn is a problem of understanding, a repair initiator and a redoing with modifications which clarify precisely the temporal and aspectual reference of the question. After Indar acknowledges Sun’s ability to do the work in the ways discussed earlier (as pro-forma appreciation initiating advise), he starts to advise Sun and at line 159 explicitly instructs her. The two canonical ways in which this is done are present in this fragment and will be considered momentarily but here Indar employs neither. Rather, he once again employs the stem form of the verb. In order to understand what Indar is doing here we need to see that, in using the stem form, he is selecting this option from a range of alternative formats.


The last two alternatives shown in Figure 5 – although pragmatically possible – are not used in this sequence. The imperative construction, formed by use of the stem form without an explicit nominative argument, delivers an instruction on Indar’s authority – it does not attempt to justify the instruction nor does it attempt to locate an authority for the instruction in something beyond Indar’s own expertise. In comparison, the modal form explicitly invokes external constraint – in this case it is not just Indar’s say-so, it is the way things must be done that is at issue. By use of the modal construction, Indar does not so much instruct as report an external constraint which must be acknowledged and taken into account. The construction which Indar selects at line 159 (and at 171–172) neither instructs (like an imperative) nor reports the constraint (like the modal) but rather describes the action, albeit an action that has not yet been performed. It does not describe what has happened but rather what, normatively, must or should happen. We may note that this use of the stem form is similar to its use in proverbs. For instance: Dag wa ∅ bark plenti, ∅ ron wen taim kom fu fait ‘A dog that barks a lot, runs when its time to fight,’ or Wan wan dotii ∅ bil dam. ‘Successive pieces of dirt build a dam – i.e. Every little bit adds up.’ The thing about proverbs is that they are not just true for now – they are true generally. The truths which they convey, though sometimes obscure, are understood as more or less timeless. The time reference in these examples is neither imperfective nor perfective – it is nomic. That rather special meaning is conveyed by the co-occurrence of the stem form of the verb and the bare noun (ø dag, ø dam). In proverbs, then, the temporality is nomic – it is not contingent. Indar’s use of the stem form in line 159 conveys something similar. If we consider the distribution of the different formats in this extract, we find that Indar uses the imperative construction to instruct Sun in actions which are preparatory and not in the work itself (163, 165, 166). So, for instance, he uses the imperative to tell Sun to go to Malsing and buy some “tin.” In contrast, he uses the modal construction to report pre-requisite ritual requirements – things that must be done not as practical requirements (like going to Malsing) but as preliminary steps in the ritual. The acquisition of tin is a ritual requirement. Finally, the nomic stem forms are used to describe the ritual procedure itself. The effect of Indar’s formatting here is it to characterize the ritual as something that exists essentially out of time – as a social fact whose exteriority and constraint impose themselves on Sun in a completely anonymous fashion.



 Jack Sidnell

unsolicited

initial inquiry problem-indicative -reponse (line 101)

other response (lines 140–145)

suggested inadequacies

Advice (not included)

Advice Extracts #5

Advice Extracts #8

Figure 6. Pathways to advice

. Advice and uncertainty Although in some cases uncertainty emerged as a problem-indicative response to inquiry, or as displayed in a question such as enikain fud ma kuk? ‘Can I cook any kind of food?’, elsewhere uncertainty was denied altogether through asserting a prior understanding of the matters under advisement. Likewise, incompetencies were suggested over the course of an extended segment of talk which simultaneously served to position Indar as an expert. One of the contexts in which people routinely deal with uncertainty is in giving and receiving advice. We can examine such sequences of advice-giving and -receipt to find the ordinary ways in which people handle uncertainty. Such advice sequences present cases in which the criteria for assigning uncertainty are thrown into relief and made available for analytic inspection. In the course of these activities, participants work to locate, display and co-construct uncertainty as a precondition and warrant for giving advice. The uncertainty that is, in this way, located is not a property of an individual mind, it is not a mental state, rather, it is a co-constructed and public phenomenon which participants orient to as an intersubjectively sustained aspect of the activity they are engaged in.

Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village 

. Conclusion One of the themes of this volume is the Goffmanian notion of “face” and its elaboration in sociolinguistic theories of politeness. The present paper has dealt with neither concept: some explanation seems warranted. Goffman more or less single-handedly fashioned a field of study – the study of “face-to-face” social interaction – out of nothing. Before Goffman, this was simply not considered a topic worthy of social-scientific study. As such, Goffman’s work represents a foundational moment in the emergence of a new field – one to which all the contributors to this volume and likely many readers are to varying degrees committed. However, in many respects, Goffman’s work elaborated a well-established and long standing tradition of social-scientific analysis and failed to constitute the kind of radical innovation that might otherwise have been possible. At the root of nearly all of Goffman’s analyses and descriptions is the individual. Goffman’s principal theoretical and analytic concepts (face, self, stigma, mortification, status etc.) treat the individual as the basic unit of analysis. Schegloff (1988) points out that there is a tension in Goffman’s own work. While he suggests in Interaction Ritual that “the proper study of interaction is not the individual and his psychology, but rather the syntactical relations among acts of different persons mutually present to one another” in his own work it is not, in fact, those “syntactical relations” which receive the lion’s share of attention. Clearly, despite his programatic assertion quoted above, Goffman felt that some kind of “individual psychology” was a vital component of any adequate account of interaction. Thus he writes: “what minimal model of the actor is needed, if we are to wind him up, stick him in amongst his fellows, and have an orderly traffic of behavior emerge” (1967: 3). The minimal model is not hard to find in Goffman’s writings: people generally act in such a way as to preserve both their own face and that of the various others with whom they come into contact. Those who don’t act in such a way are subject to various forms of negative social sanction and stigma. As Schegloff (1988) remarks: “Goffman did not escape the study of the drivers and their psychology to focus on the traffic of behavior.” Rather, despite his frequent assertions to the contrary, Goffman’s “perduring entanglement with ‘ritual’ and ‘face’ kept him in the psychology” (Schegloff 1988: 94). So even where formal, generic organizations – those sytactical relations between acts – are described, they “remain tied to a particular job, a job defined by the contingencies of ritual organization and face preservation” (Schegloff 1988: 95).

 Jack Sidnell

It would not be difficult to develop an analysis of the materials presented in this chapter which took as its point of departure the Goffmanian notions of face and its sociolinguistic elaboration in theories of politeness. In fact the following well-known passage from Goffman might well be seen as summarizing and distilling something essential in the encounter between Sun and Indar: Every person lives in a world of social encounters, involving him either in faceto-face or mediated contact with other participants. In each of these contacts, he tends to act out what is sometimes called a line – that is, a pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts by which he expresses his view of the situation and through this his evaluation of the participants, especially himself. Regardless of whether a person intends to take a line, he will find that he has done so in effect. The other participants will assume that he has more or less willfully taken a stand, so that if he is to deal with their response to him he must take into consideration the impression they have possibly formed of him. The term face may be defined as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes – albeit an image that others may share, as when a person makes a good showing for his profession or religion by making a good showing for himself. (1967: 5)

It would then be possible to elaborate the normative order of role relations and ritual constraints and so draw from this encounter, in Goffmanian fashion, a set of generalizations about the relations (in this society) between men and women, between members of different patrilocal groups, between religious experts and novices. Such an analysis – if developed with the kind of rigor and attention to detail which characterizes much, if not all, of Goffman’s oeuvre – would surely be compelling and revealing in its own way. Such an analysis might draw attention to the differential distribution of ritual knowledge as a key element in the social organization of the village, pointing out that at various critical points in their lives, for example births, deaths, and weddings, women like Sun find themselves searching for the right way to do things. On such occasions, they may turn to people like Indar who are acknowledged experts. The advice they receive, on such occasions, tends to cast them in a particular role – as one who does not, and need not, understand what is involved in the performance of ritual. Some of the most important events of their lives are in this way bound to displays of uncertainty and findings of incompetence. Although as the analysis has tried to show, women are not resigned to this situation, the economy of knowledge in which they struggle to assert certainty is a gendered one in which expertise with respect to ritual conduct is associated almost ex-

Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village 

clusively with a select group of senior men. And so, in contrast to Sun, Indar routinely plays a prominently public role in ritual work. When opportunity arises, Indar assists an elderly pandit, often fetching him on his bicycle and chauffeuring him to the event. The activity of advising provides Indar with an opportunity not only to display his expertise but also, at the same time, to have that expertise acknowledged and confirmed by others. In this sense, these ordinary speech events play an important role in the legitimation of knowledge and expertise. However, an analysis of this sort might also be expected to fail on at least two levels: first in terms of the relation between data and analysis, and second in its capacity to reveal what is, I take it, the thing that we, as analysts, are after – those underlying formal and generic organizations of talk which make these actions and this trajectory of action happen. On the first point, it may be noted that if we were to treat this encounter as an expression of face-wants and ritual requirements, it is not at all clear how such an analysis might be constrained by the data. Is what happens here a function of the particular kinship relation holding between these participants or, rather, the fact that one is a man and one is a woman? Alternatively, or perhaps in addition, is the particular pattern of face-threat and preservation an outcome of the fact that Gobin is an acknowledged expert and Sun a novice? The problem here is not easily solved since a potentially infinite list of possibly relevant normative, cultural, socio-structural and biographical features of the selves involved can be easily generated. The problem resists solution, I would suggest, because it asks us to look in the wrong place for an answer.5 My worry here can be simply stated: if we make face and the presentation of self the focus of analysis, how will we insure that the analysis arrived at is controlled in a rigorous way by the data in front of us? The second issue is not unrelated. If the individual (in one of his/her many guises) is made the unit of analysis, we run the risk of obscuring those very practices we are at pains to explicate – those practices, in this case, of giving and receiving (or resisting) advice, or, more accurately perhaps, those practices of speaking which make such actions happen. By refocusing the analytic lens on the practices of speaking (those syntactical relations among acts) and by refusing to assume the relevance of standard sociological and anthropological concepts of “self,” Goffman’s students Sacks and Schegloff effected the kind of radical departure missing in their teacher’s own work – and in the course of doing so discovered an enormous domain of previously unnoticed phenomena. Noting that the two are often mistakenly equated, Lynch (1993: 258–259)

 Jack Sidnell

contrasts such a molecular sociology (i.e. conversation analysis) with the kind of microsociology Goffman developed: A key difference between a microsociology, in which individual actors are the most elementary constituents, and a molecular sociology, in which embodied techniques are foundational, is that the latter units are essentially plural and heterogeneous. There is no idealized concept of the fundamental sociotechnique parallel to that of the social actor. Instead, CA’s molecular sociology begins with a conception of social order in which different combinations of heterogeneous techniques produce an endless variety of complex structures. This conception is distinctive for the way it is social structural all the way down. The basic unit of analysis is not an ideal-typical “actor” or “self ” but a plurality of socially structured techniques through which orderly social activities are assembled.

In terms of the preceding analysis, the conversation analytic focus on practices highlights the extent to which phenomena such as expertise and uncertainty are not solely (or even primarily) properties of individuals but are rather firmly rooted in observable relations between and within turns-at-talk. Schegloff argues that there is an imbalance in Goffman’s work and studies of interaction generally such that ritual requirements and constraints (face wants etc.) are emphasized to the near-exclusion of the arguably anterior and underlying formal, generic organizations of talk-in-interaction. He writes that if the imbalance is to be redressed “we must focus not only on the face which individuals cultivate by doing what they do; we must focus on what they are doing, on how they are doing it, on the demonstrable uptake of that doing by co-participants, and on how the participants together shape the trajectory of the interaction thereby, and vice versa, that is, how the trajectory of the interaction shapes the participants . . . the moments not the men” (Schegloff 1988: 100).

Notes . In most cases, and normatively, these rituals are undertaken by the deceased’s own patrilocal group. Mohun, however, had had a strained relationship with members of his patrilocal group. In fact, when Mohun and Sun married, they went against the norm for patrilocal residence by building a small house on land belonging to Sun’s family. . My analysis of advice-giving draws heavily on that provided by John Heritage and Sue Sefi (Heritage and Sefi 1992). . Notice that this sequence of two questions involves a replacement of an “informationseeking” question by one which is “confirmation-seeking.”

Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village  . As a number of studies have shown, a response which is witheld or delayed is routinely understood as foreshadowing a dispreferred response – here that is clearly a negative evalutation of Sun’s response to Indar’s question. . Conventional solutions to such worries are predominantly of two sorts. The quantitative approach examines a preferably large number of cases to arrive at answers in the form of probabilities and correlations between categories (gender, age etc.). The qualitative approach typically makes recourse to ethnographic evidence of norms, values or native understandings revealed either in interview or manifested in spontaneous talk and action.

References Cicourel, Aaron V. (1995). “Medical speech events as resources for inferring differences in expert–novice diagnostic reasoning.” In U. M. Quastoff (Ed.), Aspects of Oral Communication (pp. 364–387). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. Cicourel, Aaron V. (1999). “Expert.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 9, 72–75. Goffman, Erving (1955). “On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction.” Psychiatry: Journal of Interpersonal Relations, 18, 213–231 [rpt. in Interaction Ritual (pp. 5–46)]. Goffman, Erving (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face behaviour. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Goodwin, Charles (1979). “The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation.” In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology (pp. 97– 121). New York: Irvington Publishers. Goodwin, Charles (1987). “Forgetfulness as an interactive resource.” Social Psychology Quarterly, 50(2), 115–131. Goodwin, Charles (1994). “Professional vision.” American Anthropologist, 96, 606–633. Heritage, John (1984). Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press. Heritage, John & Sue Sefi (1992). “Dilemmas of advice: Aspects of the delivery and reception of advice in interactions between health visitors and first time mothers.” In P. Drew & J. C. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at Work (pp. 359–419). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jayawardena, Chandra (1966). “Religious belief and social change: Aspects of the development of Hinduism in British Guyana.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 8(2), 211–240. Labov, William (1971). “The study of language in its social context.” Studium Generale, 23, 30–87. Lambek, Michael (1993). Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte: Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery, and Spirit Possession. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Lynch, Michael (1993). Scientific Practice and Ordinary Action: Ethnomethodology and Social Studies of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McElhinny, Bonnie (1999). Working on gender: discourse and women in a police department. Ms. University of Toronto.

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Pomerantz, Anita M. (1980). “Telling my side: ‘Limited access’ as a ‘fishing’ device.” Sociological Inquiry, 50, 186–198. Sacks, Harvey (1995). Lectures on Conversation. Volumes I and II. Gail Jefferson (Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1988). “Goffman and the analysis of conversation.” In P. Drew & A. J. Wootton (Eds.), Erving Goffman: Perspectives on the Interaction Order (pp. 89–135). Cambridge: Polity Press. Schutz, Alfred (1964). “The well-informed citizen: An essay on the social distribution of knowledge.” In A. Broderson (Ed.), Alfred Schutz. Collected Papers Vol. II: Studies in Social Theory (pp. 120–134). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Searle, John (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Meaningful routines Meaning-making and the face value of Barbadian greetings Janina Fenigsen University of South Carolina

This article attends to the relationship between register choice and face-work within greeting practices in Arawak Hill, Barbados. Drawing on this analysis, the article considers pragmatic functions of greetings and factors that figure in their construction. First, by showing that greeting routines through their intertextual links with past events, relations, and conversations can become a site of ideological contestation, I call into question the universal function of greetings as a “courteous indication of recognition” (Duranti 1997: 66). Next, by attending to contextual and intentional factors that motivate Barbadian register choices and their interpretations, I demonstrate that rhetorical inflections of voice and face-work are not always formally encoded. Without altering their formal properties, Barbadian greetings can serve a subversive, satirical purpose. This need to anchor voicing and its pragmatic meanings in interpretation and intentionality rather than in linguistic markers alone (Bakhtin 1981: 292; see also Woolard 1998), suggests important limits to formal analysis. Keywords: Greetings, face-work, register choice, Bajan

Miss Farley!1 Yeees, all right!

.

Introduction

As in many other places around the world, in the Barbadian village of Arawak Hill good manners and respect for others call for an exchange of greetings.2

 Janina Fenigsen

Although their uses and forms may vary, greetings are an important part of daily life in almost all societies.3 So commonplace they may seem almost inconsequential, greetings serve us to acknowledge each other’s presence and to initiate, maintain and manage social contacts. Most scholars agree that the purpose of greetings is to maintain friendly, though not necessarily egalitarian, relations with others (Bach and Harnish 1979; Duranti 1997; Irvine 1989; Searle and Vanderveken 1985). The majority of Arawak Hill greeting practices serves precisely this purpose. However, in my research, I also encountered instances of greetings where speakers drew on conventionally polite forms to introduce invidious subtexts and, in one case, to terminate rather than maintain a friendship. In this article, I approach these events as an opportunity to explore the relationship between the form, meaning and social function in greetings, rather than as problematic exceptions. In what follows, drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork and data recorded in Barbados in the years 1994 and 2002, I discuss the strategies for meaningmaking in Arawak Hill greetings. I will argue that the strategic properties of greetings stem from the synergy between their conventionality and rich indeterminacy of meaning of the linguistic forms that coalesce into greeting registers. I will propose that meaning-making in greetings emerges as a dialogic process that depends on the negotiation of multiple interpretive frameworks anchored in a multiplicity of contexts that include socio-historical contexts filtered through the individual experiences of the participants (Bakhtin 1981: 289–292; Verschueren 1995). Various analytic approaches assume that the universal purpose of communication is to achieve shared understandings about the meaning of discourse: a state of mutual knowledge about the speaker’s communicative intentions (Grice 1968; Schiffer 1972). I will suggest that, at times, the purpose of communication is to obscure its meaning. Because of their role in social encounters, greetings are important to analysts of the negotiation of social interactions and relations through language (Duranti 1992, 1997; Goody 1972; Irvine 1989).4 The students of the social role of greetings draw on a range of approaches, methodologies and assumptions, particularly Speech Act Theory and the ethnography of communication.5 Analysts influenced by Speech Act Theory approach greetings as expressive speech acts that convey the attitudes and feelings of the speaker (Searle and Vanderveken 1985). Within this framework, the potential of any speech act to become a social act – that is, to influence the state of social affairs – depends on the conventional force of the utterance (Austin 1962; Searle 1969, 1976). In interaction, the realization of this potential hinges on a range of situational criteria (“felicity conditions”) that, in the classical formulation of

Meaningful routines

Speech Act Theory, centrally include sincerity and intentionality (Austin 1962; Searle 1969). Bach and Harnish (1979) later suggested, however, that some speech acts, such as greetings, apologies, and condolences do not need to meet the sincerity conditions, because their performance is obligatory on particular occasions regardless of whether they reflect actual feelings and attitudes. Despite their attention to contextual conditions of performativity, classical Speech Act theoreticians attribute the performative force of speech acts to their formally encoded semantic value. To address situations where the literal semantic meaning of the utterance does not account for its performativity, such as indirect requests, Grice introduced the concept of implicature, that is, of situated inferences through which the hearer relates the form of utterance to meaning assumed as intended by the speaker (meaning nn). A successful inference for Grice requires those involved in the interaction to have access to the semantic content of the utterance, its context, specific assumptions about the cooperative nature of verbal interactions, and the relevant background knowledge (Grice 1975, 1978). Because of these complex metalinguistic conditions, termed by Schiffer (1972) “mutual knowledge,” an utterance can result in multiple inferences, only some of which would be successful. Further, any implicature can be canceled either by contextual circumstances or by accompanying words. Even this brief overview shows that within these two related frameworks communication is a rather precarious enterprise whose success can be aborted at any point. Although in this analysis I will question Grice’s perspective on the intentionality of the speaker as unproblematic and his definition of communicative success as the alignment between intentionality and implicature, Grice’s recognition of the multiplicity and contextuality of meaning and of its processual unfolding in communication supports well the concern with the negotiation of interpretive frames and, more broadly, with discursive strategies. The ethnography of speaking offers other tools for addressing the negotiation of social relations through greetings. Attending to the referential content of Samoan greetings, Duranti (1997) challenged the position of the Speech Act analysts that greetings are routines of no predicative value. He suggested that the Samoan “Where are you going?” type of greeting, used to gather information about the other’s whereabouts, can work as a form of social control. In her analysis of Wolof greetings, Irvine (1989) foreshadowed the more recent, semiotically informed work on language ideologies by showing that the Wolof strategies of status manipulation depend on the presupposed status indexicality of the sequential organization of greetings and of the varieties of Wolof. Because the two main varieties of Wolof are conceptualized by the speakers as sociolects unequivocally associated with the nobles on the one hand and the



 Janina Fenigsen

griots on the other, they can function as registers used across the social rank to entail the statuses claimed by the speakers. Because greetings are relatively routinized as are the understandings about their registers, they entail a framework that presupposes specific correlations between particular forms of greetings and kinds of social ties and contexts. By charting the domain of quotidian, unmarked behavior, this framework invests practices that depart from it with a potential to shift the relationships between speakers in the direction the marked choices entail.6 Because the markedness and the resulting meaning of these strategies emerge in the play on co-occurrences presupposed between the registers and contexts of greetings, they are less available to reflection and articulation, less quotable in gossip and other discursive censorship, than the referential aspects of the utterance (Fenigsen 2003; Silverstein 1981). The ability to tinker with one’s relationships with others without burning bridges is particularly important in communities, such as Arawak Hill, characterized by dense social networks and close mutual monitoring (Scott 1985) These unmarked conventional practices then serve as a backdrop for the analysis of greetings that depart from and “flout” (Grice 1957, 1967) local norms and expectations.

. Contextualizing registers In contrast to earlier concerns with model-building, the more recent work on the variation in creole languages has been increasingly attentive to the ways linguistic variation serves speakers to negotiate the business of everyday life (Edwards 1983; Escure 1982; LePage and Tabouret-Keller 1985; Patrick and Payne-Jackson 1996, Patrick 1997; Reisman 1970; Rickford 1979; Sidnell 1998; Winford 1994). But in order to understand the relationship between linguistic practices and their social contexts, we need to look more closely at the processes that invest linguistic forms with social meaning. Barbadian discursive practices and language relations draw on the juxtaposition between two varieties used in Barbados since the seventeenth century: Barbadian English and Bajan, a Creole that evolved on plantations. Over time, Bajan and English have substantially converged. Yet, although their boundaries blur as the speakers shift between and play on Bajan and English forms, Barbadians draw a sharp contrast between their social functions and status. Bajan, considered a dialect by some Barbadians and broken English by others, is the language of the home, the street, arguments, blue-collar working class, courtship, hip-hop and calypso (Fenigsen 2000). No joke can come off

Meaningful routines

right in a ‘tight-lipped British accent’; no courted girl will fall for it (even if her parents may); and one can only really lose one’s temper in Bajan. In contrast, English is a requisite for good jobs, good schools, and the membership in the elite networks (Fenigsen 2003). These presupposed distinctions motivate the linguistic choices that Barbadians make in everyday life as they discursively inhabit and negotiate their social roles, statuses and relations. These discursive practices depend on the regimentation of registers with regard to particular contexts, speech genres, and the kinds of interpersonal relations. Barbadians adjust to suit, that is, shift between Bajan and English registers, by drawing on a range of lexical, phonological and morpho-syntactic devices, often against the linguist’s rules of formal co-occurrence (Fenigsen 2000). Adjusting to suit requires that the speaker selects a linguistic variety according to contextual properties such as the relative status of the participants, the kind of speech event, and – in dealing with outsiders – the other’s linguistic repertoire. The registers are invested with values that reflect and guide their presupposed contextual usage. Like vernacular speakers in other settings (Woolard 1989), Barbadians link Bajan with solidarity, naturalness, humor, and familiarity, while English indicates social distance, formality, and good education. Speakers note that English should be used with persons of higher status, on formal occasions, and, at times, to display one’s control of this variety. English is also appropriate when one’s interlocutor’s ability to understand Bajan is problematic, particularly with foreigners (Fenigsen 2000). These metapragmatic norms closely resemble diglossia, where code-choice is associated with particular settings, activities and categories of speakers (Gumperz 1982: 60–61). But Barbadian discursive practices also involve metaphorical shifts that draw on these associations to entail different topics, genres, or multiple relationships among the same individuals. The ensuing analysis will consider the ways these complex dynamics plays out in Arawak Hill greetings.

. Registering contexts . Greetings in Arawak Hill A common type of Arawak Hill greeting is calling-up, a brief exchange such as the one that opens this article. Although calling-up usually takes place under circumstances that prevent people from engaging in a “proper conversation”



 Janina Fenigsen

(Sacks 1975: 69), it is important.7 One day during my fieldwork in 1994, Mrs. Husband visited Mrs. Farley, her neighbor and friend. Noticing Mrs. Husband’s plastic bags bulging with groceries, Mrs. Farley dryly remarked, “You went Bridgetown this morning? I en [neg.] hear you.” Mrs. Husband responded with apologies. She didn’t call-up because she was in such a hurry that she nearly missed the bus. She was really, really sorry. Even when Mrs. Farley left the room, Mrs. Husband continued to explain how badly she felt about behaving like an “ignorant (rude) person.” She had a good reason to be concerned. In spite of its succinctness and minimal predicative content, calling-up is seen as essential for the ongoing renewal of social networks and is obligatory among adults who respect each other. As many other foreigners, I failed to appreciate the importance of calling-up until I was censored by Nigel, Mrs. Farley’s nephew. Nigel, who had lived in England for many years, was aware that calling-up was a “Bajan thing” whose importance might not be appreciated by a foreigner like me. He worried, though, that others might interpret my communicative inadequacy as a sign that “we not getting along good.” If not calling-up might strain a relationship, performing the routine may help repair it. One night, Mrs. Farley and Mrs. Alleyne, her relative, had an argument. Mrs. Alleyne overheard Mrs. Farley criticizing her son Corsie for not taking good care of his car which got stranded in another parish the previous night. Mrs. Farley was particularly upset because Hartley, her favorite nephew, spent hours helping get it home and could not visit her as promised. Mrs. Alleyne overheard her relative’s remarks and rushed to her son’s defense. The exchange left the women parting in anger and Mrs. Farley vowed not to speak to “certain people” ever again. Next morning, however, as Mrs. Alleyne was passing by, we heard her resounding “Miz Farley!” followed right away by Mrs. Farley’s “Yees, Alright.” But what if Mrs. Alleyne had not called-up? “I done with she,” flatly announced Mrs. Farley. . Identifying registers in a creole continuum For concerns with code-switching as a motivated practice where intervarietal contrasts serve speakers to create distinctions of meaning, the salience and varietal membership of linguistic features have to be considered from the speaker’s rather than linguist’s perspective.8 This issue comes to a sharp relief in linguistic settings such as creole continua, where pragmatically salient linguistic distinctions obtain between closely related varieties. The grammatical and lexical overlaps often result in the ambiguity of code-membership of linguistic forms and intervarietal boundaries and make decisions about the

Meaningful routines

code-membership of linguistic forms problematic for the analyst and participants (Fenigsen 2000, 2003; Winford 1994; Woolard 1998; see also Gumperz 1982: 84–86). While the need to anchor the analysis in the judgment of the participant may seem rather obvious for the student of code-switching, it merits reiteration: if the form “counts” as English to the participant, it is English for the purpose of analysis.9 To identify the locally salient distinctions, I paid close attention to metadiscourses, such as corrective practices in the classroom, language debates in the media, and representations of Bajan in print (Fenigsen 1999, 2000). For the analyses of code-switching included in this study, I consulted speakers and other participants in particular interactions about their own varietal classifications of specific forms. In their comments, those elicited as well as occurring naturally, Arawak Hill speakers point to a small set of formal features as intervarietal markers, notably the occurrence of copula, verb morphology, phonological contrasts between interdental fricative vs. dental-alveolar stop, and alveolar nasal vs. velar articulations of V-ing final nasal (Fenigsen 2000). This is how, for example, Mrs. Holden from Arawak Hill commented to me on distinctions between Bajan and English and their contextual uses, “Greeting ordinary person or a friend we say, ‘how you goin’; to someone of a higher caliber, ‘how are you going’; to an overseas person like you-so, ‘how are you going.’ (You) can’t talk (to them) Bajan way, no matter what their (the foreigner’s) standing, he ent (neg.) able to catch what you telling he.” As this utterance pair shows, metapragmatically salient distinctiveness of the two registers may hinge on minimal metonymic tokens of syntax (the Bajan and English VP paradigms) and phonology (the Bajan alveolar V-ing final nasal and its English velar alternant). Other features that speakers in Arawak Hill use to explicate the distinctions between Bajan and English include the contrast between the unmarked and marked past tense paradigms in verb morphology. .. Metapragmatic conformity The conventional register choices in greetings reflect the relationship between the greeting person and the others, particularly the degree of familiarity and relative status. At times, the choice may reflect the participation structure of the event. When the speaker’s consideration for all of the participants would dictate conflicting register choices, the speaker’s actual choice may prioritize the addressees, that is, persons to whom the talk is directed rather than the hearers of the discourse.



 Janina Fenigsen

Example 1. Registers of familiarity This exchange took place on a sugar plantation near Arawak Hill. On my way to join the weeding team for my first day of apprenticeship as a weeder, I happened upon Mrs. Ramsey weeding the cane rows. Mrs. Ramsey knew me well already. When we first met, Mrs. Ramsey frequently used English syntax, notably the copula-full VP. I witnessed her routinely use this register in greeting her pastor at church. In the following exchange, however, she used Bajan syntax (S plus V-ing and unmarked past tense verb, lines 3 and 5) and phonology (alveolar word-final nasal), in boldface in the transcript. 1

Mrs. Ramsey

2

Janina

3

Mrs. Ramsey

4 5

Janina Mrs. Ramsey

6 7

Janina Mrs. Ramsey

Guud mornin Jen Good morning, Jen Guud morning Good morning Yu lukin eroun? You looking around? Yes Mister Sobers keeri yu heer? Mister Sobers carry you here? Yes Olrait (returns to weeding) Alright

Mrs. Ramsey’s choice in this sequence, typical of her conversations with family, friends and co-workers, reflected our long-standing familiarity amplified, as she noted later, by my status as a novice weeder.

Example 2. Register shifts A woman from the plantation headquarters asked the weeders to sign condolences for a man whose wife had passed away. In the greeting sequence (lines 1 and 2) and in the next turn (line 5) she used Bajan register, marked by copula-less Bajan syntax in the continuative phrase (line 3) and by Bajan phonology (alveolar word-final nasals, lines 1 and 3), represented in boldface in the transcript. However, reading aloud the text on the card, she switched to English phonology (voiced and voiceless interdental fricatives, lines 8 and 9), in underlined italics. 1 2

Office woman Guud mornin leedis Good morning ladies Weeders Mornin morning Morning, morning

Meaningful routines 

3 4 5 6 7 8

Office woman Hau evrybodi goin? How everybody going? Weeders Guud guud foin Good good fine Office woman Ai brin yu a kar for Mister Pee sympaty kar for yu tu sain tu I bring you a card for Mister P. sympathy card for you to sign to (send?) tumorro (send?) tomorrow Weeder Sain wer? Sign where? Office woman (reads the card) On dhe loss of yor biloved waif wi wish tu konvey On the loss of your beloved wife we wish to convey ar fiilingz of sympathy in toim of yor sorou our feelings of sympathy in time of your sorrow

The Office woman’s choice of Bajan in the greeting and her next turn conforms to the conventional framework that stipulates the choice appropriate for the core addressees. Although I was there, my presence, marginal to the event, should not and did not affect her choice. Under the circumstances, English would be appropriate only if she were to address me personally. The regimentation of her switch in lines 8 and 9 to interdental fricatives, the emblematic phonological markers of English, seems doubly motivated by the register demands of the written text and the seriousness of the subject matter (Fenigsen 2000).

Example 3. Register shifts Carmen and Pat, relatives of Mrs. Farley, paid her a visit. The sisters worked in an insurance company in Bridgetown and live in Oistins. At first, Mrs. Farley, her vision and hearing fading away, did not recognize the visitors. Bajan forms are in boldface, English alternants are in underlined italics in the transcript. 1

Carmen

2

Mrs. Farley

3

Carmen

4

Mrs. Farley

Guud mornin aunt Liz Good morning aunt Liz Mornin mornin hu de person iz? Morning morning who the person is? Karmen Hau yu goin? Carmen. How you going? Praiz dhe Lor, ai stil hier Praise the Lord, I still here

 Janina Fenigsen

5

Pat

6

Janina

7

Carmen

8

Mrs. Farley

9

Pat

10 Mrs. Farley 11 Carmen

12 Mrs. Farley

13 Carmen 14 Janina 15 Pat 16 Janina 17 Carmen 18 Pat 19 Janina 20 Pat

(to me) Hau ar yu? Aunt Liiz, how yu goin? How are you? Aunt Liz, how you going? Thenk yu aim fain Thank you I’m fine (to me) Dhet mai siste Pat (unint.) That my sister Pat (to me) move dhet, bring dat cheer over hier move that, bring that chair over here (to me) Dhet’s Ol rait, (to Mrs. Farley) yor hip stil hertin yu? That’s alright, (to Mrs. Farley) your hip still hurting you? de peen en gan ewee, oul eej no sport, man the pain en gone away, old age no sport, man Ai bring yu sam Vapo Veyporab (a heating ointment) Marla, Boisi sista de I bring you some Vaporub, Marla, Boysie sister, the wan et de farmasi send um for yu tu troi one at the pharmacy send him for you to try Ai en ekspek yu keri nan for mi, de lov stil dhere, yu hier? I en (neg.) expect you carry none (nothing) for me, the love still there, you hear? En hau yu miin (turning to Janina) So yu duuin Ol rait? And how do you mean. So you doing alright? Ou ya, aim duuing Ol rait, geting on widh mai werk Oh yeah, I’m doing alright, getting on with my work (to Janina) Iz dhis yor firs vizit tu Barbeydos? Is this your first visit to Barbados? No, bat for dhe firs taim No, but for the first time Yu stey long inaf You stay long enough So yuv bin hier bifor dhen. Hau ar yu injoing Barbeydos? So you’ve been here before, then. How are you enjoying Barbados? Ai riili laik it I really like it (to Carmen) Yu goin help shi wid she kar? You going help she wid she car?

Mrs. Farley’s initial inquiry, directed at unfamiliar visitors, includes the English existential stative “is.” This form would be omitted in Bajan register and here metonymically indexes the English one (line 2) despite its co-occurrence with

Meaningful routines 

Bajan phonology. Once the identity of her relatives was established, Mrs. Farley shifted to Bajan register, marked by the copula-less construction of VPs (lines 10 and 13), the negator /en/ (lines 10 and 12), and a double negative (line 12). Carmen and Pat used Bajan syntactic and phonological forms talking to Mrs. Farley and to each other. Carmen also used Bajan with me. Pat switched between Bajan and English forms, depending on her addressee. She used Bajan syntax and phonology talking to Mrs. Farley and to Carmen: the copula-less continuative VPs (lines 5 and 20), and the pronominal “she” in the objective case, in the utterance context where English usage would involve the objective case pronoun “her” (line 20).10 Bajan phonology in Pat’s discourse includes the alveolar V-ing final consonant (lines 5, 9 and 20). These Bajan features of Pat’s discourse are limited to her two turns directed at Mrs. Farley and Carmen. Talking to me Pat switched to English alternants.11 While Pat’s codeswitching strategy conformed to the rules for adjusting to suit, Carmen’s undifferentiated use of Bajan forms to me breeched the norm of selecting the code according to the variety spoken by the interlocutor: my own usage during this exchange, while displaying my non-native control of English, was not Bajan and one would expect Carmen to use “plain” English as her sister did. When we first met, Carmen initially used English register with me, only eventually shifting to Bajan. Carmen articulated her attentiveness to the code choice by asking if I minded her speaking the “Bajan way” to me; she noted that once she had gotten to know me better, Bajan felt more natural. The difference between the sisters’ strategies of registering their different relationships with me suggests the hierarchical structuring of Barbadian metapragmatic frameworks such that the positioning of interlocutors along the nexus of social distance and closeness overrides the consideration of/for a foreign speaker. Eventually, Pat too came to speak to me in Bajan.

Example 4. Register shifts Les Sobers, a neighbor and employee of Eric Forde, came to discuss some workrelated matters while I was visiting with Mr. and Mrs. Forde. On his arrival, Mrs. Forde was in the kitchen, next to the entrance door. I was sitting with Mr. Forde in the living room, hidden by a partition from the visitor’s sight. Because Mr. Forde, engaged in a narrative, did most of the talking, at first Mr. Sobers had no visual or acoustic clues of my presence. While still outside, Mr. Sobers announced his approach by calling, “Mister Forde!” Greeted by Mrs. Forde’s “Ol rOit,” he proceeded to enter the house. Bajan forms are in boldface, English in underlined italics on the transcript.

 Janina Fenigsen

1

Les Sobers (entering kitchen) Mister Forde, iivnin. (to Nita Forde) Hau yu goin miz Mister Forde (good) evening. How you going Miss Forde? Forde? 2 Nita Forde (in the kitchen) Yu wont Erik, hi dey (nods in our direction). You want Eric, he (is) there 3 Eric Forde (continuing the narrative) wot hapen, so ai start toking, ‘ai nou dat’ what happened, so I star talking, “I know that” 4 Les Sobers (enters living room and notices me) Hau du yu du How do you do 5 Eric Forde (continuing the narrative) dis This 6 Nita Forde (joining us, to Mr. Sobers) Yes ser! Yes sir! 7 Janina Guud iivning Good evening 8 Eric Forde Guud iivning, Les Good evening, Les 9 Les Sobers Hau ar yu duuing How are you doing? 10 Eric Forde Jus teekin it iizi, maan, having a litl diskashn heer Just taking it easy, having a little discussion here 11 Les Sobers Iz about de van wot breek daun at Prospek Is about the van what break down at Prospect

Mr. Sobers’ initial turn (line 1), addressed to his boss and Mrs. Forde is in the polite, casual register used by familiar adults in Arawak Hill. It includes the formal address (mister\miz plus last name), a formulaic temporal deixis (“morning” or “evening”) and an inquiry about the other’s well-being. The inquiry can be treated either as purely formulaic (Mrs. Forde’s response in line 6) or as information-seeking (Mr. Forde’s response in line 10). The register is indexed here by the Bajan VP and the Bajan alveolar V-ing final consonant (line 1). The use of the English alternants in this social context would be marked and would invite the criticism of “talking great,” that is, putting on airs (Fenigsen 2000). As soon as Mr. Sobers became aware of the presence of an outsider, he shifted the register to English. In this second phase (lines 4–9), he recycled the greeting sequence by replacing the first, casually polite Bajan (line 1) with the register-repair accomplished through the syntactic and phonological features

Meaningful routines

of English: the copula-full VPs (lines 4 and 9) and the velar V-ing final nasal (line 9) that contrasts with the earlier, alveolar articulation. In a parallel to Example 3, the shift above shows the sensitivity of the Barbadian normative metapragmatics to the presence of a foreign speaker – interpreted by the Arawak Hill speakers as an accommodation – and to the relative positioning of the interlocutors along the nexus of social closeness and status.12 .. Metapragmatic departures Greetings have been often theorized as expressions whose function is to provide a “courteous indication of recognition” (Searle and Vanderveken 1985: 216; Bach and Harnish 1979: 51–52) and to avert animosity. Hill (1998) shows that greeting routines may have a more complex job to do by design.13 But even in Arawak Hill, where speakers consider the maintenance of good will and social networks the central function of greetings, greetings do not always display a positive affect or strengthen networks: speakers can use the greeting routines to tease and alienate and to enact and entail conflicts and tensions. I close this discussion of Arawak Hill greetings by considering greetings that, by departing from and playing on the local normative metapragmatics, shift the relations between the speakers.

Example 5. Intentions clash with form I was at Mrs. Farley’s front yard pulling weeds when Kassanne got off the 10:15 bus. I was surprised to see her walk straight into the “gap” (a driveway), flamboyant in her tight denim shorts, skimpy top and thick platform shoes. Until that day, Kassanne had avoided Mrs. Farley. As I straightened up and looked at her, she said, “Good morning, mistress, how are you going today,” and turned around and left. Mrs. Farley, who must have been observing the incident from the inside, immediately appeared in the doorway. “A sheer mockery, man,” she commented right away. “Just look at she, how she talking, talking, insulting people like that! I would give she a ‘mistress!’ No manners, no manners at all,” chimed in Mrs. Stanford, a next door neighbor. And sealing up the social distance just initiated by Kassanne’s formal choice, Mrs. Stanford announced, “she en know you, you en know she, fine with me!” From then on, we were not to be friends anymore. So, what had just happened? What was it about? Why would a courteously phrased greeting invite such response? Although Kassanne, by entering Mrs. Farley’s premises where she was not welcome and refusing me the opportu-



 Janina Fenigsen

nity to respond, had committed multiple etiquette violations, the aspect of her performance targeted by the censorship of others involved her address choice. “Mistress,” an address form required of servants in the affluent households in the old days, is still used by hucksters (street sellers) to customers and by the staff in some households. In contrast to “madame,” the honorific address used in ceremonial discourse, “mistress” presupposes distance and status asymmetry. As the above incident shows, these presupposed qualities invest “mistress” with a creative potential for shifting the footing of relationship. Kassanne exploited this potential to distance herself from me and, by doing so, made me face the consequences of my neglecting her for several weeks. Kassanne has a scandalous reputation in the village. She is considered an obeah woman and reckless in sexual relationships. Mrs. Farley reluctantly tolerated my contacts with her until Kassanne’s son injured Mrs. Farley’s relative with a collins (machete) during a gambling dispute (Fenigsen 2003). By obliging Mrs. Farley’s request to stop visiting Kassanne, I brought upon myself her discursive retribution: the use of “mistress,” instead of my first name, and of the distancing, formal English register. In other words, Kassanne’s greeting became effective through its divergence from the register presupposed by the context.

Example 6. Honorifics that just won’t go away Mrs. Farley’s recollections of growing up as a daughter of a “butler” (handmaid) at one of the Barbadian “great” houses in the 1920’s demonstrate the pragmatic salience of the hierarchical implicature entailed by “mistress.” At this point in her narrative, Mrs. Farley animates voices of the past: of her own young self, and of the white lady of the house. Janina And when you said a word a Bajan way she would correct you? Mrs. Farley Correct you? Yes! “Now, Elise, you must not say so, you must say so and so” “Yes, Maam. Yes please, Maam,” (self-corrects) “Yes please, Mistress.” You keen (could not) say “Yes please, Maam,” “Yes please, Mistress!” (pause) I learned a lot there.

In today’s usage, “mistress” has retained its historical connotations. Candice worked for Dorothy, an English woman who lived with her Barbadian husband in an old plantation house, as a housekeeper (her phrasing), or a servant (her female employer’s phrasing). The couple’s status in the village was ambiguous. The residents respected the husband for his enterprising spirit and hard work that allowed him to move away from his “poor white” origins but viewed his wife as “putting on airs.” As a young village teacher put it, “she trying to live a colonial fantasy, them days gone, you know.”

Meaningful routines 

Candice told me that, at the beginning, Dorothy insisted on being addressed as “mistress.” Candice considered the request “outdatish” (outmoded) and presumptuous. As she told me laughing, she continued to use “Miz (last name),” pretending to be forgetful. Eventually, her employer compromised. She asked Candice to address her as “mistress” only when she had company. Candice obliged. She was able to narrowly regiment the deferential register as entailed by just one of her multiple roles in the household rather than as presupposed by her essentialized status. Motivated by its historical grounding in the oppressive pragmatics of Barbadian colonial discourses, “mistress” continues to be an intertextual locus for the negotiation and contestation of those hierarchies of today that aspire to establish their iconic equivalencies with the past. It is precisely this metapragmatic loading of “mistress,” I suggest, that charges Candice’s resistance to it and its subversive appropriation by Kassanne. By drawing on this marked form, Kassanne has succinctly communicated that she has seen through my absences, reclaimed control over the relationship and managed mockingly to recast it in terms unflattering to me. The next example provides further evidence of the collusion between this address form and the register choice in creating a subversive, ironical voice.

Example 7. Homage or “homage”? Dorothy, an English woman, visited Mrs. Farley to meet Pauline who was seeking employment at Dorothy’s farm. When Dorothy first moved into the area she visited Mrs. Farley frequently but eventually the visits stopped. In the five months I lived with Mrs. Farley, this was Dorothy’s first appearance and the elderly Mrs. Farley felt quite bitter about the neglect. Until I moved in with her, Mrs. Farley had lived alone, her mobility limited by arthritis and fading vision, and her social life dependent on visits from others. And Dorothy’s visits were particularly important to her. Mrs. Farley’ father was a white plantation owner and the alignment with the white world was a significant part of Mrs. Farley’s sense of self. By stopping her visits, Dorothy denied Mrs. Farley the access to that world. While telling me about her grudge and irritation with the other’s perceived haughty manner, Mrs. Farley noted that this white woman always expected to be paid “homage.” But what did she mean by “homage,” I asked. “You want know homage? You wait girl, just wait,” Mrs. Farley responded with an impish grin. English alternants in Mrs. Farley’s discourse are in underlined italics, Bajan alternants are in boldface.

 Janina Fenigsen

1

Dorothy

2

Mrs. Farley

3

Dorothy

5

Mrs. Farley

6

Dorothy

7

Mrs. Farley

8

Dorothy

9

Mrs. Farley

10 Dorothy 11 Mrs. Farley



HelO Misyz Farlii Hello Mrs. Farley Guud morning, Miztres Good morning, Mistress Hau ar yu? How are you? Hau ar yu, not wel How are you, not well Yu luuk wel You look well Yur kiiping wel, ai ent sii yu for e very long taim You’re keeping well, I ent (neg.) for a long time Nou, ai now, wel No, I know, well Mai lav, mai lav iz stil dher My love, my love is still there Dhats rait, hau ar yu, Ol rait? (extends hand for a hand shake) That’s right, how are you? Alright? (hiding hands in the apron) mai hendz ar dirti (from cooking), mai lav iz my hands are dirty (from cooking), my love is stil hiir for yu still here for you Thenk yu very mach (chuckles), end hau iz yor nii? Thank you very much, and how is your knee? Nii? miztres, da peen gan nau from de nee ap in de hip, ai dragin nau laik Knee? Mistress, the pain gone now from the knee up in the hip, I dragging now like old, old leedi old, old lady Lisen tu mi, yu ken get dhat opereishn dan hier nau, yu nou Listen to me, you can get that operation done here now, you know Wot? et dis eej? What? At this age?

A range of formal and ideological phenomena contribute to the complex dynamics of this exchange, characterized by – to borrow a phrase from Bakhtin (1981: 271) – centripetal communicative conventions (Gumperz 1982), intentions, and interpretations. Its formal layer includes a shift in Mrs. Farley’s

Meaningful routines

discourse from English to Bajan (line 13) that marks the ending of the greeting phase. The exchange shows the struggle between the speakers about the purpose of the greeting genre, resolved by Dorothy’s accommodation (line 12). Its ideological layer is laminated by conflicting intentions and interpretations as each speaker pursues a different vision of her situated self and the relationship with the other. While the conclusion of the greeting phase is eventually accomplished by both speakers within the same zone of conversational turns (lines 10–12), it is achieved by each along different discursive dimensions: functional for Mrs. Farley, and formulaic for Dorothy, reflecting their different notions about the purpose of greeting. The ideological tensions submerged in the discourse are never resolved. Mrs. Farley’s discourse includes two formally distinct phases. In the first phase (lines 2–11), Mrs. Farley uses English register, the copula-full VP (lines 4, 6, 8, and 10). The only variance occurs in the second VP (line 6) that includes the Bajan negator, “ent.” In contrast, in line 13, the copula disappears and both VPs take a Bajan structure. The register shift also involves a phonological replacement of English interdental fricative (line 8) by Bajan alveolar stop (lines 13 and 16). The first phase is further characterized by English word-final velar nasals in V-ing and other forms (lines 2 and 6).14 The English register of Mrs. Farley’s greeting gives way to Bajan (line 13), marking the termination of the first, “greeting” phase of the exchange.15 For many English speakers, greetings function as primarily phatic formulae (Sacks 1975). According to Sacks, even when greeting may formally resemble an information-seeking inquiry (e.g. “how are you?”) it is not to be interpreted as “genuine” information seeking and is expected to elicit a formulaic “fine.” In contrast, Barbadian metapragmatic conventions (see also Duranti 1997) treat greetings as information-seeking. The exchange between Mrs. Farley and Dorothy displays these conflicting notions about communicative purposes of the greeting. The resulting tension appears in the structure and content of conversational uptakes (lines 4 and 5). Mrs. Farley treats Dorothy’s “hau ar yu?” (line 3) as an initiation of a “diagnostic sequence” (Sacks 1975: 70) by responding “not well” (line 3). An appropriate Bajan uptake would be a further inquiry inviting the interlocutor to elaborate on the condition. Within this framework, Dorothy’s uptake (line 5) presents itself as challenging Mrs. Farley’s statement. This interpretation is reinforced by Dorothy’s attempted repair of Mrs. Farley’s response by the reiteration of “hau ar yu?” (line 9) followed by the modeling of “appropriate” “Ol rait?”. This tug-of-words continues as Mrs. Farley shifts attention to Dorothy’s long-lasting absence (line 6), a complaint that would elicit excuses, explana-



 Janina Fenigsen

tions and assurances from a Barbadian interlocutor but is merely acknowledged by Dorothy’s “nou” (line 7). Mrs. Farley still follows up with the assurances of her continued affection (lines 8 and 10–11) acknowledged by Dorothy’s minimal uptake (line 9). Finally, Dorothy shifts toward the content with an inquiry grounded in her (outdated, as it turns out) knowledge by asking about Mrs. Farley’s arthritic knee (line 12). At this point of the exchange, the two women accomplish the conclusion of the greeting phase: as Dorothy moves to the information-seeking phase, Mrs. Farley switches to Bajan register and pursues the discursive goals she had been bidding for in the previous turns (lines 13–14). The analysis, so far, has demonstrated the discursive cross-purposes of the speakers for which we could sufficiently account by appealing to their motivating metapragmatic frameworks. But does Mrs. Farley follow her subversive script? And, how can we tell? After all, her register choice conforms to the Bajan conventions for greeting a distant person of higher status. Two features of the discourse suggest that Mrs. Farley does, indeed, turn this respectful register into its parody: her use of “mistress” instead of its acceptable alternative “Miz,” and the repeated statements of affection, strikingly profuse in comparison with her usage in Example 3. According to Bakhtin, in the parodic stylization “the intentions of the representing discourse are at odds with the intentions of the represented discourse; they fight against them, they depict a real world of objects not by using the represented language as a productive point of view, but rather by using it as an exposé to destroy the represented language” (1981: 364). The voice reanimated by Mrs. Farley in her performance, originally belonged to sixteen-year-old Elise Alleyne, yet to become Mrs. Farley, addressing her “mistress”; a voice that even then, some seventy years ago, was not authentically her own. It reluctantly conformed to the register demands of the elite whites and young Elise would go out of her way to avoid its use. Now, decades and histories later, she takes it on to settle accounts, old and new; perhaps to challenge not just that voice and her interlocutor but also the hierarchical relations that had shaped it. The implicit parody of Mrs. Farley’s discourse hinges on its multiple and complex contextualizations – the pre-text of the encounter, that is, the framing discussion of “homage”; the biographic and interactional histories of the interlocutor; and the discursive registering of broader socio-historical processes – rather than on the formal leakage of speaker’s intentions. Its interpretation depends on one’s familiarity with, and positioning within these contexts. Mrs. Farley’s neighbor and friend, Pauline, who witnessed the exchange but not the discussion of “homage,” later noted that Mrs. Farley knew how to approach

Meaningful routines 

those “high whites” and get a “good laugh.” A Barbadian college student, who listened to the recording without knowing anything about the participants, thought Mrs. Farley’s discourse self-denigrating by catering to the Britishaccented woman. What was the meaning of Mrs. Farley’s performance, then, for its direct addressee? For Dorothy, the colonial past of Barbados was an object of intense interest. In her free time, Dorothy researched the history of Barbadian plantations and collected letters and diaries of colonial women. Did she indulge in a “colonial fantasy?” I would not know. I do know, however, that she talked about Mrs. Farley as polite, “quite sensible,” and someone who “knows her place,” attributing these qualities to the “training” in Mrs. Farley’s colonial youth. This training, in Dorothy’s view, provided Mrs. Farley with valuable housekeeping skills (which Mrs. Farley would be first to acknowledge), and with the understanding of the “real contributions of the British to Barbados.” Driving me to her farm, Dorothy commented on Mrs. Farley’s unfaltering devotion, displayed during our just concluded visit. While she thought Mrs. Farley’s professions of affection exaggerated, she seemed to take them in good faith, “This is how she is, decent old thing.” Dorothy may well have seen through Mrs. Farley’s performance choosing not to admit it. But regardless of the sincerity of her post hoc assessment, by drawing on the discursive framework of colonial past, she was able to reframe Mrs. Farley’s “homage” as homage.

. Conclusions In the first analytic move, the analysis presented above shows that for Arawak Hill speakers greetings open up an interactional zone for the negotiation of social relations and provide a discursive resource for these negotiations. The strategic uses and utility of greetings, I argue, derive from their conventionalization that puts in sharp relief (or, “marks”) any practice that departs from the taken-for-granted habitus of communicative life (Bourdieu 1977: 79). By playing on the metapragmatic norms and expectation about the greeting genres, the speakers can enregister the preexisting and emergent properties of context to either strengthen or weaken their social networks; to maintain or unsettle their relationships with others. And, the conventions at play are clearly not just about the form of greeting utterances. They pertain, instead, to the normative presuppositions about indexical linkages between linguistic forms and the properties of context that correlate particular greeting registers with the properties of context.

 Janina Fenigsen

In the next analytic move, these metapragmatic conventions point to a hyphen-less fusion of the “social” and the “linguistic” of sociolinguistic phenomena, such as registers, within the speakers’ metapragmatic reflection as well as in greeting practices themselves. The ways in which Arawak Hill speakers distinguish between Bajan and English in their greeting strategies problematize the formal typological separation of “dialects” and “registers” (Halliday 1964, 1978; see also Irvine 2001). In his influential formulation, Halliday treats “dialect” and “register” as discrete, nested levels of linguistic variation such that registers (context-level variation) are building blocks of dialect (populationlevel variation). These two types of variation depend, in his view, on different kinds of formal contrasts: while registers differ primarily in semantics, dialects differ in phonetics, phonology and “lexicogrammar” (Halliday 1978: 35). But the Barbadian data problematizes the notion that the distinction captures different kinds of linguistic variability. In addition to some semantic contrasts, Bajan speakers construct pragmatically distinct registers by drawing on the dialect-level (phonetic, phonological, and grammatical) differences they construe as differences between Bajan and English. It is precisely the association of these formal linguistic markers with particular populations and their presupposed qualities and histories that motivates their functioning as registers. This hybrid indexicality of linguistic forms (Bauman & Briggs 2003) characterizes, too, the forms of address. Candice’s refusal to address her employer as “Mistress” (Example 6) echoes the colonial experience of Mrs. Farley and others: the structures of feeling (Williams 1973) that are still embodied in and implicated by the form. If the meaning of linguistic forms depends on their discursive histories etched in the memories and consciousness of the speakers, how then are we to know how much context is enough? I do not think we really can; not even in the seemingly less problematic cases when the formal choices that speakers make appear to coincide with the normative metapragmatics. As Mrs. Farley taught me by staging her “homage,” even a very close fit between discursive forms and their situational context may not be close enough to preclude the subversive inflections of the voice. This realization has methodological consequences. Because participants in greetings, conversations, and other communicative performances may select from multiple and not always formally marked contextual frames of relevance and interpretation, there can be no preestablished set of formal guidelines for the analyst to decide in advance what local or broader contextual aspects are communicatively relevant (Silverstein 1992). The only way we can hope to be able to get there is by being closely attentive to the situated discourse, to its broader histories, and to the interpretations

Meaningful routines 

provided by those who discursively negotiate the daily business of their lives. Because such comments and interpretations may not be complete or shared, and the participants may walk away with quite different understandings of the event, they underscore the indeterminacy of meaning and suggest that the ways we use words are messier than our pragmatic models would allow. Signs are inherently multiaccentual (Rommetveit 1974; Vološinov 1973: 23–24), infused with metapragmatic meanings by their intertextual links with other times and other places, and their interpretive outcomes are uncertain. Perhaps our ability to do things with words depends on just that.

Appendix: A note about transcription Bajan has no standardized orthography. Although it has been represented in literary and journalistic written texts, these spellings are diverse, internally inconsistent and, often pressed into the service of derogatory representations of Bajan, they carry the ideological marks of these usages. For excerpts analyzed for their referential content, the transcription is done in standard orthography, only altered enough to reflect the morphological level of intervarietal distinctions. For discourse analyzed for its formal properties, I use Rickford’s (1979) adaptation of Cassidy’s phonemic system. As Rickford points out, this system is easier to use than the IPA and is familiar to scholars working in the region. I follow texts so represented with their rendition in British English orthography. Consonants: b voiced bilabial stop p voiceless bilabial stop d voiced alveolar stop t voiceless alveolar stop g voiced velar stop k voiceless velar stop gy voiced palatal stop ky voiceless palatal stop m bilabial nasal n alveolar nasal ng velar nasal ny palatal nasal v voiced labio-dental fricative f voiceless labio-dental fricative dh voiced interdental fricative

Vowels: ii high, tense, front unrounded i lower-high, lax, front unrounded ee mid, tense, front unrounded e lower-mid, lax, front unrounded a low/open, short, central unrounded aa low/open, long, central unrounded ai falling diphthong oh lower-mid, long, back unrounded O lower-mid, short, back rounded Oi falling diphthong o short, central unrounded, unstressed, or short, back unrounded, frequently stressed ou falling diphthong oo long, mid, back rounded

 Janina Fenigsen

th z s zh sh j ch l w r y h ?

voiceless interdental fricative u lax, lower-high, back rounded voiced alveolar fricative uu tense, high, back rounded voiceless alveolar fricative voiced alveopalatal fricative voiceless alveopalatal fricative voiced alveopalatal affricate voiceless alveopalatal affricate alveolar lateral labio-velar approximant/semi-vowel alveolar approximant/semi-vowel, and rhotic palatal approximant/semi-vowel voiceless glottal fricative glottal stop

I use the following transcription conventions and abbreviations, adapted from Rickford: ( ) enclose my interpolations, including words not actually uttered but helpful for understanding, indications of speaker’s nonverbal behavior, as well as paralinguistic features of discourse such as (laughter), (hesitation). I include such features when I consider them relevant for interpretation, rather than – as in conversation analysis – as a systematic effort to represent the organization of discourse.

Notes . All place and personal names in this article are fictive to protect the privacy of my interlocutors. . My warm thanks go to the inhabitants of Arawak Hill who made this research possible. My research in 1994 was funded by the Research Institute for the Study of Man and Sigma Xi. My research in 2002 was funded by the University of South Carolina, Special Program in the Aid of Research. Special thanks are due to the anonymous reviewer for insightful and supportive comments. I dedicate this paper to the memory of Mrs. Hurley, Mr. Best, Mrs. Stanford and Mrs. Marshall from Arawak Hill. I miss them very much. . Basso (1972) suggests that greetings are absent among the Apache. For a review of research on greetings see Duranti (1997). . Although most of the research on greetings concerns verbal greetings, greetings do not have to depend on verbal behavior. . These different perspectives reflect some fundamental differences between the two traditions: one anchored in the philosophy of language with strong theoretical emphasis and a

Meaningful routines

marginal commitment to empirical research; the other driven by ethnography and interest in situationally embedded communicative practices. . The concept of “markedness” was developed by Jakobson (1932) and other members of the Prague School. Grice captured this quality of meaning through his notion of “flouting.” In Gricean terms, then, the implicature of these greeting practices would stem from the “flouting” of the co-operative principle (1975, 1978). . Depending on the circumstances, Arawak Hill greetings may follow diverse scenarios. When, for example, people meet on a busy town street, the exchange is often limited to a formulaic mutual acknowledgment, usually, “how you goin?” “fine, fine.” When greeting is a prelude to a more extended conversation, the opening inquiry, such as “how you going,” carries a “diagnostic” (Sacks 1975: 70), rather than purely phatic function, eliciting information about the greeted person’s well-being and state of affairs. In contrast to the American preference for the avoidance of interpreting the sequence as a diagnostic sequence, and offering a “lie” in response should it be initiated (Sacks 1975: 76), according to Bajan norms, in response to such a query it is appropriate to divulge whatever problems one may be facing. Moreover, the other is then expected to cooperate in the maintenance of the “diagnostic sequence” (Sacks 1975: 70–71) by further inquiries. In Arawak Hill, a failure to make such inquiries is callous. . Reflecting on the notion of the code in code-switching, Peter Auer comments: The ‘objective’ statement by the linguistically or semiotically trained analyst that a given arrangement of signs constitutes a combination of elements of two systems is not only very difficult to make at times. . . it is also irrelevant. (Auer 1998:13) . The consensus among the participants of interaction about the varietal membership of particular form can be problematic as Barbadian speakers may differ in the boundary placement (Roy 1984) among themselves and from the linguist. Depending on the context, even for the same Barbadian speaker a particular form may either “pass” for English or Bajan (Fenigsen 2000, 2003). . Bajan syntax in Carmen’s speech includes a copula-less construction of interrogative phrases (lines 3, and 14), the absence of stative “is” in the evidential phrase “dhet mai siste Pat” (line 7), unmarked for past tense verb form “bring” (line 11). Carmen also uses an undifferentiated for gender pronoun “um” (line 12). The Bajan phonology includes the alveolar V-ing final consonants (lines 1, 3 and 14). Because in the Bajan discourse of many speakers English interdental fricative articulation of /dh/ is frequent, I do not consider Carmen’s such articulation in line 7 a phonological switch. These Bajan syntactic and phonological features also occur in Carmen’s discourse directed at me (lines 7, 14). . English syntax in Pat’s discourse includes copula-full construction of continuative verb phrases (lines 5 and 19) and the use of the auxiliary stative “is” in affirmative and interrogative constructions (lines 9 and 16). English phonology in Pat’s discourse includes the velar V-ing final nasal. These English syntactic and phonological markers exclusively occur in the segments of Pat’s discourse directed at me. . The classic evidence of the metapragmatic implicature of T/V forms along the dimensions of social status and distance is found in by Brown and Gilman (1960).



 Janina Fenigsen . Jane Hill (1998: 78) reports the use of obscene “inverted greetings” in Mexicano by young men as shibboleths for testing the ethnicity of strangers met on the roads. . The distribution of the velar nasal in Bajan discourse is mainly motivated by syntax (Roberts 1988: 54), though some exceptions occur (see Note 15, below). While the velar nasal is used in the way that corresponds to standard English in nouns (e.g. “thing”) and basic verb forms (e.g. “sing,” “ring”), the alveolar nasal is used in the continuative verb forms (present participle, in Robert’s terminology) and is distinct in Bajan and other Englishrelated Caribbean Creoles. V-ing, then, is a good place for identifying shifts to English. . It is problematic whether the word-final alveolar nasal in “dragin” (line 13) should count as a shift feature. Its following phonological environment includes an alveolar nasal in the word-initial position (“nau”), which often leads to alveolarization even by the speakers who routinely velarize word-final “-ing” nasals in other phonological environments.

References Auer, Peter (1998). “Introduction: Bilingual conversation revisited.” In P. Auer (Ed.), Codeswitching in Conversation: Language, Interaction and Identity (pp. 1–24). London, New York: Routledge. Austin, John. L. (1962). How To Do Things With Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bach, Kent & Robert M. Harnish (1979). Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1981 [1934–1935]). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. M. Holquist (Ed.), C. Emerson & M. Holquist (Transl.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Basso, Keith (1972). “‘To give up on words’: Silence in Western Apache culture.” In P. P. Giglioli (Ed.), Language in Social Context (pp. 67–86). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Bauman, Richard & Charles L. Briggs (2003). Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1977 [1972]). Outline of a Theory of Practice. R. Nice (Transl.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Roger & Albert Gilman (1960). “The pronouns of power and solidarity.” In T. Sebeok (Ed.), Style in Language (pp. 252–282). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Duranti, Alessandro (1992). “Language and bodies in social space: Samoan ceremonial greetings.” American Anthropologist, 94, 657–691. Duranti, Alessandro (1997). “Universal and culture-specific properties of greetings.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 7, 63–97. Edwards, Walter (1983). “Code selection and shifting in Guyana.” Language in Society, 12, 295–311. Escure, Geneviève (1982). “Contrastive patterns of intra-group and inter-group interaction in the Creole continuum of Belize.” Language in Society, 11, 239–264. Fenigsen, Janina (1999). “‘A broke-up mirror’: Representing Bajan in print.” Cultural Anthropology, 14, 61–87. Fenigsen, Janina (2000). Regimes of inequality: Linguistic ideologies and practices in Barbados. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Brandeis University.

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Fenigsen, Janina (2003). “Language ideologies in Barbados: Processes and paradigms.” Pragmatics, 13, 457–482. J. Fenigsen (Ed.). Special Issue: Misrecognition, Linguistic Awareness, and Linguistic Ideologies: Ethnographies and Approaches. Goody, Esther (1972). “‘Greeting,’ ‘begging,’ and the presentation of respect.” In J. S. La Fontaine (Ed.), The Interpretation of Ritual (pp. 39–71). London: Tavistock. Grice, Herbert Paul (1957). “Meaning.” Philosophical Review, 67, 377–388. Grice, Herbert Paul (1967). Logic and conversation. Unpublished MS. of William James Lectures, Harvard University. Grice, Herbert Paul (1968). “Utterer’s meaning, sentence-meaning, and word-meaning.” Foundations of Language, 4, 1–18. Grice, Herbert Paul (1975). “Logic and conversation.” In P. Cole & N. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Grice, Herbert Paul (1978). “Further notes on logic and conversation.” In P. Cole (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 9: Pragmatics (pp. 113–127). New York: Academic Press. Gumperz, John J. (1982). Discourse Strategies. Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1964). “The users and uses of language.” In A. McIntosh & P. Strevens (Eds.), The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching (pp. 75–110). London: Longman. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotics: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Hill, Jane (1998). ““Today there is no respect”: Nostalgia, “respect,” and oppositional discourse in Mexicano (Nahuatl) language ideology.” In B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard, & P. V. Kroskrity (Eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory (pp. 68–86). Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics 16. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irvine, Judith T. (1989). “Strategies of status manipulation in Wolof greetings.” In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking (pp. 167–191). Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language 8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Irvine, Judith T. (2001). “Style as distinctiveness: The culture and ideology of linguistic differentiation.” In P. Eckert & J. R. Rickford (Eds.), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation (pp. 21–43). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jakobson, Roman (1932). “Zur Struktur des Russischen Verbums.” In Charisteria G. Mathesio Quinquagenario (pp. 74–84). Prague: Cercle Linguistique de Prague. LePage, Robert B. & Andrée Tabouret-Keller (1985). Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patrick, Peter L. (1997). “Style and register in Jamaican Patwa.” In E. W. Schneider (Ed.), Englishes Around the World. Vol. 2. Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Australasia (pp. 41–55). Studies in Honor of Manfred Görlach. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Patrick, Peter L. & Arvilla Payne-Jackson (1996). “Functions of Rasta Talk in a Jamaican Creole healing narrative: ‘A bigfoot dem gi’mi.”’ Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 6, 1–38. Reisman, Karl (1970). “Cultural and linguistic ambiguity in a West Indian village.” In N. E. Whitten & J. F. Szwed (Eds.), Afro-American Anthropology (pp. 129–144). New York: The Free Press.

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Rickford, John R. (1979). Variation in a creole continuum: Quantitative and implicational approaches. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Roberts, Peter A. (1988). West Indians and Their Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rommetveit, Ragnar (1974). On Message Structure: A Framework for the Study of Language and Communication. New York: Wiley. Roy, J. D. (1984). An investigation of the processes of language variation and change in a speech community in Barbados. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University. Sacks, Harvey (1975). “Everyone has to lie.” In M. Sanches & B. G. Blount (Eds.), Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use (pp. 57–80). New York: Academic Press. Schiffer, Stephen R. (1972). Meaning. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Scott, James C. (1985). Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. Searle, John R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John R. (1976). “The classification of illocutionary acts.” Language in Society, 5, 1–23. Searle, John R. & D. Vanderveken (1985). Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sidnell, Jack (1998). Gender, space and linguistic practice in an Indo-Guyanese village. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto. Silverstein, Michael (1981). “The limits of awareness.” Working Papers in Sociolinguistics, 84. Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Silverstein, Michael (1992). “The indeterminacy of contextualization: When is enough enough?” In P. Auer & A. Di Luzio (Eds.), The Contextualization of Language (pp. 55–76). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Verschueren, Jef (1995). “The pragmatic return to meaning: Notes on the dynamics of communication, degrees of salience, and communicative transparency.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 5, 127–156. Vološinov, Valentin N. (1973 [1929]). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. L. Matejka & I. R. Titunik (Transl.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams, Raymond (1973). The Country and the City. New York: Oxford University Press. Winford, Donald (1994). “Sociolinguistic approaches to language use in the anglophone Caribbean.” In M. Morgan (Ed.), Language and the Social Construction of Identity in Creole Situations (pp. 43–62). Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies Publications, UCLA. Woolard, Kathryn A. (1989). Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Woolard, Kathryn A. (1998). “Simultaneity and bivalency as strategies in bilingualism.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 8, 3–29.

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles The presentation of selves and others in the Caribbean context Susanne Mühleisen Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt

This study investigates the development and use of forms of address in the anglo-Caribbean context. Address forms are particularly significant for the construction of interpersonal relationships, for the negotiation of social roles, for signalling the emotive attitude of the speaker, as well as for manipulating the reaction of the hearer. Drawing on historical material, this paper discusses the origin and use of some specific nominal forms of Caribbean address, as for instance, the extension of kinship terms (‘ma’, ‘auntie’, ‘tantie’), or title + FN-constructions (‘Miss Lorna’). Other pan-Caribbean phenomena, such as (optional) second person singular/plural dinstinction in the pronominal system of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles will be looked at not only from the perspective of substrate, superstrate or universal influences but also for the socio-pragmatic value and effect of their usage. Keywords: Terms of address, politeness, kinship terms, 2pers pronoun distinction, Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles

.

Introduction: Forms of address, politeness and the construction of selves and others1

The study of address forms is one of the oldest and most established topics in anthropological linguistic research – perhaps not surprisingly so: after all, address systems offer important clues about the nature of social roles and interpersonal relationships in a society and reveal much of the way differences in hierarchy or commonality are established among its members. There are several issues one might take up in the investigation of address forms, from descriptive typologies of lexico-semantic classifications in indi-

 Susanne Mühleisen

vidual languages, and the search for universals (e.g. Altmann and Riska 1966; Braun 1988) to socio-pragmatic interpretations of the situative and conversational meaning of terms of address (e.g. Brown and Gilman 1989). The fact that many European languages have a pronominal distinction for second person singular address (“Tu/Vous” distinction), which is indexical of the social and interpersonal relationship of the interlocutors, is the focus of investigation in quite a number of classical studies, most notable in Brown and Gilman’s (1960) study on the “pronouns of power and solidarity”. While the introduction of these dimensions – power and solidarity – in the dyadic negotiation of address forms must be seen as a fundamental one, the tendency to reduce rather complex systems of address behaviour to such dichotomies of pronominal (T/V) or nominal patterns (e.g. kinship terms) has also been criticized (cf. Braun 1998: 6–7). Politeness theory as represented by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) contributed some important new aspects for the interpretation of address behaviour. The performance of addressing may thus be seen as part of a set of general strategies to attend to the interlocutor’s face, either by ensuring his or her unimpeded freedom of action (negative politeness) or by meeting his or her desire to be acknowledged and appreciated (politive politeness). Distant forms of address may therefore be seen in line with other policies of indirectness (e.g. posing a question for a request) to avoid threatening the addressee’s face. At the same time, familiar forms of address, together with other acts such as greetings or expressions of interest in the interlocutor, are all part of positive politeness strategies. While politeness theory certainly brought a fresh angle to address research, Brown and Levinson’s approach was also criticized for neglecting the speaker (see Meier 1995; Braun 1998). As Braun (1998: 9) puts it, “speakers can also use address as a vehicle of self-presentation”, i.e. it may be used to signal one’s own position, both in the sense of the social role he or she assumes in the situation and of the emotive attitude the speaker employs. Therefore, I would like to lay emphasis on the work of Erving Goffman (e.g. 1955, 1956, 1967, 1971), and especially his theory of the self, when we look at the significance of address forms for the presentation of the self and the acknowledgment of the other. Central to Goffman’s work in this respect is the idea that the self is a product of performances staged in social life. In order to maintain this self we engage in “face-work”, i.e. interactional work geared towards affirming and defending the self-esteem of social participants. “Different naming and address customs”, Goodenough (1965: 275) points out, “necessarily select different things about the self for communication and consequent emphasis. In some instances what

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles 

is selected for emphasis will reflect and reinforce dominant public value; in others what is selected will reflect personal concerns”. The socio-pragmatic study of address, one might conclude, gives insight not only into the way interpersonal relationships are interpreted but also how they are constructed. It is furthermore interesting for the negotiation of social roles between interlocutors, for signalling the emotive attitude of the speaker, as well as for manipulating the reaction of the addressee (cf. Braun 1998: 10–11). Additionally, address forms are important for the construction of personhood in interaction – not only for the “other”, the interlocutor, but also for the speaker him- or herself. The fact that address behaviour is highly culture-specific and contextsensitive makes it a significant area of study for the Caribbean context. Here, continuities of European, African, Asian, Amerindian societies have left their traces in many cultural forms, including socio-pragmatic norms of communication. But also the specific socio-historical conditions in which Caribbean Creoles emerged have certainly contributed to the ways in which social relationships are negotiated in address forms. The plantation system with its enormous status and hierarchy consciousness must be seen as a primary source for the way politeness strategies are employed and face is attended to in interpersonal communication. It is therefore highly useful to trace both the origins and the changing meanings of address strategies in this particular context. So far, address research in the Caribbean context has been largely restricted to personal naming strategies (e.g. Crowley 1956; DeCamp 1967; Price and Price 1972; Burton 1999; Aceto 2002) or gendered person reference and address (Escure 2001; Migge 2001) in particular communities. Aspects of pronominal address appear in context with more general work on the pronominal systems of Caribbean Creoles (e.g. Hellinger 1998; Sidnell 1999; Baker and Huber 2000) or in context of the discussion of 2person pronominal distinction in varieties of English (Hickey 2003), and especially in American Southern speech (e.g. Richardson 1984).2 In the following, this paper will first of all (Part 2) focus on some of the more general Afro-Caribbean Creole3 nominal address patterns, especially from a socio-historical perspective. In the second half (Part 3), the discussion of 2person pronominal distinction and their socio-pragmatic uses will be at issue.

 Susanne Mühleisen

. Afro-Caribbean nominal address patterns and their origins: A brief socio-historical excursion While a more general look at nominal address patterns have so far been neglected for the Caribbean situation, personal naming strategies in selected Caribbean communities have received considerable attention in the literature. West African continuities in Caribbean naming strategies, as, for instance, the practice of giving “day-names” to children in Jamaica (DeCamp 1967), “basket names” in Gullah (Turner 1949) or the avoidance of using a person’s name in direct address (Price and Price 1972; cf. also Migge 2001) in Suriname is the focus of a large part of the discussion there. Of course, personal names are an essential part of a person’s identity and may highlight cultural and ancestral connections. In a recent article Aceto (2002) investigates the use of multiple personal names (Spanish-derived and Creole-derived) in an Anglophone Creole-speaking community in Panama. Here, the preference for the “ethnic (= Creole-derived) name” is described as an act of identity by which speakers wish to associate themselves with their ancestral roots. This notion of names and address as identity-constituting element is particularly important in the context of plantation slavery in the history of the region, where the transfer from the West African coast to the New World frequently was accompanied with the loss of one’s African name and the imposition of a new one. In this part of the paper, I will concentrate on the genetic and sociohistorical origin of some of the most prominent nominal address forms in connection with politeness strategies in the anglophone Caribbean, (i) avoidance of personal names in address, (ii) familiarity and the extension of kinship terms, (iii) respect and hierarchy in nominal address with special reference to title & FN use. . Avoidance of personal names in address Nominal address, counting the use of personal names (such as first name ‘FN’ or last name ‘LN’) and titles (including kinship terms, professional terms or titles of respect), are highly important for “face-work”, “the actions taken by a person to make whatever he is doing consistent with face [i.e. his or her selfimage]” (Goffman 1955, reprinted in Goffman 1967: 12). For affirming and protecting the dignity of participants, nominal address functions in various ways: while personal names highlight the addressee’s individuality, title address attends to the addressee’s “positional identity”, his or her social role and status in a given situation.

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles 

In this light, personal name avoidance or restrictions in address, which have been attested for the Caribbean in numerous sources (for instance, Wilson 1969: 75; Abrahams and Bauman 1971: 766; Price and Price 1972: 342, 354–355; Migge 2001: 94), are noteworthy. This practice has often been attributed to a secrecy about “real” names – hence also the adoption of multiple names, e.g. a “true name” and a “basket name”4 in Gullah – and a close identification of self and name. The belief in the power of one’s personal name is noted in Matthew Lewis’s early 19th century account of plantation life Journal of a West India Proprietor (1999: 219 [1834])5 in which several slaves asked for their names to be changed because of recent misfortunes happening to them, which they attributed to someone – either living person or ancestral spirit – interfering with their name. Secrecy about names is also suggested in Cassidy and LePage (1980) where the Jamaican term of address baan is explained as a “form of address used instead of a person’s name in the Milk River area because of a superstition that an alligator overhearing the real name would catch its owner”. For Saramaka, Price and Price (1972: 343) contend, however, that name avoidance is motivated “primarily by a respect for privacy, a concern for decorum [. . .]” and that inappropriate name use is interpreted as hostility and disrespect rather than connected to supernatural powers. Similarly, Abrahams and Bauman (1971: 766) attest that “calling name” or “calling out” in St. Vincent, “the practice of speaking another person’s name in a loud voice [. . .] or calling out to the named person as a means of signaling recognition” is regarded as rude behaviour and lack of respect, or even associated with cursing (Abrahams 1970, 1983: 83). While “calling name” is not connected to supernatural powers, it is seen as having a power-enhancing effect on the caller who uses the naming as a means of, “on the one hand, increasing one’s base of esteem and, on the other, controlling the person named” (Abrahams 1970, 1983: 82). The fact that reputation and personal name – in Saramaka the same word nˇe – are closely related applies not only to Caribbean communities.6 But it is rather striking that the protection of one’s personal name from abuse and restrictions of personal name address (both FN and LN) appear to play such an important role in the whole region. Several influential early anthropologists (e.g. Herskovits [1941] 1958; Turner 1949) see parallels between naming restrictions and the values associated with them in West Africa and those in the Caribbean region, Turner (1949) even provides a detailed West African etymology for Gullah basket names. Price and Price (1972: 356) suggest that the widespread values [e.g. concern for decorum], taken together, underlie systems of name use which resemble one another throughout Afro-America. In

 Susanne Mühleisen

such systems, individuals have multiple and easily changeable names which members of the society class into several types (more or less intimately associated with their bearers) and which fall along a continuum of more or less restricted use.

But it seems that what is at stake in such naming restrictions concerns also the relationship between the individual and their public personae. Local notions of person (or self) have long been of interest for cultural anthropologists like, for instance, Clifford Geertz. It has been stressed here that in many (nonwestern) cultures, there is a strong separation between private and public self. With regard to the naming system in Bali Geertz (1973: 370) makes a distinction between the essentially private personal name and all other (more public) types of names and titles:7 One’s name is what remains to one when all the other socially much more salient cultural labels attached to one’s person are removed. As the virtually religious avoidance of its direct use indicates, a personal name is an intensely private matter. [. . .] In the well-lit world of everyday life, the purely personal part of an individual’s cultural definition, that which in the context of the immediate consociate community is most fully and completely his, and his alone, is highly muted. And with it are muted the more idiosyncratic, merely biographical, and, consequently transient aspects of his existence as a human being (what, in our more egoistic framework, we call his “personality”) in favor of some rather more typical, highly conventionalized, and, consequently, enduring ones.

Such a perception of a private/public division can, to some extent, also be supported for the Caribbean case by naming practices which construct a distinction between individual and public person and where the “inappropriate” use of a name in one or the other sphere is considered a serious breach of etiquette. Public names are often connected to the role and position of the individual in the society. Avoidance of personal name, so prevalent throughout the Caribbean and possibly related to West African cultural values and naming restrictions, is thus closely tied to the subsequent discussion of the use of kinship terms. . ‘Auntie’, ‘tantie’ and ‘uncle’: Familarity and the extension of kinship terms The extension of kinship terms to persons who are not blood-related is a common phenomenon in the Caribbean, especially with female kinship expressions

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles 

like ‘ma’, ‘auntie’, ‘tantie’, or ‘gran’. All of these are titles of respect for mature female persons and express a certain familarity of the (mostly younger) speaker with the addressee. They are not semantic extensions in the sense that the person addressed necessarily takes on the social role and the obligations8 but, rather, the status and “respectability” associated with the kinship term. In his diary ([1834] 1999: 158), Matthew Lewis explains, Among the negroes it is almost tantamount to an affront to address by the name, without affixing some term of relationship, such as ‘grannie’, or ‘uncle’, or ‘cousin’. My Cornwall boy, George, told me one day that ‘Uncle Sully wanted to speak to massa.’ ‘Why, is Sully your uncle, George?’ ‘No, massa; me only call him so for honour.’

Price and Price (1972: 353), in their comprehensive account of the complexities of the naming system of the Saramaka, note that they “tend to conceptualize interpersonal relations largely in terms of kinship roles”. These do not necessarily correspond to genuine genealogical ties, “but may be influenced by such factors as fosterage, relative age, and temperament” (ibid.). The use of ‘aunt’ (e.g. Allsopp 1996: 48) would then read as “a respected female friend of any young person’s family (often used as a form of address by the young person)”. ‘Tantie’ – a “term of affection or respect for any older woman” (Winer forthc.), is used particularly in the Eastern Caribbean, in territories with a French Creole tradition, and is formed as a blend of Fr. tante and Engl. ‘auntie’). For Eastern Maroon communities, Migge (2001: 90–91) attests extensive use of kinship title + name address as courtesy address for men and women of diverse age or status groups:

Female

Age

Male

Age

Sa + Name Tiya (+ Name) Tante (+ Name)* Mma (+ Name)

16 to 409 40 to 60

Ba/Baala + Name Tii(yu) (+ Name) Omu (+ Name)* Dda, Ppa (+ Name)

16 to 40 40 to 60

above 60

above 60

* ‘Tante’ and ‘Omu’ (both Dutch- or Sranan-Tongo-derived) are gradually replacing ‘Tiya’ and ‘Tii(yu)’ (Migge 2001: 90).

Here, tante is sometimes even used by children to their actual mother to express respect and distance. Various forms of ‘sister’ (likewise ‘brother’) as a symbolic expression of like-mindedness are also in use across the anglophone Caribbean – as they

 Susanne Mühleisen

are in many parts of the world. However, as Winer (forthc.) asserts for sissee (‘sister’) in Trinidadian Creole, “this [use] is apart from the religious or race-conscious uses of this term, which are more widespread throughout the anglophone world as a form of address”. Rather, it is a more general term of address or reference to a woman and traditionally used by close female friends. An ideological/religious/race-conscious aspect of ‘brother’ (bredren, etc.) address may, however, be foregrounded in its employment by specific groups like, for instance, Rastafarians or Christian communities. Here, the address term also becomes a vehicle of self-expression and an act of identity, of belonging to a group and holding a particular belief, which includes both the speaker and an addressee whose solidarity is presupposed. How can the origin of kinship term extension in Caribbean address be explained? Apart from (obvious) superstrate influences in the forms, there are at least three different sources for this particular pattern which, like many processes of linguistic and cultural creolization may (i) lie on the West African coast, (ii) are the result of the passage from Old to New World, or (iii) have developed on the plantation. Thus, they may be –

– –

continuities of West African address patterns, either by way of calques or even by retentions of forms which are phonologically similar to the superstrate form (e.g. Twi mmá – ‘mother’ coinciding with a reduced form of E ‘ma’am’ or ‘mama’), the result of bonds of “common fate” (“shipmate-principle”), or a reflection of status and position in the plantation order (cf. also similarities to the American South).

Continuities of West African address patterns have already been at issue in the discussion of naming restrictions (Section 2.1). With regard to kinship terms, one surely cannot come to terms with such continuities by straightforward etymological analysis.10 Rather, terms of address must be seen here as part of a cultural system of rights and obligations where specific cultural values are at stake. The foregrounding of position and social role – expressed in titles and kinship terms – over personal identity in public is one of the practices which reflect conceptions of the self in the community. The use of kinship terms for interactants who are not blood-related certainly plays a large role in many West African societies. The continuities of address terms, as other cultural traditions in the New World, are often “removed”, however, i.e. they do not necessarily have an exact parallel of form and meaning in the substrate languages. Thus, teknonyms, names derived from a (first) child’s name that is used to address a parent11 (e.g. “mother-of-X”) are a common form of address for

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles 

women with children in many West African societies, whereas in the Caribbean the ‘mother’-title is usually connected to the person’s LN – they are thus not teknonyms – and restricted to more mature women. Mintz and Price ([1976] 1992: 43) note that the experience of the shared fate between slaves who came on the same boat to the New World had a strong effect on the social organization as a whole in the new environment and they place particular emphasis on the significance of a “shipmate-principle”.12 The relationship, so Mintz and Price, between shipmates equalled that of siblings and was continued even in the following generations. They also note that the children addressed the shipmates of their parents as ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’. Early nineteenth century observers confirm the significance of the shipmate bonds. Lewis ([1834] 1999: 219) notes in his diary: I asked one of my negro servants this morning whether Old Luke was a relation of his. ‘Yes,’ he said – ‘Is he your uncle, or your cousin?’ – ‘No, massa.’ – ‘What then?’ – ‘He and my father were shipmates, massa.’

Shipmate became, according to James Kelly (1838, as quoted in Mintz & Price 1992: 43), a nineteenth century observer, “the dearest word and bond of affectionate sympathy amongst the Africans,” and “so strong were the bonds between shipmates that sexual intercourse between them, in the view of one observer, was considered incestuous”. Many Caribbean Creoles have a particular term for this kind of symbolic reationship, e.g. sippi (or sibi) in Saramaccan, mati in Guyana or batiment in Haiti. Therefore, one explanation for uncle/aunt address would be a second/third generation extension of this symbolic relationship, which has its origin in the passage to the New World. A third possibility – after (i) substrate influence and (ii) extension of the symbolic shipmate relationship – would be to seek the origin of kinship address not primarily in African ancestry or as the result of the passage to the New World but as (iii) an original New World creation, i.e. as part of the complex social relationships on the plantation. The distinction between field slaves and house slaves on the plantations resulted in a hierarchy of distance versus intimacy with the plantation owners which had its expression not least in the mode of address. With house slaves, an illusion of their integration as “part of the family” was thus often upheld by using kinship terms as form of address. This patronizing practice was even more pronounced on the plantations of the American South, where ‘mammy’ stereotypically stands for the large black nanny who brings up the children of the white household. But also ‘auntie’

 Susanne Mühleisen

and ‘uncle’ stand for particular positions in the plantation hierarchy. Doyle (1937: 16) observes in his Etiquettes of Race Relations in the South:13 Certain of the old slaves, especially on the plantation, were addressed as “Uncle”,14 usually with the Christian name. Next to “mammy”, this title, perhaps, represented the highest respect paid to slaves by white persons. The title was not given in virtue of the age of the slave [. . . ] but in case the slave was considered, more or less, as a part of the family [. . . ]

Similarly, he notes that “‘auntie’ sometimes derived her title from long service in the family, or frequently as the wife of a respected ‘uncle”’ (1937: 16). Drawing on sources from just before the Civil War and, consequently, before Emancipation (Pollard 1859; Bremer 1850), he remarks on the subtle correlation between title address and position on the plantation (Doyle 1937: 16–17): The title “Old Man” seems to have been given to “any middle-aged Negro whose name is not known. . . . The slave is not supposed to be beyond his prime of strength” [Pollard 1859: 58]. It was perhaps used to express familiarity and respect just a bit lower than “uncle”. One old African, who frequently entertained white people with stories of his native land, was addressed in a familiar manner as “Daddy Cudjo”. Bremer noted a rather general use of the term “daddy” in Charleston, South Carolina, about 1850. (Bremer 1853 Vol. I: 278, Vol. II: 503)

With regard to the Caribbean situation, with its less “family-oriented” plantation system – many plantation owners resided in the West Indies only for a short period of time – one can assume that this practice of kinship term usage did not work to the same extent as in the American South. It is clear, however, that for both regions, this type of address was non-reciprocal, i.e. ‘auntie’ or ‘uncle’ could not address their interlocutors in an aunt- or uncle-like fashion, i.e. by using an intimate term of address such as FN alone. Instead, address to members of the plantation household was a complex affair which, however, also allowed various degrees of intimacy and distance. . ‘Miss Lorna’ and ‘Mars Carl’: Respect and hierarchy in nominal address Title + FN, a form of address which is still prominent if somewhat arachic in the anglophone Caribbean today (cf. below), was one way to keep a balance between the dimensions hierarchy and intimacy. Again, some parallels may be noted with practices from the plantations of the American South. Doyle makes this point with regard to title + FN address:

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles 

On the plantation, however, slaves addressed the mistress and girls as “Miss” and used the Christian name there with. If a woman slave felt particularly close to the mistress or daughters, she addressed them as “Missy” without the Christian name. (footnote: “Missy” was used as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, as was “massa” [various sources are given, including Pearson 1906: 150]). Babies, in some sections, were addressed as “Massa” or “Miss” even in the cradle days. However, as the children grew to maturity, and there grew up also the necessity of distinguishing between “massas” and “misses”, their appellations change to “Young Miss” and “Young Mars”, with or without the Christian name. The master’s name became “Mars Billy” except when it was necessary to distinguish him from the young master, the “Old Mars Billy” was used. This latter form was not used in address but as a term of reference [. . .] (Doyle 1937: 15)

This pattern of address between master and slave on the plantation – kinship term + FN versus title + FN – stood out against the less intimate modes of address, e.g. ‘Master/Mistress’ versus FN or ‘Sir’ versus FN if known – the latter one between overseer and field slave (cf. Doyle 1937: 32, relating to Redpath 1859: 290). ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’ were thus more formal, less intimate titles which were used to address Whites in public. This contrasts sharply with terms used to address slaves whose name was not known to the white interlocutor, ‘boy’ or ‘nigger’ (cf. Doyle 1937: 17). If one only considers the dimensions intimacy and formality, one might depict the dyadic structure of address between masters and slaves on plantations in the American South as shown in table below. This overview remains rudimentary, of course, as it neglects factors such as age, personal liking and attitude towards addressee, as well as situation. It also leaves out derogatory and distant terms such as ‘buckra’ for Whites since they were only used in third person reference. In the Caribbean, the situation appears more complex still. In Lewis ([1834] 1999: 87) it is noted that Miss + FN address additionally often indicated a “mulatto (i.e. white father)”,15 or mistresses to white men: These brown housekeepers [mistresses to white men] generally attach themselves so sincerely to the interests of their proprietors, and make themselve so useful, that they in common retain their situation; and their children (if slaves) are always honoured by their fellows with the title of Miss. My mulatto housemaid is always called ‘Miss Polly’, by her fellow-servant Phillis. This kind of connection is considered by a brown girl in the same light as marriage. (Lewis [1834] 1999: 105)

While there is, to my knowledge, no detailed account of terms of address between masters and slaves on plantations in the anglophone Caribbean, almost

 Susanne Mühleisen Dyadic structure of address on plantations (American South)* intimate ← ----------------------------------------- → distant/non-familiar M to S Fem. M to S Masc. S to M Fem. S to M Masc.

Mammy, Ma (+ LN) Daddy (+ LN) Missy –

Aunty + FN

FN

FN + owner’s name

–**

Uncle + FN

FN

FN + owner’s name

Miss + FN

Mistress/Mistis

Ma’m

Boy Nigger Ma’m

Mars + FN

Master

Sir

Colonel Captain Boss***

* While this table does not differentiate the gender of the speaker, one might note that the most intimate relations between masters and slaves were probably between female houshold members. Thus, “Missy” as an affectionate term would probably not have been used by male slaves to the lady of the house. ** It is reported (in Doyle 1937: 17) that ‘girl’ or ‘wench’ was used as third person reference but not as direct address for an unknown female slave. *** Address forms to white men, esp. if the name was not known: “To white men of apparent upper-class ranking some military title, such as ‘captain’ or ‘colonel’ was generally used. ‘Boss’ was the title used to address persons of lower rank than slaveholders but not so low as the ‘poor whites”’ (Doyle 1937: 53). ‘Boss’ also seems to have replaced ‘Master’ after Emancipation.

all terms used in the American South (cf. above) are attested in the region and are given similar explanations (cf. Allsopp 1996 → A; Winer forthc. → W): ‘auntie’: ‘boss’:

‘bossman’:

‘boy’:

See above, Section 2.1. “Term of address to a man, usually one whose name is not known, usually used by men to men, especially to a person of lower status when a service is being asked, or to anyone in a position of higher authority” (W), cf. also Migge (2001: 95), basi ‘boss’. “(AF) The man in charge; the top man; the winner; Sir (used as a flattering or cynical form of address by one man to another)” (A 112). “Respectful term of address, usually male to male, especially when the person’s name is not known” (W). “1. (Hist) A servant man. (In ‘slave time’ the words man and woman were not used to slaves, but only boy or girl; I suppose lest even in that way the idea of their manhood should find admission into the mind of a slave [. . .]). 2. (IF) A familiar, friendly form of address to a male of any age [. . .] This form of address is much resented by Black Amer men” (A 113).

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles 

‘captain’:

Not listed in Allsopp. “An overseer or driver in agricultural work” (W). Cf. Migge (2001: 95) where ‘kapiten’ is a specific title, “lineage or village head” (cf. also Migge this volume). ‘colonel’: Not attested in Allsopp or Winer. Instead, ‘chief ’, “A term of address, usually male to male, when name is not known, especially to make a request” (W), is listed as yet another “rank title” for male address in the Anglophone Caribbean. ‘daddy’: Not listed in an extended meaning in Allsopp. In Migge (2001: 91) ‘Dda (+ Name)’ is given as a general courtesy title for men above 60. Winer (personal communication) gives Papa + LN as a somewhat archaic title of respect in Trinidad. ‘ma; ma(a)ma; ma(a)mi(e); mummy: [. . . ] (IF) (Affectionate form of address) Mother; an old woman [. . .] (A 358), “A respectful term of address or reference to any older woman, usually followed by the woman’s first or family name” (W), cf. also ‘Mma (+ Name)’ as general courtesy address for women above 60 in Migge (2001: 91). ‘marse (mass’)’: “1. Mister, as respectful title of a white males, esp one of the planter class, used by a servant or a black person of the labouring class. [. . .] 2. (by extension) (AF – Joc.) (In modern times, used as the title of) any man who has or displays authority over others” (A 372). ‘massa’: “1. (Hist) (In the slave era, required form of address by a slave or labourer to) a white planter or any white man of the ruling class; sir. [. . .]. 2. (By extension, in modern times) (AF – Derog) Any man who makes a show of his authority [. . .]” (A 375). ‘miss’: “Respectful form of address to any woman, followed by her first name, used esp. by rural folk” (A 382). ‘missy’: “(Hist) Respectful form of address to a white girl or white unmarried woman.”16 (A 381). Cf. also song quoted in Lewis ([1834] 1999: 76). ‘mistress’: “Respectful form of address to a woman (usu the mistress of the house, lady in authority or sb perceived to be of higher social status [. . .]” (A 383). Whereas in general international English this meaning of ‘mistress’ is obsolete, it has survived in Caribbean English. Allsopp (1996: 384) thus also puts in a note of warning: “Note sharp contrast with SE/IAE in wh it is offensive so to address a lady”. ‘uncle’: “1. (A folk term of respect for) any old male person. As the term so used as a form of address implies a folk-level relationship, it is,

 Susanne Mühleisen

in some cases resented. 2. (Antg, Guyn, Jmca, Trin) (IF) (A term of respect for ) a close male friend of your parents” (A 575).

As can be seen here, many of the terms have undergone a shift or extension between their historical meaning and their contemporary meaning, often adding either a derogatory connotation or an “Anti-Formal17 – Jocular” (AF – Joc) meaning (cf. also Reisman 1974 on the “remodeling of symbols” in Caribbean culture). Some of the address terms which, during plantation days, conveyed the highest authority or respect (e.g. ‘massa’, ‘chief ’, ‘boss’) or intimacy (‘missy’) have found their continuation primarily in ironic use, as a way to undermine an (assumed) authority, or as positive politeness strategy in requests (Ex. 1 & 2) or excuses (Ex. 3): (1) “Boss, gimme ah cigarette dey nuh.” “Ah whole one? Man, since cigarette gone up I stop givin’ away whole cigarette, yes. Ah only givin’ away zoot now. So wait till ah take ah few more drag on dis.” (Grab a Grin, EX 26 July 1990: 9; in Winer forthc.) (2) A fellar came and plunked himself down next to him. . . ‘I say, Chief, gimme one of your cigarettes, please.’ (Lovelace 1988: 93; in Winer forthc.) (3) The cop testified that [he] replied: “Boss, ah does sell a little ‘babash’ to make a ‘lil change, as things hard.” (TTM 27 Aug 1993: 28; cited in Winer forthc.)

Other forms (e.g. ‘Miss + FN’) continued as courtesy forms but were extended to a new and larger group of addressees. The loss of the ancestral name during slavery, as well as the great discrepancy between the terms of address to master versus slave certainly served as one form of establishing and maintaining hierarchy between the groups. If we contend that this – together with numerous other humilitations connected to the position of slave – contributed to a great damage of face and self,18 it is perhaps not surprising that address terms served as a principal positive politeness means to restore face after emancipation and that particular emphasis was placed on titles of respect among the black population. In the mid-19th century, only a few years after emancipation was established in the Caribbean, a metropolitan observer (Day 1852) remarks resentfully on the practice by the now free black population in Barbados to adopt address terms formerly restricted to Whites: Under preceding governors, the negroes were all “ladies and gentlemen,” and addressed each other as “Sir” and “Miss.” If anything was required from a negro or a negress vending a commodity in the streets, no notice would be

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles 

taken of the call unless it was couched in the most corteous terms: in fact, nothing short of “Lady with the fish,” “Lady with the yams,” “Lady with the guavas,” would be responded to. If one negro called another for a white person, it will be “Lady with the flying fish, a white woman wants you,” “Lady with the yams, a buckra wants you.” You will hear the dirtiest negro drab, clad in the veriest rags hardly hanging together, addressed by another negro as “Miss Johnson,” or “Miss Emily,” whilst, if a white were the subject of conversation, some studiously common appellation would be selected. (Day 1852: 21–22; italics in the original, S.M.)

By way of appropriation, Miss + FN or Mars + FN then became the accepted (and insisted upon) mode of address among the black population.19 While ‘Miss’ is, obviously, a title used in international English as well, it is there more commonly combined with LN.20 Furthermore, the entailments of the term are different in Caribbean Creoles. Unlike in, for instance, British English, the Caribbean ‘Miss’ does not give information about the married status of the woman. It is here not necessarily contrasted with ‘Mrs’ and “does not imply recognition of superiority, greater age, that the woman is unmarried, or other such differences” (Cassidy and LePage 1980). More formal than ‘Miss’ are the titles or terms of address ‘Missis’ and ‘Mistress’ (cf. also Fenigsen this volume on a discussion of this title) – now rather archaic – with only the latter one implying a married status. While the use of kinship extensions as address terms imply an intimate relationship between the interactants and give information about the age of the addressee, the courtesy titles rest on the dimension of formality and social class: → --------------------------------------------- Age ------------------------------------------ → Kinship titles

‘Sissee’ (etc.) ‘Breds’, ‘Bredda’

‘Auntie’, ‘Tants’ ‘Uncle’

‘Ma’ (+ LN)

‘Gran’

→ --------------------------------------- Formality, Social Status -------------------------- → Courtesy titles

‘Miss’ (+ FN)

Missis

Mistress (+ LN)

In anglophone Caribbean literature, examples of title + FN address abound, especially in the first half of the 20th century. One of the most influential figures of Caribbean literature, the Jamaican performance poet Louise Bennett, created for herself the poetic persona ‘Miss Lou’, a down-to earth voice of the people who is often engaged in fictional dialogue with a range of interlocu-

 Susanne Mühleisen

tors, e.g. ‘Mass Charlie’, ‘Miss Matty’ or ‘Miss Sue’ or refers to other fictional personae in this way, as can be seen in the following examples: (1) [. . .] Meck me get it straight Mass Charlie For me noh quite undastan, Yuh gwine kill all English dialect Or jus Jamaica one? [. . .] (“Bans o’ Killing”, Bennett 1966: 218) (2) Mass Joseph tun-foot nephew, Aunt Jane twis-mout Uriah, Miss Tama chigarookoo son, Dah-go a ’Merica! [. . .] (3) Meck me se yuh foot Miss Matty, Meck me se yuh foot Miss Sue, Show yuh foot noh Uncle Cobey, Come show yuh foot noh Lue! [. . .]

(“Recruit”, Bennett 1966: 92)

(“Show Yuh Foot”, Bennett 1966: 57)

The use of title + FN address is on the decline in many Caribbean communities and it seems to have spread down the social scale. A middle-class woman from Jamaica (personal communication) recalls, for instance, that in her childhood she had always been called ‘Miss + FN’, even ‘Miss Baby’ in the cradle days, by their domestics, while she called them by their first names. Today, the title+FN pattern is, in turn, the non-reciprocal form of address for her children to the housekeeper. In Caribbean fiction, the title + FN reference is thus often used to depict lower social class but respectable Creole characters above middle-age (cf., for instance, Olive Senior’s short stories). A more recent form which seems to gradually replace forms like ‘Miss’, ‘Auntie’ or ‘Tantie’ as a friendly address to an unknown person, especially to a mature women, is ‘family’. A middle-aged woman in Trinidad (personal communication) describes, for instance, that she was recently addressed in this way by a group of young men in a potentially threatening setting – alone in a car park – as a signal of friendliness and non-threat. ‘Family’ is used particularly by younger Afro-Caribbean speakers and may be seen as a hypernymic extension of the use of kinship terms. All in all, the question of origin of nominal address patterns in the anglophone Caribbean posed at the outset of this section is not a simple and straightforward one to answer. As examined above, there are quite a range

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles

of possible sources: (i) West African origin; (ii) extension of the symbolic shipmate principle, (iii) socio-pragmatic expression of the complex social relationships on the plantation, and, only implicitly considered, (iv) (obvious) superstrate influences. Rather than trying to make a case for one specific source at the expense of the other possibilities, the discussion above has shown that the different influences seem to have reinforced one another. Like in many creolization processes, the source of terms of address in Caribbean Creoles have to be seen as “multi-original”, as created out of various layers of influences.

. Pronouns and persons: Second person singular/plural distinction in a socio-pragmatic perspective Nominal address is an important means to attend to another person’s face – or, as we have seen above, to damage it.21 It is also indicative of the relationship between interactants, especially if the terms of address are non-reciprocal, as well as of the situation (formal/informal setting) in which the interaction occurs. Pronominal address can have such an indexical function, too, given that there is a choice between a more familiar/less-formal/less polite pronoun of address and a more distant/formal/polite alternative. In their comprehensive work on socio-cultural and identity-constituting functions of pronouns, Mühlhäusler and Harré summarize this potential as follows: There are [. . . ] many asymmetrical relations variously compounded of respect and condescension, of contempt, adulation and patronage. The status structure of a community consists in the continuous creation, re-creation and maintenance of these kinds of relationships and styles of interaction. In faceto-face interaction this is largely achieved verbally, with choice of pronouns playing a major part. But there are also many symmetrical linguistic forms when all the parties to an interaction agree on the formality, level of politeness or degree of intimacy that is proper. These too are often expressed through choice of pronoun. (Mühlhäusler and Harré 1990: 131–132)

Many European languages have a “T/V” (‘tu/vous’) distinction to express dimensions of solidarity and power (cf. Brown and Gilman 1960). Typically, the “polite form” developed out of 2nd person plural address, a pattern which, in Roman times, was reserved for the Emperor. The plurality here meant power: the addressee stands for something larger (= “you and your people/group”) than just the individual person. English developed this pattern, too but largely lost the use of the 2nd person singular pronoun (thou, thine, thee, thy) in the

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 Susanne Mühleisen

course of the 17th century – except for archaic use, e.g. in religious formulas – due to the fact that the plural you took over this position in its function as a polite singular address. Changes in the pronominal system, a rather closed and unflexible class, are always worthy of note as they ususally go hand in hand with social and cultural changes. As Hellinger notes, “in providing terms of address, honorifics, and, more generally, expressions for self and other, pronouns are highly sensitive to a society’s social and cultural organization” (Hellinger 1998: 90). Unlike the general development in (standard) English, quite a few varieties of English (cf. Hickey 2003 for an overview) have a 2nd person singular/plural distinction in their pronominal system. While some of the British regional varieties maintained certain forms of the thou/you pattern,22 extra-territorial varieties overwhelmingly developed systems with the more progressive you as the singular and an additional, separate plural form. Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles, too, have a 2nd person pronominal singular/plural distinction which falls into this pattern.23 Because of the gradual decline of thou in English during the 17th century, the formative period of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles, one might have assumed that the input from the superstrate was rather inconsistent with regard to the pronominal system. However, as Hickey (2003: 345) observes, the varieties of English which were taken overseas during the colonial period were mainly “southern in character”, i.e. more progressive and mostly thou-less. In addition, Irish English, with its early development of an additional plural form youse, seems to have had considerable influence on other varietes, both inside and outside the home region (cf. also Trudgill 1999: 90–94). Attestations of thou are not found in early colonial texts in the Caribbean, and even in 17th century written records of address to a slave – a situation where one might have expected a thou had it been transferred to the New World – the you-form is used (cf. Rickford and Handler 1994: 226; as quoted in Hickey 2003: 348–349). Most Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles have a form of ‘you’24 (often spelled yu, yuh or the like) for 2sing25 and a 2plural form which can be traced to Igbo unu ‘you plural’ or similar cognates from other Niger-Congo languages (cf. Baker and Huber 2000; Allsopp 1996; Cassidy and LePage 1980; etc.). There is considerable variation of phonological shape and even more so for the written representation, even within a single variety. Allsopp (1996: 577) lists the forms “unu (oona, oonoo, oonu, unna, unnu, unoo) [unu ∼ ~n~ ∼ ~n6] pers pron, 2nd pers (pl) (Bdos, Belz, CayI, Jmca) [AF-Cr] || wunna (Bdos) || yinna (Baha) || you-all (CarA)” for the use of 2plural in various territories.


This unu-form does not seem to be unique to the Caribbean area but is rather widespread among contact varieties which have substrate influences from West African languages. Hickey (2003: 359) remarks that “Pidgins related to English from West Africa down to South African all show a form for the second-person plural which has the phonological skeleton (A) VNV, A = approximant, /j/ or /w/, V = vowel, N = nasal usually /n/”. For a range of varieties of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles, the second person pronoun patterns26 may be summarized as follows: Territory/language

2plural*

Anguilla & Barbuda Antigua Bahamas Barbados

aa-yu aa-yu yinna wunna unna all you unu among-you unu among-you all yu all a yu a[ll]-yo-dis ono unno/onnoo unu, uno, una, uni, hunu, wunu u w yu aal aw you unu all-yuh

Belize Carriacou Cayman Islands Grenada Guyana

Jamaica

Ndyuka Nevis St Kitts Tobago Trinidad

First record

1916 1957

1868 1912

1785

Source** Holm Holm A A BH27 BH A A A A Holm A BH BH CLP CLP HH Holm BH CLP W

* Spelling is given here according to the orthographic representation in the source. ** Abbreviations for sources: A = Allsopp (1996), BH = Baker and Huber (2000), CLP = Cassidy and LePage (1980), Holm = Holm (1989), HH = Huttar and Huttar (1994), W = Winer (forthc.).

Next to the various forms of unu, another dominant pattern of 2plural formation throughout the anglophone Caribbean is some form of a-you, or, possibly as a later interpretation of this form, all-you. In varieties like Bajan, where both larger patterns exist, ‘all you’ is the historically more recent form. Given the

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 Susanne Mühleisen

historical links between the Caribbean and the plantation economies in the American South, it is also quite reasonable to suspect that the characteristic ‘y’all’ in American Southern speech is related to ‘all-you’ in the Caribbean. One feature which is shared by all of these 2person singular/plural distinctions in all varieties above is that they are not an obligatory feature to mark number of addressee/s. This is quite unlike the (original) function of singular/plural distinction in other languages – all examples below are T/V languages – where the familiar (T) address forms require number distinction, e.g. German French Italian

Singular (T) Du Tu Tu

Plural (T) Ihr Vous Voi

On the other hand, 2sing/plural distinction in Caribbean varieties and American Southern also does not have the compulsory function of indicating the social relations (intimacy, distance, hierarchy) between the interactants. In other words, they are not T/V varieties either, with a separate V-form to express formality or distance. Note that this V-form may be the same as the plural (T), e.g. Vous (Plur T) – Vous (Sing V) in French, but has sometimes developed new forms (e.g. in German and Italian): German French Italian

Singular (V) Sie Vous Lei

Plural (V) Sie Vous Loro

What, then, is the function of forms of unu and all you in Caribbean varieties? Is this a case of “free variation”, or are there particular motivations for the choice of plural form over singular? Could there even be a formation of a honorific out of the plural form – which is, after all, the kind of development many European languages underwent?28 The question whether ‘y’all’ could, in fact be used as a type of honorific in singular address has been discussed in numerous articles (e.g. Spencer 1975; Richardson 1984) and remains an ongoing debate. There is little truly free variation in language use. Choices are usually meaningful in the sense that there is some subtle difference between the alternative forms, be they of a semantic, social, or pragmatic nature. While there is no evidence at all that unu or all you are moving into the direction of becoming a honorific, it is acknowledged that the 2plural can be used in singular address in Caribbean varieties. Allsopp (1996: 577) gives the meaning of unu (etc.) as “You (pl); all of you; you (sg) in particular” (emphasis added, S.M.). For the


Surinamese Creole Ndyuka, Huttar and Huttar note that there are even cases of obligatory 2plural usage for addressing one person, for instance in particular forms of greetings: Personal pronouns have no distinctions of social status (honorific, familiar, etc.). 2nd plural pronoun is, however, frequently used in addressing one person, as a mark of respect or politeness. This usage is especially common in some greetings, and even required in others. (Huttar and Huttar 1994: 462)

For other Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles, the honorific function of the 2plural is not quite as explicit and I have not come across any examples of an obligatory polite 2plural address in other creole varieties in the Caribbean. What, then, is the meaning of using this optional 2plural form, either for one or more addressees and in what contexts would this occur? The most straight-forward possibility for 2plural address to more than one addressee would be certainly that of emphasizing the inclusion of all persons present, to mean ‘everybody’. (1) All you [. . .] must come to see me.

(ESTT 1956, in Winer forthc.)

(2) If all you going down I going down too. (WTG 1 Feb 1919: 11; in Winer forthc.)

However, several sources also note that – depending on the context – 2plural use can emphasize an “aggressive tone”, “[it] is sometimes used to give a special Derog sense in the sg, [. . .] it is often deliberately used to give a familiar or aggressive character to a statement in wh SE you or Cr /yu/ also freely occurs” (Allsopp 1996: 577). This switch between the two forms for pragmatic effect becomes evident in the following example: (3) The old man replied indignantly ‘Yu fe sell it. Yu fadder before yu did sell it retail, an not because yu so establish now . . . call oona self pharmacy, yu fe sell it retail. Yu fadder would cry shame at yu!’ (cited in Allsopp, ibid.)

This effect seems to be intensified by yet another form which duplicates the plurality, for Trinidadian Creole (Winer forthc.), for instance, “all of allyuh, All of you; everyone; usually emphatic and often negative or angry”. (4) “All of allyou flat-bottom coolie always taking up for one another!” “I prefer my bottom to the rainwater barrel you sitting on! You too bold face!” (Ramkeesoon 1975: 23). So all ah alyuh who suddenly discover dat pork eh good fuh yuh, I glad too bad. Is more meat fuh me. (Foster 1990: 53; in Winer forthc.)

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 Susanne Mühleisen

It is clear from the examples above that the meaning of plurality “you as a group of people” or, if used to an individual, the imagined “group of people” behind the individual, does not have the power-enhancing effect, ihr, vous, or voi had in earlier stages of development of the respective European languages. This is all the more surprising since plurality also implies a certain indirectness and vagueness towards the addressee, i.e. “not only and exclusively you” and is, according to Brown and Levinson (1987) one of the most important negative politeness strategies, a means of diminishing face threat, for instance, in requests, orders or accusations. They note on the motivation for using an optional29 2plural pronoun (1987: 198f.): Since it does not literally single out the addressee, it is as if the speaker were giving H the option to interpret it as applying to him rather than, say, to his companions. The fact that by conventionalization it no longer really does give H that out does not render it useless. Rather, it conveys the desire of the speaker to render H that tribute, while fulfilling the practical needs of clarity and onrecord talk.

However, while this may apply to the (white) Anglo-American context, indirectness can serve other functions in a different cultural context.30 Herskovits (1958: 150–158) noted quite extensively on New World values and behaviors related to “indirection”, i.e. an avoidance of direct confrontation. As a consequence, there are quite a number of indirect modes of reprisal and expression in Caribbean culture (cf. Reisman 1974: 131). Fisher’s (1976) study on the use of dropping remarks in Barbados, for instance, shows that indirectness here can also be interpreted as aggressive. In conflict situations, the indirectness of the plural address seems also to have taken on a negative and antagonistic meaning in the Caribbean context. By its habitual use in such situations, the face threat to the individual may be lowered, but that to the group – for which the addressee stands in the speech act and from which the speaker wants to distance him- or herself – is increased. When applied to a single interlocutor, all you or unu will thus stand for the group the speaker associates with the individual, e.g. white/black/Indian people, academics/students/market women/foreigners/Grenadians/small islanders etc. This is a particularly sensitive area in societies which are highly conscious about ethnicity, skin colour, and social status. On the other hand, the use of 2plural can also have a jocular effect, especially in face-threatening situations like requests, accusations, reprimands, etc. Such use of 2plural for either playful or serious meaning is not surprising since aggression and humour are rather closely related. The interpretation of

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles 

whether an utterance is meant to be “truly aggressive” or merely humerous, though, depends on a subtle and complex web of signals like tone of voice, body stance and gestures, textual context, as well as addressee’s knowledge of attitudes and values of the speaker.

. Conclusion Forms of address, both nominal and pronominal, are important means of conceptualizing the self and the other. For the Caribbean context, research on address patterns is of interest for a number of reasons: first of all because their uses and changing meanings (esp. in nominal address) reflect upon the multiple influences from inside and outside the Caribbean and show cultural and linguistic continuities from African and European31 practices. Secondly, they are also indicators of social transformations in either changes of form or meaning. And furthermore, strategic uses of address forms are worthy of note here because they show the interplay between politeness strategies and face work in addressing, and the acts of interpretation and cultural knowledge this requires from both the speaker and the addressee’s side. In the socio-historical exploration of characteristic nominal address patterns throughout the Anglophone Caribbean, it was shown that influences from West African address pattern, possible shipmate-bonds, and the positional structure on the plantations enhanced one another in creating a complex pattern of kinship term extensions on the slaves’ side and various forms of courtesy title address on the masters’ side. The choice of address was governed by dimensions such as intimacy, age and position in the household/on the field. After Emancipation, some of the terms of address (many kinship terms) were maintained whereas others, especially the ones associated with authority, were either abandoned (‘Master’), adopted by new groups (‘Miss + FN’), or put to new, sometimes ironic or subversive, uses (‘Boss’). Unlike Standard English, pronominal address forms in Caribbean Englishlexicon Creoles throughout the region have an 2plural form, either of the unuor the all you-type. However, this form is neither used for obligatory plural marking for multiple addressees, nor is it used as a honorific in the sense that some European languages (“T/V-languages”) use or have used plurality as a power semantic. It is argued here that the Caribbean use of 2plural is, however, not random. Rather, it may be used (a) for emphasis: for multiple addressees or to create a distance between speaker and addressees, and (b) as negative politeness strategy – vagueness or indirectness – to either a single or multiple

 Susanne Mühleisen

addressees in potential face-threatening acts. Here, the effect depends on subtle speaker signals and hearer interpretation and may vary between humour and aggression.

Notes . I am grateful for comments by Lise Winer, Stephanie Hackert and Bettina Migge on earlier versions of this paper. All remaining errors are, of course, my own. . Cf. also long-standing and extensive discussions of this phenomenon, especially in American Speech. . For the scope of this paper, nominal address and kinship terms derived from Hindi/Bhojpuri will not be considered here. First of all, they are rather restricted to the Indo-Caribbean communities (esp. in Trinidad and Guyana), and, secondly, they are highly complex – also in their interactions inside and outside the ethnic group – and would merit attention in a separate paper. . Ironically, the “true” or “real” name is the one used by outsiders whereas the “basket” or “pet” name is the one used by close relations only. . The diary was written in 1816/1817 – when plantation slavery was still thriving – but published only in 1834. . Cf. expressions in English such as to “make one’s name” or “clear one’s name”, etc. . In this description of the symbolic order of person reference in Bali, Geertz describes that in Bali, too, personal names are hardly ever used, even though they are highly significant for a person’s individual cultural identity. He ascribes the restriction of personal name usage in Bali to the private nature of this form of address and reference – as opposed to other forms (birth order names, kinship terms, teknonyms, status titles, public titles) which all carry social functions. . Note, however, that Cassidy and LePage (1980) also relate ‘aunt’ to the meaning of “stepmother” in Jamaican. . The classification according to age group is understood only as a rough guideline. Other factors, such as motherhood, can play a considerable role, too: a young woman with many children may receive the title ‘mma’, while an older woman with no children may be addressed with ‘sa’. . Cf. Turner (1949) who has been criticized for his etymological approach. . From Greek teknon ‘child’ + -onym ‘name’. . Winer (personal communication) notes that such a bond of shared fate also exists in Indo-Trinidadian culture. The jahaji-bhai (lit. “ship-brother”) relationship is often referred to as indicating strong kin-like bonds forged on the ship coming over from India. . While this work displays a somewhat nostalgic attitude towards the plantation system in the American South, it is highly useful because of the wealth of material it is based on – diaries, travel narratives, etc. published or written around the time of the Civil War.

Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles  . The most famous literary example of such use is, of course, “Uncle Tom” in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852. . “It is a custom as to the mulatto children, that the males born on an estate should never be employed as field negroes, but as tradesmen; the females are brought up as domestics about the house. I had particularly invited ‘Mr. John-Canoe’ [italics in the original, S.M.] (which I found to be the polite manner in which the negroes spoke of him), [. . .]” (Lewis ([1834] 1999: 50). . There is also a derogatory form, ‘backra missy’, whose historical meaning is given in Allsopp (1996: 61) as “The daughter of a sugar planter; (by extension, Derog.) any snobbish young lady”. . Allsopp (1996: lvii) gives his definition of ‘Anti.formal’ as “deliberately rejecting Formalness; consciously familiar and intimate; part of a wide range from close and friendly through jocular to coarse and vulgar; any Creolized or Creole form or structure surviving or conveniently borrowed to suit context or situation”. . In his early works, Goffman (1961a, 1961b) has described the effect of total institutions (e.g. asylums, prisons) on the experience of self. Without implying a complete analogy between slavery in 17th to 19th century Caribbean and total institutions in 20th century US, some parallels in the processes by which an individual’s self is mortified may be drawn, e.g. the dispossession of name, property and “identity kit” or imposition of deference patterns. Goffman notes, “perhaps the most significant of these possessions is not physical at all, one’s full name; whatever one is thereafter called, loss of one’s name can be a great curtailment of the self ” (1961b, reprinted in Lemert and Branaman 1997: 57). . Wilson (1969: 75) also writes on “exaggerated” terms of respect in the West Indies, for instance, in the use of aristocratic titles by West Indian musicians (King, Earl, Duke, Lord, Count and Champ) or in the use of terms of address such as Captain, Skipper, Chief, Boss, Sadhu, etc. among East Indians in the then British Guiana. . Note that this combination (‘Miss + LN’) or ‘Miss’ by itself is also used for schoolteachers in Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles. Here, ‘Miss’ could almost be taken as a professional title. . Apart from non-reciprocal title address there are, of course, numerous ways to deliberately damage the face of an interactant by means of “insult terms” (‘idiot’, etc.). . Especially thou in the northern (Lower North and the Lancashire and Staffordshire region) and thee in the western (Northern Southwest, Western Southwest) parts of England, cf. Trudgill (1999: 90–94). . Of course, the pronominal system of Caribbean Creole varieties shows differences in a number of other aspects, too, cf. Baker and Huber (2000) and, for an extensive discussion of 3sing pronoun and gender in Caribbean Creoles, Hellinger (1998), Sidnell (1999). . The Ndjuka 2sing form occurs as ‘yu’, ‘i’ or ‘y’ (Huttar and Huttar 1994: 461–462). . Unlike 1st and 3rd person singular, there is little variation of the 2sing pronoun in Caribbean Creoles, except for the genitive (e.g. yu versus yor in Guynese, cf. Sidnell (1999: 374).

 Susanne Mühleisen . Generally, pronouns are not marked for case in Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles, i.e. there is one form for nominative, possessive, dative and accusative. This is also the case for 2plural. . Baker and Huber (2000) list and discuss the pronominal systems of thirteen Englishlexicon P/C languages (Atlantic and Pacific). They give dates for the first written records of forms which deviate from Standard English, among them also 2nd person plural forms in the Anglophone Caribbean. . This is still visible in contemporary French where the plural (T) is also the singular (V) form. This equals earlier stages of German and Italian, where plural (T) (ihr, voi) were used as polite singular address. In the development of a polite pronoun address (e.g. in Middle High German) one can also observe stages of great variability and optionality (cf. Simon 2003). . I.e. when 2plural does not have the function of an obligatory polite pronoun. . For directness as a cultural value in specific contexts, cf. also Wierzbicka (1991: 88ff.). . Asian continuities, while of course present especially in the Eastern Caribbean, are not considered in this paper for reasons given in Note 3.

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Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson (1978). “Universals of language usage: Politeness phenomena.” In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and Politeness Strategies in Social Interaction (pp. 56–311). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson (1987). Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Roger W. & Albert Gilman (1960). “The pronouns of power and solidarity.” In T. Sebeok (Ed.), Style in Language (pp. 253–276; 435–449). New York, London: Technology Press of MIT. Brown, Roger W. & Albert Gilman (1989). “Politeness theory and Shakespeare’s four major tragedies.” Language in Society, 18, 159–212. Burton, Richard D. E. (1999). “Names and naming in Afro-Caribbean cultures.” New West Indian Guide, 73, 35–58. Cassidy, Frederick & Robert B. LePage (1980). Dictionary of Jamaican English (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crowley, Daniel J. (1956). “Naming customs in St. Lucia.” Social and Economic Studies, 5, 87–92. Day, Charles William (1852). Five Years’ Residence in the West Indies, Vol. I. London: Colburn and Co. DeCamp, David (1967). “African day-names in Jamaica.” Language, 43, 139–149. Doyle, Bertram Wilbur (1937). The Etiquettes of Race Relations in the South. A Study in Social Control. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Escure, Geneviève (2001). “Belizean Creole: Gender, creole, and the role of women in language change.” In M. Hellinger & H. Bußmann (Eds.), Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. I (pp. 53–83). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Fisher, Lawrence E. (1976). “‘Dropping remarks’ and the Barbadian audience.” American Ethnologist, 3, 227–242. Fenigsen, Janina (this volume). “Meaningful routines: Meaning-making and the face value of Barbadian greetings.” Geertz, Clifford (1973). “Person, time and conduct in Bali.” In The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays by Clifford Geertz (pp. 360–411). New York: Basic Books. Goffman, Erving (1955). “On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction.” Psychiatry, 18(3), 213–231. Reprinted in E. Goffman (1967), 5–45. Goffman, Erving (1956). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Center. Goffman, Erving (1961a). Asylums. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books. Goffman, Erving (1961b). “On the characteristics of total institutions.” In D. R. Cressey (Ed.), The Prison: Studies in Institutional Organization and Change. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Goffman, Erving (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Goffman, Erving (1971). Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books.

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Goodenough, Ward H. (1965). “Personal names and modes of address in two Oceanic societies.” In M. E. Spiro (Ed.), Context and Meaning in Cultural Anthropology (pp. 265–276). New York: The Free Press. Hellinger, Marlis (1998). “Variation and change in creole pronominal systems: What does i(m) mean?” In R. Schulze (Ed.), Making Meaningful Choices in English. On Dimensions, Perspectives, Methodology and Evidence (pp. 89–100). Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Herskovits, Melville J. ([1941] 1958). The Myth of the Negro Past. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Hickey, Raymond (2003). “Rectifying a standard deficiency: Second-person pronominal distinction in varieties of English.” In I. Taavitsainen & A. H. Jucker (Eds.), Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems (pp. 343–374). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Holm, John (1989). Pidgins and Creoles. Vol. II: Reference Survey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huttar, George L. & Mary L. Huttar (1994). Ndyuka. London, New York: Routledge. Lemert, Charles & Ann Branaman (Eds.). (1997). The Goffman Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Lewis, Matthew ([1834] 1999). Journal of a West India Proprietor. Oxford: Oxford University Press [originally published London: John Murray]. Meier, Ardith J. (1995). “Passages of politeness.” Journal of Pragmatics, 24, 381–392. Migge, Bettina (2001). “Communicating gender in the Eastern Maroon Creole of Suriname.” In M. Hellinger & H. Bußmann (Eds.), Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. I (pp. 85–104). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Migge, Bettina (this volume). “Greeting and social change.” Mintz, Sidney W. & Richard Price ([1976] 1992). The Birth of African American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective. Boston: Beacon. Mühlhäusler, Peter & Rom Harré (1990). Pronouns and People: The Linguistic Construction of Social and Personal Identity. Oxford: Blackwell. Pearson, Elizabeth Ware (Ed.). (1906). Letters from Part Royal; Written at the time of the Civil War. Boston. Pollard, Edward A. (1859). The Southern Spy: Or Curiosities of Negro Slavery in the South. Washington. Price, Richard & Sally Price (1972). “Saramaka onomastics: An Afro-American naming system.” Ethnology, 4, 341–367. Redpath, James (1859). The Roving Editor: Or Talks with Slaves in the Southern States. New York. Reisman, Karl (1974). “Cultural and linguistic ambiguity in a West Indian village.” In N. E. Whitten, & J. F. Szwed (Eds.), Afro-American Anthropology (pp. 129–144). New York: The Free Press. Richardson, Gina (1984). “Can ‘y’all’ function as a singular pronoun in southern dialect?” American Speech, 59, 51–59. Rickford, John R. & Jerome S. Handler (1994). “Textual evidence on the nature of early Barbadian speech, 1676–1835.” Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 9, 221–255. Sidnell, Jack (1999). “Gender and pronominal variation in an Indo-Guyanese creolespeaking community.” Language in Society, 28, 367–399.

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Simon, Horst (2003). “From pragmatics to grammar: Respect in German.” In I. Taavitsainen & A. H. Jucker (Eds.), Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems (pp. 85–123). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Spencer, Nancy J. (1975). “Singular y’all.” American Speech, 50, 315–317. Trudgill, Peter (1999). The Dialects of England (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Turner, Lorenzo Dow (1949). Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Wierzbicka, Anna (1991). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wilson, Peter J. (1969). “Reputation and respectability: A suggestion for Caribbean ethnology.” Man, New Series, 4, 70–84. Winer, Lise (forthcoming). Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

P III

Socialization and face development

“May I have the bilna?” The development of face-saving in young Trinidadian children Valerie Youssef The University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago

This paper examines the development of face-saving in three Trinidadian children who were observed and recorded in a range of naturalistic settings between the ages of 2;0 and 4;0. A fourth child, at a pre-linguistic stage of development, was also observed. The study seeks to shed light on universality versus particularity in the onset of attention to face. It examines the following issues: – – –

Is concern for face needs a given of our humanness? How does it emerge and develop? To what extent does its realization differ in different strata of a single Creole society?

The developmental timing of the study, and the range of settings in which it took place, allowed answers to emerge which showed a measure of cooperative social interaction as having primacy for all children. It established that attention to face emerges even at a pre-linguistic stage, that it develops as part of the child’s overall developing communicative competence, and that it embraces code-switching when this is necessary, out of child concern for the face needs of parties to any interaction. Children may grapple with varietal constraints, showing a measure of inter-varietal confusion at some points, but they overcome them spontaneously. Keywords: Universality, cooperative social interaction, face-saving, communicative competence, language socialization, Caribbean sociolinguistic complex, code-switching, Trinidad

 Valerie Youssef

.

Introduction

When Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) first associated politeness phenomena with attention to face, they brought the study of the development of face-saving potentially to the forefront of language socialization and language acquisition research. They saw politeness as residing in a universal need of humankind to maintain face, both for the speaker and for the addressee. This face was perceived as residing primarily in positive face, the need to maintain one’s own positive self-image and that of the person one is addressing, and negative face, the right of individuals to autonomy, the right not to be imposed upon. Their claim of universality for the phenomenon examined it across three languages. To investigate whether any speech behaviour is universal, we must trace its development through the onset of language and seek to extrapolate what is language/culture particular from what is general, spanning diverse communities and cultures. By examining the utterances of children at two age levels: 8–9 months and 2.0–4.0 years, this paper contributes to the literature on the emergence of politeness. Specifically, through examination of the emergence of face-saving and cooperative social behaviour in the Caribbean sociolinguistic complex of Trinidad, we will see how common functional ends unite both pre-linguistic and linguistic behaviour, and different language varieties.

. Background There is some debate over the precise nature of politeness as well as the extent of its relative universality versus particularity. In addition, writers dealing with the topic sometimes discuss significant interactional maxims associated with communicative efficiency, and at other times, the more moral, aesthetic quality of utterances. On the maxim side, Grice (1975) argued that speakers work with a cooperative principle which demands that they say what is required in any given situation, and that what is required abides in 4 maxims (of quantity, quality, clarity and relevance). He recognized that these maxims might in practice be ignored, however, and researchers have been quick to point out that, in many cases they are culturally irrelevant. While he acknowledged possible additional maxims of an “aeshetic, social or moral” nature such as “be polite” he did not specify these further. The cultural specificity of his maxims, however, has been made clear from the outset, and contrasted with speech norms in a variety of

“May I have the bilna?” 

cultures including those of Malagasy (e.g. Ochs-Keenan 1976) and Gapun in Papua New Guinea (Kulick 1993, 1998). Those theories of politeness which focus on conversational-maxim paradigms have more recently been contrasted with a range of other views of politeness by Fraser (1990) who considers also the social norm view, rooted in politeness as equated with social etiquette, and his own view, which he labels as the conversational-contract view. This last rests not on making the other feel good so much as getting the job done, with conversation as the primary tool of that task (1990: 233). It would seem that we need to separate more definitively perspectives which consider conversational efficiency from perspectives which focus on politeness as a moral quality since it is the latter subset in particular which have universal potential. In that connection, Fraser refers to the facesaving paradigm within his review also. I will now elaborate this view, as that which I perceive as answering the universal theme, and as emerging early, even at a pre-linguistic stage. Goffman (1967) first worked with the concept of face, which he built around the presentation of self. He argued that when we interact with others we display our face and have to do face-work to maintain it. He made a critical distinction between not impinging on others (negative face) and showing solidarity with others (positive face). Within negative face he claimed we would not attack others verbally, introduce topics that are difficult or uncomfortable for them, or restrict them unduly. Within positive face we would make sure to develop and maintain relationship via the conversational means which provide for this, including invitations, greetings, and compliments. Though some of these mechanisms appear ritualistic, and differ markedly cross-culturally, it is arguable that they are the stuff upon which the social order is built. As Holtgraves (2002: 39) puts it: The social order is created and sustained through the ritual of face-work. And this ritual is largely cooperative. Because face can only be given by others . . . it is in each person’s best interest to maintain each other’s face.

Robin Lakoff (1973: 297–298) envisaged underlying rules of pragmatic competence such as “be clear” on the one hand, and “be polite” on the other, but she suggested that, should these rules compete, politeness would supercede clarity as more significant to humankind. Her postulates for politeness were, simply put: – – –

Don’t impose Give options Be friendly

 Valerie Youssef

In any interaction these three must be balanced, and can be worked out through positive and negative face strategies. Brown and Levinson (1987) built from Goffman and Lakoff in focussing on positive and negative face but their framing of the terms was somewhat different. They viewed negative face as the desire for autonomy, ‘to be unimpeded in one’s actions’ (1987: 13) and positive face as the desire for connection with others, to be liked and ‘approved of ’. Holtgraves (40) notes that these desires match up well with the perceived basic wants in human kind for agency, communion and power. Face has been described as: a kind of social standing or esteem which every individual claims for her or himself and wants others to respect. (Cameron 2001: 79)

It is far more than simply observing politeness formulae, since it covers the full plethora of communicative means people may use to support face. The most common speech acts all have face-threatening aspects. Requests threaten the negative face of the hearer, but if the hearer refuses, the positive face of the requester is affected; apologies demand a loss of positive face of the speaker but also threaten the hearer’s negative face by demanding that he/she become involved in an exonerating response; compliments support the hearer’s positive face but also have potential for negative face constraints; disagreements threaten the positive face of both hearer and speaker. Amongst these act types, both requests and disagreements must be perceived as fundamental to human kind from the earliest stage of language development. The problem with all face-saving behaviour for the individual is that it may demand giving up, or at least modifying one’s own needs and behaviour to those of others. Hence it will vary from individual to individual dependent on personality and socialization, and from culture to culture. In addition social factors such as gender, ethnicity and age will have strong determinant effects on how and to what extent it is manifested. My thesis in this chapter is that attention to face emerges in communication from the earliest stage and that, in the transition form the pre-linguistic to the linguistic stage, it takes on culturally constrained norms. It is through insights that have been developed within developmental pragmatics, on the one hand, and language socialization research, on the other, that our understandings have moved in this direction. In the 1970’s developmental pragmatics emerged, with Halliday and Bruner as two of its most cogent proponents. Halliday (1975) traced language acquisition through the development of prime functions in the child spanning the pre-linguistic and early linguistic period, and Bruner (1975, 1983), in turn,

“May I have the bilna?” 

perceived that only appropriate social-interactional frameworks, spanning the pre-linguistic and linguistic periods, could provide the necessary scaffolding for language to develop. A number of other researchers (e.g. Bloom 1973; Snow and Ferguson 1978; Trevarthen 1977; Meltzoff and Gopnik 1993) also viewed the child as developing language as the stuff of routine interaction very early, and this, in turn, as being the stuff of communicative competence, the capacity to interact socially and to share intent in the context of a specific society and culture. Halliday made the point that “meaning takes place in an environment, not in solitude” (1975: 65) and that this meaning entailed both situation and culture: The meaning potential that the child learns to express in the first phase serves him in functions which exist independently of language, as features of human life at all times and in all cultures. But at the same time, and in the same process, he is constructing for himself a social semiotic, a model of the culture of which he is a member. (1975: 66)

This research coincided in time with the development of language socialization research (Ochs and Shieffelin 2001), and, in a similar way, served to bridge gaps between philosophical and practical research-driven positions, and between adult and child foci. Like developmental pragmatics, it challenged both the nativist giant, Chomsky (e.g. 1968), who saw language acquisition as innately propelled, with little reference to “impoverished” adult input, and the cognitivist giant, Piaget (e.g. 1932) who viewed the young child’s development as egocentric. Neither of these theoretical giants espoused perspectives that conceived of social interaction as integral to the language acquisition process, their views of that milieu being driven by their own theoretical perspectives rather than by widely observable phenomena. Language socialization research, rooted as it was in anthropology and the ethnography of communication and in a deep concern to understand diverse cultures and communities, cautioned against claims of universality on the basis of studies which had been primarily carried out in Europe and the United States (for most recent review, see Kulick and Shieffelin 2004). This research challenged notions of “universal” mother-child interaction as supported by “baby-talk” register and much mutual development of speech, for it showed rather that in the context of the Kaluli in Papua New Guinea, for example, as well as among Samoans, children customarily participate in extended household units and are expected to adapt to circumstance rather than be adapted to. In Samoan culture there is an emphasis on emotion display on behalf of self and the other (Ochs 1986); in Japanese culture there is a constraint to consider

 Valerie Youssef

others at all times and to control one’s own emotions (Clancy 1986); in Kaluli culture there is direct teaching of the “social uses of assertive language” (Ochs and Schieffelin 2001: 276). Children generally have been found to lack power relative to adults and to respond to this differential in ways which are both gender and age sensitive (Andersen 1986; Gleason 1987). What would appear to remain universal, however, is the capacity of the child to adapt to whatever are the socio-cultural expectations of its community, and this regardless of whether or not its language development is more or less actively supported by the language users who surround it. This adaptation is an exercise in social cooperation in itself, which, in meeting the norms for appropriateness within each specific community, safeguards the face needs of both child and addressee. In a recent review of language socialization research, Garrett and Baquedano-Lopez (2002) reiterate the view that communication requires not just the sharing of a grammar but, critically, “mutuality of orientation” (2002: 345) with others. The sharing of routines is again stressed as: an achievement . . . the contingent, co-constructed product of sequentially organized communicative acts, both verbal and non-verbal. (2002: 343)

and communicative competence as “a matter of participating effectively” in interactive routines (2002: 346). While, in later childhood and adolescence, these routines may be highly nuanced and specific, at the earliest stages of communication, they are developed through caretaker speech and gesture and infant gesture and vocalization, which, from the beginning, reside in a co-operative dynamic which is universal, rooted in the mutual support that the interaction supplies in and of itself. It has been shown most recently (Pizer 2003) that, en route to the specific social norms of particular communities, some families now engage in teaching their children sign language to allow them an early access route to what they perceive as socially appropriate interactive language. Whether this is useful or necessary we might dispute, but it is another exercise in culturally-specific inculcation of politeness norms, which falls progressively more in line with the adult norms of any given community as the child matures and learns. Crucially, each and every child learns “culturally intelligible affective stances” embracing “emotion, feelings, moods, dispositions and attitudes associated with persons” in becoming “a recognizable subject in any social group” (Kulick and Schieffelin 2004: 352). Universal needs in the individual are progressively culturally refined the further the socialization process develops. To link the earliest culture-specific communication in the child to a mutually shared intentionality with the adult of potentially universal significance

“May I have the bilna?” 

is one object of this chapter. I would contend that a pre-linguistic babble such as ehwehwehwehbaabaabaa can mean “Pick me up and lets play that cooperating game; I need us to do that” and this picking-up act sequence in turn can be seen as an exercise in mutual face maintenance which preserves a developing cultural and individual identity. Beyond this, I have re-examined data collected from three children in Trinidad whose language development I studied from approximate age 2;0– 4;0, focussing particularly on language they used which might be considered to have the function of supporting their face or their interlocutors’ face. Since the three children were differentially exposed to Trinidad Creole (TC) and Trinidad Standard (TS) it is possible to observe these developments across varieties and even in code-mixing scenarios, and to examine how caretakers and children negotiate such functions inter-varietally.

. The study . Language situation and setting In Trinidad and Tobago, a mesolectal Caribbean English-lexicon Creole variety, and a Caribbean Standard co-exist; they may be used discretely but are more often used together in systematic code-mixing. For the majority, the Creole (TC) is the dominant language variety and Standard (TS) is introduced as an interactive code in school, but there are many homes where the Standard is used earlier and where children learn to code-switch and mix before school age. The Creole code is considered appropriate and normative for the majority of friendly interactions, where solidarity is emphasized; even among the educated, it would be used alongside TS, balanced according to the relative seriousness of topic and overall situational constraints (cf. Youssef 1993). TS is used exclusively only in highly formal contexts among the most educated. The balancing of codes appropriately is a part of what I have elsewhere labelled a speaker’s varilingual competence (cf. Youssef 1996), entailing the knowledge of the normative varietal mix to be used in any given situation to achieve the desired social relations and communicative intent. The mixing is systematic, producing a blended variety which captures the appropriate level for specific situations. To use only one code would be to diminish the richness in communicative range of the speaker, for code-mixing has become the unmarked norm in the society. Since the Creole is the language of solidarity, national identity, emotion and humour, and Standard the language of edu-

 Valerie Youssef

cation, religion, and officialdom, persons automatically balance the varieties out according to the dynamics of each specific scenario. Linguistic choices of variety entail issues of identity and attention to face in themselves for a speaker presents self in very particular ways according to the variety (ies) he/she chooses, and relates differently to addressee according to these choices also. The standard code would distance a highly educated speaker from the average man or woman in the street and hence diminish his/her positive face; a sensitive educated speaker would then shift towards creole to achieve cooperation and mutual support. While the varietal balance is different in each individual, this kind of language mixing forms the input to the next generation who acquire language varieties via the proportional representation of each to which they are exposed in specific contexts (cf. Youssef 1990, 1991, 1996). Sociolinguistic competence, the capacity for ordered mixing, has shown itself to be inseparable from the acquisition of grammatical features in the local context such that children as young as two and a half, code-switch constantly as they balance the varieties of their exposure according to factors of setting, situation, topic and addressee. The sensitivity to context embraces a sensitivity to role relationships which, when examined even cross-culturally, shows itself to be dominant. . The informants Among the children, Keeshan was raised in a predominantly monolingual Creole environment and was exposed to conversational Standard only through myself. He spent his days in the family home where three generations lived together and where his grandparents, his mother and several of her sisters spent most of their time. He was surrounded by the language of these adults, and played with one cousin closer to his own age who was also still at home. Kareem developed language in his parents’ and his caretaker’s homes; while he was not a part of an extended family unit as was Keeshan, the caretaker home did embrace an extended family also. He spent his week days in that home and his evenings and weekends with his parents and his younger sister. His parents used both TC and TS and he himself was encouraged to develop both. His parents had grown up speaking TC as their first language variety but through education had become fluent speakers of TS; his mother was a postgraduate student of Linguistics herself, very proud of her cultural background and its linguistic manifestations. Both parents saw the benefits of their children developing full competence in both community varieties. Since he spent more waking time, before entry to nursery school, in the Creole-speaking environ-

“May I have the bilna?” 

ment of his caretaker his Creole was dominant early, and later modified in the school context. Janet was raised in a nuclear family home with her parents and three older siblings. There was much emphasis on the Standard there although the family helper, as well as her siblings, left to themselves, used some TC. Her mother continuously corrected her earliest speech towards the Standard, from baby forms and later, from TC utterances, frequently refusing to respond to her needs if the utterances were, in her opinion, ill-formed. There was a greater focus on TS and specific politeness formulae in the home than is generally normative in the community. For purposes of this study I also introduced Tamir at a pre-linguistic stage, with the object of examining the relative salience of cooperative language, and attention to face at this early stage. Tamir is the first child of Trinidadian parents who use TS as their majority language variety. He spends his days, like Kareem, however, with a TC-speaking caretaker. In addition, his paternal grandfather speaks to him in Arabic. Given the utility of dealing with the pre-linguistic stage of development in this study I have incorporated some discussion of the literature in this area into the discussion of Tamir’s development. . Data collection and focus The original object of my study of the three older children was the development of their verb phrase, both Creole and Standard. They were recorded in different contexts since observation indicated that their balance of Creole and Standard might differ accordingly. Recordings were made at least once every two weeks, and their full utterances were transcribed and analysed for detail of development of the verb phrase across the variable contexts entailed. As far as possible recordings were naturalistic and I was in each case accepted as a friend of the family, becoming well-acquainted with each child. They all developed different balances between Creole and Standard, and Janet and Kareem developed considerable code-mixing ability according to context. Each developed some formulaic repetitive speech (cf. Peters 1983), as well as displaying analytic development, but, for Keeshan, formulaic speech was his dominant speech style. Tamir was at a pre-linguistic babbling stage for the duration of his study, between eight and nine and a half months. His ‘speech’ was unpredictable and my observations were made in note form on the occasions when he spent time with me in my home, sometimes when we were alone and sometimes in the presence of others, and at least twice per week. He smiled a great deal gener-

 Valerie Youssef

ally, and was sometimes intensely vocal, at other times apparently wrapped in thought and silent. When he was absorbed in observation of fresh scenes and events he became totally silent. In this paper, I will examine Tamir’s early babbling and, for the older children, will focus primarily on request forms as they are manifested differently in the contact varieties. I will also consider other means of relational interaction embracing tags, and warnings as well as topical constraints and speech styles. The means of expressing one’s desires in TC would most usually be I want/want to, lehme (let me) type utterances, or imperatives mitigated by such tags as nah, ent? and right?. Can I? is the main TS request form and may I? fairly rare in the speech community as a whole. Tags right? and nah, in particular, are used to seek agreement throughout the speech community e.g. You want to come with me, right? At the same time as examining these very specific features, I note the ways in which the code adjustments made by the children had broader social functions, and that varietal appropriacy shifts themselves were motivated by face-saving concerns. Kareem even manipulated topic from an early stage to subjects which would be mutually rewarding for himself and his addressee and Keeshan’s formulaic speech strategies were revealed as demonstrating social cooperative concerns. . Tamir There is every indication that children learn the social functions of language before they are able to utter intelligible words. Intersubjectivity, the capacity to relate to others, is claimed by researchers to be present from as early as three weeks of age as evidenced in the presence of caregiver-infant complementarity of behaviour, as well as the capacity of the child to imitate the adult, and the child’s responsiveness to caregivers’ emotion (Dockrell and Messer 1999: 6). Not only do children and caregivers indicate relational concerns but also a very early synchrony of harmonious interaction, which, if disrupted, results in infant alarm. Bruner has commented: Social interaction appears to be both self-propelled and self-rewarding . . . withholding social response to the child’s initiatives is one of the most disruptive things one can do to an infant. (1983: 27)

At around nine months, the child not only selects who he/she will go to but actually starts to assess what response should be given to novel events by checking

“May I have the bilna?” 

the response of his/her caregiver. All this suggests an acuity of sensitivity to the other which puts prime focus on cooperation and mutual support. While some researchers see a discontinuity between the pre-linguistic stage and the onset of grammar, both Halliday and Bruner make strong cases for complexification but continuous development. An instance of language for Halliday involves “an observable and constant relation between the content and the expression” (1975: 38). The meanings Halliday distinguishes for children at ten and a half months are a combination of gesture and vocalization. The gestures he observed expressed demands tantamount to I want that or Do that again whereas the vocalizations expressed Let’s be together and Look-that’s interesting. Between 9 and 12 months, he identified 4 functions as follows: 1. Instrumental: I want (Demand) 2. Regulatory: You do this; getting control of a particular person’s action (Command) 3. Interactional: Me and you, used in seeking joint action with the caregiver, for example, looking at a picture together. 4. Personal: Here I come, used in reflecting on the environment and entailing meanings of I like and I wonder. For purposes of the argument in this paper it becomes critical to note that among these four functions we may observe a complementarity between the child’s having individual desires and interests (1, 2 and 4), involving more or less relative autonomy, and his/her wanting to share and to cooperate with the caregiver (3). The desire for cooperative interaction necessarily entails a modification of the other three functions behaviourally in the process of accomplishing them. Tamir’s systematic babbling was limited largely to the production of a single utterance: ba:, both singly and in a repetitive sequence, as well as two others: ewe: and mε:. He also produced a variety of vocalic and velar sounds but these appeared as random spontaneous noises of delight as he crawled around chasing items. They were less fixed in form than his other sounds and collectively seemed to embrace Halliday’s Personal Here I come function. They corresponded with that range of pre-linguistic utterances that have been termed action-for-self (Lempert and Kinsbourne 1985). Bababababa, a repetitive sequence of the ba unit, was used in cooperative contexts, always accompanied by his banging with his hand on an object and eye gaze fixed on me. I joined in the activity and it became a game which we played and which he taught to other persons present. It seemed like a good example of an early interactive activity, involving both specific sound and action,

 Valerie Youssef

which became routinized and familiar, and satisfied the communicative needs of both child and caregiver (cf. Holzman 1997: 71–72). It is important to note that the infant always initiated the interaction and his delight in the adult’s response was evident, and seemed more important than the act itself. Further to this, when he produced any babbling sound and an adult repeated it, he would laugh or smile and make the sound again, obviously encouraged by the supportive, recognized response. With his father he would produce 6mmmm, a sound which that caregiver used to him repeatedly, apparently in an attempt to widen his speech repertoire! He would also call out loudly to a person with be: or ba, most usually when he heard their voice but could not see them. Following this, he would produce a string of sounds around this theme as if he were telling them something, although the utterance content was quite unintelligible. This act seemed to imitate the intonation contours of an adult utterance without the content, reminiscent of Peters’ (1983) observations on the early development of a child she studied with multilingual exposure. These activity types clearly corresponded with Halliday’s Interactional function, although there was a Regulatory element in the tone of some of them as well. The calling out sound, for example, was executed with a peremptory tone, demanding a response, but this could have been mere imitation of the adult model. All these routines seem to have as their source a desire for connection with others in a cooperative sense, bringing gratification to both parties, a clear precursor of linguistic positive face-saving behaviour. Ewe was an expression of want, Halliday’s Instrumental function, often accompanied by Tamir’s lifting his hands to be picked up, or making a half-crying noise because he wanted a particular object or food item. Subsequently, it was replaced in his output by mε: for the precise same functions. On more than one occasion when he was wanting to be picked up and was not achieving it, he began the cooperative play game with baba, banging on the caretaker’s leg, as if appealing: Come on, let’s play. To reinforce his desire then, he did not go by a purely imperative Regulatory route so much as by a cooperative route, not by do this but by let’s do this together. This strategy showed the child acknowledging the autonomy of the adult, and opting not to impinge on that autonomy but rather to seek achievement of his goal through an activity type that he perceived as pleasurable to the adult, and therefore non-threatening face-wise. At nine months, he started to play a give and take game, which was nonverbal. He would take an object from me and then hold it out to me, although he initially had difficulty relinquishing it. Often he would initiate this routine by holding out the object to be taken first. He also learnt to wave ‘bye bye’ in response and started to do this voluntarily to different persons, largely through

“May I have the bilna?” 

the gesture alone. His face always registered delight at the reciprocity achieved in and of itself. There was constant delight in a connection achieved and solidarity established. He appeared to have the four functions identified by Halliday but what was most noteworthy was that a cooperative element was very dominant within them, and a concern for mutual involvement and support. Not only this, but he was observed to reduce the force of a request, for example, to be picked up, by encouraging cooperation even at this stage and to consistently seek common ground in creating activities with common cooperative goals. He cried on exclusion from mutually conducted or negotiated activity to which end the majority of his vocalizations were orchestrated. His behaviour overall evidenced a keen concern for mutual face needs with the adults around him, even at this pre-linguistic stage, and this broke down to a purely emotional reaction only when his combined gesture and utterance failed to achieve the mutual collaboration he sought. . Keeshan Of the children observed from age 2;0, as grammar started to emerge, Keeshan was the one who was exposed almost exclusively to Trinidad Creole. He was also the one who exhibited a large proportion of formulaic and repetitive speech throughout the study. This style of speech has been described in most detail by Peters (1983; cf. also Hickey 1993) and is alluded to above in the discussion of Tamir’s sentence-long babbling routines. It begins with the child producing babbling sounds but with adult-like intonation as carried over a sentence-like unit. Sometimes single words which are recognizable occur within the stream of this speech. Gradually whole units emerge but they appear as unanalyzed formulae, in which the entire utterance or a part thereof is fixed; these utterances are synonymous with the Pivot-Open utterances early identified by Braine (1963). These gradually give way to a greater proportion of more analytic language development. The formulaic style has been determined to be essentially non-productive in that it is replaced largely by the analytic style as language development progresses. It has been associated most with children who spend much time surrounded by speech with little of it actually addressed to them and has also been recognized in children exposed to more than one language, who have been observed, in some cases, to use formulaic speech in their early approach to one of the languages and analytic speech in approaching the other. All the children in this Trinidad study used it to some extent and it appeared to help them nego-

 Valerie Youssef

tiate two language varieties with sometimes conflicting rule systems but with a common lexical base (cf. Youssef 1994, in which the formulaic utterance types are discussed in considerable detail). Keeshan lived in an extended family unit with many adults and one other young child. He was active, but not talkative, and was often asked to speak by his mother in our recording contexts when he was not very interested in doing so. A large part of these sessions up to age three subsisted in his producing a preponderance of formulaic units. These units have now been readdressed in the context of their cooperative, interactional and face-saving value. Initially, I note a comment which I made at the time of first analysing his speech, however: It was (the formulaic language) a ready tool of compromise when demands for speech were levelled at him when he was reticent. (Youssef 1990: 298)

In other words, constrained to talk when he really did not want to, Keeshan tried to satisfy his addressees by formula-based and echoic language, sometimes merely repeating their previous utterance without attention to any appropriate person change. On re-examining the speech in the context of the topic of this paper, I noted further that the patterns which he used formulaically all evidenced his comprehension of measures of deontic modality; they evidenced his responsiveness to obligation, relative permission, willingness and necessity in relation to himself and the persons around him. In terms of our study they indicated his responsiveness to the demands of social interaction and his concern to maintain positive solidarity relations with himself and his caregivers. As early as age 2;0, want/want to was occurring for requests and, at 2;2, it was being used to offer objects to others with a question intonation as well as for requests e.g. (1) You want a sweetie? (2) You want a tablet with water?

Not only was he expressing his own needs and those of others by the use of want to, but he was using the form to offer objects to others. Offering is an act type which evidences concern for the positive face of the other, a concern to satisfy the needs of others, not merely oneself. At the same time, to the extent that it is appreciated by the receiver, who in turn expresses this gratification to the giver, it enhances the giver’s sense of self-validation, and brings about mutual satisfaction and enhanced solidarity. He was also, at this early stage, using a formulaic sentence pattern with bite you and burn you as follows:

“May I have the bilna?” 

(3) That bite you. (4) Birdie bite you. (5) Fire burn you.

These utterances all occurred when he was looking at an object; he would make his pronouncement with an air of omniscience. Sometimes want to and bite you were combined: (6) That birdie want bite me. (7) Want to bite you up.

On reanalysis I noted that the pattern had been acquired from his caregivers as a type of warning. Rather than tell him ‘Don’t touch that’ or ‘Don’t go near that’ they had told him that an object or entity was likely to bite or burn him. In other words, they had explained to him why he should not do something – because of a danger to himself – instead of delivering an admonishing imperative. He, in turn, had taken up the pattern in addressing them although he did not seem to understand its import and chose rather to use it as a distractor, something that was easy to say when conversation was required, even a placator. These expressions then had a social meaning for him rather than an informative one. In recordings with myself, his mother admonished Keeshan to use please and not to use ‘nah’, a Creole persuasive tag. At age 2;8, he first used please in the following sequence: (8) Move the book, nah. Move the book, please. I say move the book, please.

In order to have his need satisfied he used the means regularly produced within his own language exposure, but then shifted to the one his mother required. With each separate statement, however, he was not just seeking satisfaction of need but a means to achieve it, which was acceptable to the addressee. While this utterance has a regulatory function, the child evidences recognition of the mother’s autonomy in modifying his utterance to the model she requires to get her active attention to his desire. From 2;9, please was appearing with want consistently and the joining of formulaic elements came to embrace sometimes two and sometimes three elements as they linked together into complex statements and requests e.g. (9) Want climb up this ladder, please.

 Valerie Youssef

(10) I want buy balloon, please. (11) I want to go by Daddy, please. Phone my Daddy, please. I want Daddy gone to work, please. Daddy gone in the phone there. (12) I want to chat to Auntie Valerie and build up, please. (13) Cat want to bite me please.

That he did not understand the full adult meaning of the elements he used, nor how they should link structurally according to the adult system, was clear. However, he evidenced a concern for the negative face needs of the addressee which was consistent across the utterances, indicated not only by the use of please but also by a deprecating tone of voice, which indicated his understanding of the permissional function in the term. He had urgent needs himself but he did not seek to fulfil them at any cost but rather mitigated the force of his utterance by using please, simultaneously reinforced by repetition/reformulation. At the same stage he was using have/have to as follows: (14) This have to go there an build up, right? (15) This have to go, right? (16) This have build up the bus, right? Have put it down in the truck.

Here we see the introduction of a second Creole tag right? This carries the meaning of Don’t you agree? and seeks affirmation that the addressee is not only listening but also following and agreeing to the action that the child is undertaking. He is not only carrying out an action then but seeking support for it. He is not building blocks independently but seeking to engage the other in a collaborative operation. Despite his very low exposure to TS, Keeshan also produced shall we, an expression that he had only heard from myself on isolated occasions as a prelude to mutual book-reading: (17) Shall we read this?

This form was of very low occurrence in the input to him but it is important to the study since again it seeks cooperative mutual engagement in an activity with his caretaker. It seems to have been salient for its meaning potential as it meshed with the face concerns he wanted to express. When he was about to perform individual action, Keeshan often used let me, and an associated utterance type which began with me and which I ultimately considered as a reduced form of let me. Contexts in which it occurred

“May I have the bilna?” 

were always those which preceded an action and apparently sought support for it, e.g.: (18) I goin fix the book. Me fix it. (19) Me show you all the car mash up. All the car mash up. Let me show you. Let me show you car mash up.

He was juxtaposing his own action then with a request for permission and mutual engagement on occasions when the real context did not necessarily demand it. All in all then Keeshan showed considerable sensitivity to the maintenance of positive social relations in the carrying out of his activities. Not only this but his Creole variety provided him with a number of means for expression of these relations, which he manipulated to his formulaic language style with considerable creativity. Uninterested as he was in the recording exercise he had been engaged in, and focussed as he was on his own activities, he nonetheless balanced them with hedging devices which softened the force of his demands in ways that had first been used to him by his caregivers, but were not necessarily of high incidence in that input. Further, it is possible to explain the formulaic speech style itself partly in its providing a ready utterance type which satisfied an interactional need effectively and economically. . Kareem Of the three children studied at approximately the same age level, Kareem adapted most readily to the recording process. He was outgoing and he enjoyed the attention the recording sessions brought him. In addition, he was the only one of the three children whose mother worked outside the home and the excuse to have an hour’s conversation with her or another caregiver was one he capitalized upon! The topic of the early recordings with his mother was activities surrounding the washing machine. (At the time of recording I thought he was a child with a natural interest in machines but as he is now studying Philosophy I may have been wrong!) What strikes me forcibly now and in the present context is that his mother was always busy catching up on housework when they interacted and the washing machine gave them a meaningful point of contact. The activity then allowed him to pursue a cooperative endeavour with his mother, to support her

 Valerie Youssef

both physically and in conversation, and hence assure their positive face needs and minimal breach of her negative face, since the subject of conversation he selected was relevant to her ongoing activity. From age 2;3–2;10, his facilitatory activities in the washing exercise dominated conversations: (20) Machine washin. (21) My machine rinsin. (22) I puttin drier. (23) I coverin it. It’s rinsin. (24) It’s washin. I put it on. It fullin water. (25) I cover the machine. I fix it good. It done wash. (26) I fix the machine, Mummy. It done wash. Washin done wash. You see. (27) It’s gonna spin dry jus now. (28) It spin dry already. (29) My machine not mash up. My machine lazy. Look what it doin. It done wash.

All these utterances share in common a detailing of the progress of the ongoing washing process for his mother and several of them evidence his own active support of the process e.g. I fix the machine. They constitute a good example of topical selection, which, in itself, safeguards the negative and positive face needs of parties to a conversation. On the one hand, he recognized his mother’s right to pursue the activities she had to complete; on the other, by entering into them and participating actively in the process, he assured himself cooperative connection with her. All this at age two and a half. For all three children, request forms, our major key to negative face concern, were salient, and Kareem’s showed an interesting development sequence. Initially he used want/want to for almost a year, and the form served his needs, not only to express desires, but also permission to satisfy them in their contexts of usage. Can emerged as a request for permission at age 3;1, some three months after he had moved into the prescriptive-TS environment of his nursery school. He produced these forms when talking to me, and also to another TS control, a monolingual speaker of TS, whom I introduced when he was fairly familiar with me and using more TC in my company as the variety of familiarity. He never used can with his TC-speaking caretaker, hence evidenc-

“May I have the bilna?” 

ing a very clear sense of stylistic variation according to addressee in their use. Examples included: (30) Can I have some water? (31) Can I play your piano? (32) Can I go in this boat?

May I emerged at age 3;8, when he asked me: (33) May I have the bilna?1

At age 3;9, some new apparent conflict developed for Kareem since, on three occasions, he used can in alternation with I want in the same utterance: (34) I want-can I use this copybook? (35) Can I put-I want a slippers to put on. (36) I want to wear the slippers. Can I just wear the slippers?

Twice, in 35 and 36, we note his actual self-correction, though in 35 he corrects towards TS and in the 36 to TC. Subsequently he abandoned the modals may and can again until age 4;5, and used want in all request contexts. In an earlier paper (Youssef 1991), I commented on his apparent strategy: Request forms were not an isolated area of acquisition and Kareem was dealing with a number of morpho-syntactic markers at this time, each of which had a separate range of usage. To isolate the most dominant and widely used request form for general usage for a period of time would seem to be a useful strategy on the route to what has elsewhere been described as varilingual competence. (Youssef 1991: 621)

The context of re-emergence of the modals was also of interest. As noted above, I was obliged to introduce a new TS control at age 4;5 because Kareem’s measure of familiarity with my own home and family had reached a point where he opted to use the more informal, familiar TC code. On that occasion he started out by using I want but produced can I voluntarily when prompted: (37) Kareem: I want to look at it. Adult: Well then, you ask. Kareem: May I have it, please? (38) Kareem: Give me it. Adult: Ask for it. Kareem: Can I have it, please?

 Valerie Youssef

The exhortation on the adult’s part to “ask” when in his own terms he had already done so, must have seemed strange to the child, but his immediate appropriation of the requisite form shows his keen awareness of the modals may and can for polite requests. Save for a seven-month period when he appeared to make one expression cover all contexts, apparently seeking a principle of economy, Kareem’s keen sensitivity to the precise form appropriate to context and addressee was, in itself, a testimony to social awareness and a developing communicative competence present from the earliest stage. Indeed, the recording context itself was one which he came to recognize and respond to, even in the absence of my physical presence. On one occasion he became exasperated with his sister for not talking to him “properly” and switched to TC to admonish her: (39) Kareem: Ask me questions cos that is how I does have to do. I does have to tape record. Ask me question about how-how-how school goin an ting. Sister: Kareem Kareem: Yes? Sister: I fed up. Kareem: Oh gosh no. Ask me questions. You have to speak properly.

A developed sensitivity to the demands of the situation, even in the absence of the referee, is very evident here. Clearly he did not want to disappoint me by producing a recording which was not appropriate in form for my needs. His concern for our mutual face support caused him to undermine his sister’s. He was focussed on presenting himself appropriately. Levels of power and hierarchical arrangements associated with it, within in and outside the family, were having an effect on his communicative choices by this time. Even when in the company of his TC-speaking caretaker, and using the TC code, Kareem showed a concern to steer the conversation towards school activities which had, towards the end of the study, become a major focus of our interactions. If others present did not conform, he might even go into a monologue in which the topic itself overrode the immediate setting and constrained him towards TS: (40) Right, well I’ll do it by myself. . . When we do work Miss gives us a piece of paper and we write a composition. And then after Miss corrects them, we copy them into the book and we keep the papers wherever we want. (Youssef 1993: 271–272)

“May I have the bilna?” 

This measure of referee design (cf. Bell 1984, 2001) is quite remarkable in one so young, and testifies to his working out a purpose whose constraints were of more significance than issues of physical proximity. He was concerned with satisfying my positive face, as an apparent higher authority, over and above those in his immediate contextual surroundings. In so doing he was responding to their negative face needs simultaneously. . Janet Lastly we have to consider Janet, the child who was brought up in a home where the conventional politeness norms associated with TS were inculcated from the earliest stage. At the time of the study I wrote of her: Janet . . . seeks constantly to please her parents, obeys instructions implicitly. . . At age 2;0 she began to speak – but remained shy. . . in the researcher’s presence. With rare perversity she would declare that she was a ‘statue’ and therefore could not talk. (Youssef 1990: 121) She appeared to focus on SE as the variety of her primary exposure and the variety her mother demanded of her, but made such switches as her mother would countenance in peer-group interaction. (Youssef 1990: 229)

Here again then, we see a two-year old child aware of the social demands and constraints upon her, and also aware of the face-needs of adults in respect of language use itself and the need to focus upon a particular variety with certain persons to win and maintain their approval. Modality was the most developed part of her verb system from the start of the study when she was age 2;3, and even then, at a stage when her speech was still telegraphic, 7/15 request forms employed modals: (41) Can come out get it? (42) Can me see, Mummy? (43) May I touch it?

There were occasions at this stage when she used only intonation to establish a request and it was noted that when this happened her mother would correct her to the adult form. This did not always have an immediate effect but the expansions did have remarkable long-term effect in that she was productively using those forms her mother introduced to her within a month of their first use in an expansion. Examples of this type of interaction are given below:

 Valerie Youssef

(44) Janet: Mother: Janet: Mother: Janet:

Me have mango. Have mango? What about “May I have a mango please. Can you say that?” Have mango. What about ‘Please Mummy.’ Please Mummy.

In the extract below it is clear that the censure applied not just to the request form but to other lexical items which were considered more or less polite, and, even here, there was a responsivity in the child: (45) Janet: May I dig it out? Mother: Dig what out? You can’t dig it out. “May I clean it, please”. Janet: May I clean it please? Have to put cream my ear and dig it out.

In the course of time, Janet, like Kareem, learnt to use different forms in different contexts using may I and can I when her mother was within earshot and shifting to such forms as let’s and I want when with her siblings or the family helper alone. In other words, she learnt appropriateness norms her mother did not teach her, since her mother expected her to stick to the SE modals on all occasions, but she was clearly sensitive to a need for more flexibility. In a single recording at age 2;9, she used may 14 times to her mother but with her siblings produced 5 utterances which were tantamount to requests but stated more assertively, e.g.: (46) I need red. (47) Maureen. Let me fix colour book. (48) Alan, let me colour.

She was the youngest in the family, with two older bothers and one sister, and asserted herself forcefully because of her own face needs as the least empowered, on these occasions of sibling dispute. She would also threaten the positive face of her siblings in the interest of her own face needs vis-à-vis her caregivers. Faced with confrontational play scenarios she became more assertive as in the following extracts when she has been reprimanded by her father for making a mess; in this extract she uses imperatives to her brother and defends herself to her father as having done her own tidying: (49) Janet: Father: Janet:

Daddy. I don’t want to hear. I did put mine out there. I put it in my room. So beat it, Nicholas, come and help me. Put it in! Just drop it! You laughing about it now. I’ll do that heap. You drunk, huh!

“May I have the bilna?” 

Whenever she used I want, to the family helper, the form was constrained by circumstance and appropriateness but never took on a demanding tone such as would have impinged on the addressee’s negative face. She seemed to regard the expression of her desires to the family helper as a matter of degree, with the TS form having more force in producing compliance, a reality which her mother had taught her. Thus she used a majority of I want forms within the appropriate register, but when she particularly needed the helper’s support she used can: (50) Can you fold this for me? (51) Can you do this for me? (52) Put it in the garbage please. Can you please?

Not only in the area of requests, but in other contexts, Janet showed sensitivity to the face needs of others from an early stage. At 2;3, she also produced shall although the majority of questions of advisability used intonation alone. In the following sequence she is offering to help her parents apply insect repellent: (53) Shall me do it? Rub it? (54) Put away cream? (On this occasion she is tentatively asking her father if she should put away the cream she had applied to her parents’ legs). (55) Rub cream my leg? (Here she is asking her mother if she should apply cream to her leg).

Advisability, then, was evidenced early, and it was an advisability which took extreme cognisance of parental concern. She also learnt the form supposed to and she also developed a quasi-conditional form on the SE would pattern. On a recording with my son and daughter in my home fairly late in the study at age 3;11, she used a variety of means of seeking approval of her actions and advice from my daughter who was seven years older than herself, while asserting herself in relation to my son, who was close to her own age, only two years older. She questioned Marie, seeking both advice and approval, and she sought permission from her. With Daniel, she issued mild insults, assertive statements and imperatives: (56) Now you goin paint another mess, right? (57) Danny look at this. I’m using this. I like Marie’s colours best.

but to Marie: (58) Which colour shall I use now?

 Valerie Youssef

(59) May I take a little bit water? (60) What shall I make? (61) What shall I draw? (62) Is it looking good, Marie? (63) Is mine looking nice, Marie?

Broadly, she supported Marie, and sought her direct compliment of her painting, while simultaneously derogating Daniel’s. Clearly, she too had a developed sense of hierarchical relationships, based primarily on age, but also household positioning, which conditioned her use of contrasting language forms, showing a concern for her own positive face needs and those of her elders and superiors as against those of her peers. With regard to social norms in these extracts it becomes clear that what is expected by the caregiver is generally, to a greater or lesser extent, what the child tries to achieve. But adherence to social norms of politeness is only a local manifestation of a global concern which maximizes face-saving in the mutual interest of all parties to the conversation.

. Discussion What the detail of this study has shown is that attention to face needs surfaces from the pre-linguistic stage, at which time it is manifested through specific babbling sounds, as well as eye gaze and gesture. The establishment of good social relations with others and the cooperative pursuit of this goal is important to all parties to such interactions and has been observed to be actively pursued by the infant as a primary end. It has always been acknowledged that infants make their needs known effectively at a pre-linguistic stage, but these may often be interpreted physically in terms of hunger and other discomforts. This study shows that concern for social cooperation is equally significant at the babbling stage and that a child as young as nine months can develop face concerns and the capacity for face-management. This finding reinforces the importance of viewing the development of language as an outworking of social-psychological development, within which the latter provides a motivating force for the former. As noted earlier, personality factors will cause differences among individuals with regard to how far face-management is placed above more individualistic concerns, but the harnessing of pre-language and language to the demands of face would be common to all.

“May I have the bilna?” 

Of the three children studied between ages 2;0 and 4;0, Keeshan was the least cooperative to the recording routine. He was the only child, for example, whose statements did not always have perceivable relevance to the ongoing situation. Yet when examined closely, his speech reveals that he used formulaic speech in a relevant and dynamic way to fit the conversation as best he could with concern for its pragmatic functions. I observed earlier (Youssef 1990) that he was primarily expressive and that the vast preponderance of his recorded utterances verbalized his desires, rather than being referential. However, it is also clear that, working within a dominant formulaic style, he adapted to unique ways of providing the requisite information which adults were demanding of him, and through this means sought mutually co-operative ends. His use of TC tags right and nah indicated his concern to have his actions affirmed and approved by his caregivers. Kareem was a child who, from the earliest stage, selected conversational topics, which would allow him to gratify the face needs of both his mother and himself. His code-mixing and switching as it developed, evidenced responsiveness to the demands of each addressee, as is clearly evidenced from the development and use of TS and TC request forms. Indeed, the early development and use of code-switching itself shows not just a concern for contextual appropriateness but for social appropriateness, to fit the addressee’s concerns and needs. Ultimately, he was able to take this beyond the immediate context, retaining a sense of the need to cooperate with a party to the recording exercise who was physically absent. Finally, as we observe Janet’s development, we see a child who was driven, earlier than Keeshan and Kareem, to cooperation with the social norms of politeness demanded of her in and through the medium of TS. The politeness she developed was on the model her mother laid down for her and her very constraint towards producing it whenever her mother was in earshot, showed that she sought to achieve solidarity with her, through the language variety she used. In recording with other children and with the family helper, in contrast, she could be observed balancing disagreement and derogation with compliment and conformity, as she worked out her role relationship to persons of different ages and genders. Face concerns must be seen as primary drivers of the socialization process, and of the language acquisition which necessarily accompanies this socialization. As cross-linguistic studies have shown, the precise nature of social cooperation will vary dependent on the cultural norms of the society involved, but there is a common base motivation for adaptation to each set of cultural norms, and that remains the need for social co-operation between child and

 Valerie Youssef

care-giver. We may speculate that the infant’s disempowerment relative to older children and adults makes this concern paramount and this may well be the case. But this sense of disempowerment in itself evidences subtle awareness in the child of power relationships and the efficacy of responding to them from early. Within a Caribbean sociolinguistic complex it is possible to see differential manipulation of the contact varieties and their relative resources, as well as speech styles, not just as evidencing sociolinguistic awareness of appropriateness norms, but also of the need for face-saving, for politeness, in its most fundamental form. The study of the relative use of a variety of resources within the same community, according to exposure, is of particular value.

Note . Bilna is the local name for a rolling pin. It is of Bhojpuri origin and is used primarily among the Indian community but has general recognition and acceptability.

References Andersen, Elaine (1986). “The acquisition of register variation by Anglo-American children.” In B. Schieffelin & E. Ochs (Eds.), Language Socialization across Cultures (pp. 153–161). New York: Cambridge University Press. Bell, Alan (1984). “Language style as audience design.” Language in Society, 13, 145–204. Bell, Alan (2001). “Back in style: Reworking audience design.” In P. Eckert & J. Rickford (Eds.), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation (pp. 139–169). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bloom, Lois (1973). One Word at a Time. The Hague: Mouton. Braine, Michael (1963). “On learning the grammatical order of words.” Psychological Review, 70, 323–348. Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson (1978). “Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena” In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and Politeness (pp. 56–289). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruner, Jerome (1975). “The ontogenesis of speech acts.” Journal of Child Language, 2, 1–19. Bruner, Jerome (1983). Child’s Talk. New York: Norton. Cameron, Deborah (2001). Working with Spoken Discourse. London: Sage. Chomsky, Noam (1968). Language and Mind. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Clancy, Patricia (1986). “The acquisition of communicative style in Japanese.” In B. Schieffelin & E. Ochs (Ed.), 213–250.

“May I have the bilna?” 

Dockrell, Julie & David Messer (1999). Children’s Language and Communication Difficulties. London & New York: Cassell Education. Fraser, Bruce (1990). “Perspectives on politeness.” Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 219–236. Garrett, Paul B. & Patricia Baquedano-López (2002). “Language socialization: Reproduction and continuity, transformation and change.” Annual Review of Anthropology, 31, 339– 361. Gleason, Jean B. (1987). “Sex differences in parent-child interaction.” In S. Phillips, S. Steele, & C. Tanz (Eds.), Language, Gender and Sex in Comparative Perspective (pp. 189–199). New York: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction Rituals: Essays in Face-to-Face Behaviour. New York: Anchor Books. Grice, H. P. (1975). “Logic and conversation.” In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Halliday, Michael (1975). Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Development of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Hickey, Tina (1993). “Identifying formulas in first language acquisition.” Journal of Child Language, 20, 27–41. Holtgraves, Thomas M. (2002). Language as Social Action. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Holtzman, Mathilda (1997). The Language of Children. Oxford: Blackwell. Kulick, Don (1993). “Speaking as a woman: Structure and gender in domestic arguments in a New Guinea village.” Cultural Anthropology, 8, 50–541. Kulick, Don (1998). “Anger, gender, language shift and the politics of revelation in a Papuan New Guinea village.” In B. Schieffelin, K. Woolward, & P. Kroskrity (Eds.), Language Ideologies, Practice and Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Kulick, Don & Bambi Schieffelin (2004). “Language socialization.” In A. Duranti (Ed.), A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology (pp. 349–368). Oxford: Blackwell. Lakoff, Robin (1973). “The logic of politeness; or, minding your p’s and q’s.” In Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society. Lempert, Henrietta & Marcel Kinsbourne (1985). “Possible origin of speech in selective orienting.” Psychological Bulletin, 97, 63–73. Melzoff, Andrew & Alison Gopnik (1993). “The role of imitation in understanding persons and developing a theory of mind.” In S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flushberg, & D. Cohen (Eds.), Understanding Other Minds – Perspectives From Autism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ochs-Keenan, Elinor (1976). “The universality of conversational postulates.” Language in Society, 5, 67–80. Ochs, Elinor (1986). “From feelings to grammar: A Samoan case study.” In. B. Schieffelin & E. Ochs (Eds.), Language Socialization across Cultures (pp. 251–272). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ochs, Elinor & Bambi Schieffelin (2001 [reprint of 1984 article]). “Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories and their implications.” In A. Duranti (Ed.), Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader (pp. 263–301). Oxford: Blackwell.

 Valerie Youssef

Peters, Ann (1983). The Units of Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Piaget, Jean (1932). The Language and Thought of the Child. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Pizer, Ginger (2003). “Baby signing as language socialization: The use of visual-gestural signs with hearing infants.” Texas Linguistics Forum, 47, 165–171. Searle, John (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Snow, Catherine & Charles Ferguson (1978). Talking to Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trevarthern, Colwyn B. (1977). “Descriptive analysis of infant communicative behaviour.” In H. R. Schaffer (Ed.), Studies in Mother-Child Interaction. London: Academic Press. Quoted in Intersubjectivity. http://www.geocites.com/Athens/Acropolis/304/ intersubjectivity.html Youssef, Valerie (1990). The development of linguistic skills in some Trinidadian children: An integrative approach to verb phrase development. Ph.D. dissertation, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. Youssef, Valerie (1991). “Can I put-I want a slippers to put on: Young children’s development of request forms in a code-switching environment.” Journal of Child Language, 18, 609– 624. Youssef, Valerie (1993). “Children’s linguistic choices: Audience design and societal norms.” Language in Society, 22, 257–274. Youssef, Valerie (1994). “‘To be or not to be’: Formulaic and frame-based acquisition of the copula in Trinidad.” First Language, 14, 262–281. Youssef, Valerie (1996). “Varilingualism: The competence underlying code-mixing in Trinidad and Tobago.” Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 11, 1–22.

Learning respect in Guadeloupe Greetings and politeness rituals Alex Louise Tessonneau Université de Paris VIII

Greetings are part of polite behaviour, are the prelude to interactive verbal and non-verbal exchanges between individuals. It is certain that, whatever the community, whatever the period or the place, they always retain the same functions of ensuring the smooth running of these exchanges, of removing all risk of conflict, and of allowing those speakers present to avoid losing face; but, the universal character of these functions must not be allowed to mask the fact that greetings are also cultural codes, and so specific and particular to each community. As for every cultural code, they are taught to children from a very early age, and are part of the process of socialisation which operates on a child. The study of greetings in the Guadeloupian community which we offer here, illustrates not only the cultural particularity of codes of polite behaviour, but also shows us the example of a Creole speaking society where the language used for greetings indicates the degree of friendliness which exists between individuals. Moreover, these greeting rituals involve bodily attitudes and formal language, which are certainly less restrictive than those of forty years ago, but which are still synonymous with having been ‘well brought up’. In fact we can see that, torn between a tradition in which everyone felt themselves to be responsible for teaching codes of polite behaviour, and a modernity where individuality dominates and the link between language/language type/body is not as strong, the Guadeloupian community, whether it be in Guadeloupe or in the migrant population, still maintains the same basic belief that: “when one is well brought up, one will always get by”. Keywords: Language and socialisation, greetings, ritualised verbal behaviour, bodily attitude, Guadeloupian community

 Alex Louise Tessonneau

.

Introduction

These days, one may easily hear the following kind of exchange, between two or more Guadeloupian women aged forty and above, either in Guadeloupe or in migrant communities: (1) X: Timoun alè ou pe di yo malelive!1 ‘Aren’t children badly behaved these days!’ Y: Ou pe di sa! Yo ka monte si-w san di ni bonjou, ni bonswa, ni mèsi, ni ovwa, ni ahak. ‘You can say that again! They go by without saying ‘hello,’ without saying ‘good morning,’ ‘good evening,’ ‘thank you’, ‘good bye,’ or anything else.’ X: A pa an tan an nou ou te ka-y fè sa, on fwa menm, ou te ka trape on sèl palavire ou pa te ka anvi woukomanse. ‘You wouldn’t have behaved like that in our day, you would have got a good smacking on the spot.’ Y: San konte ki apwe yo te kay di sa, a fanmi-y a-w, e ou te ka santi-y pase. ‘And that’s not all, they would have gone straight to your parents to complain and you would have been in for a bad time of it.’

What does this conversation teach us? First of all that to go by without greeting someone, without using any of the usual expressions, shows that one is badly brought up. And furthermore that this kind of behaviour is not in accordance with an old fashioned up-bringing. Why this change in behaviour? Why does a failure to greet them attract such criticism from these Guadeloupian women? What in actual fact are greetings? What role did they play in Guadeloupian society, and particularly during socialization processes? . What are greetings? Greetings are an act of friendly communication which takes place when two or more people meet, a meeting which is orchestrated according to diverse parameters which come together and combine as much within a spatio-temporal framework (the place, the time of day) as from the point of view of the individuals themselves (age, gender, status, relationship to one another). Greetings form part of polite behaviour. They are the first exchanges, the first verbal and non-verbal interaction between individuals. However, during these verbal

Learning respect in Guadeloupe 

inter-actions, the speakers must know the rituals2 which apply to the situation in which they find themselves, because it is not only a case of not losing face oneself, but also of not putting others in a position where they would lose face. The speakers are therefore obliged to behave and to express themselves in a way which will not be seen as disrespectful, aggressive, or indecent. As Goffman puts it, each participant “tends to conduct himself . . . so as to maintain both his own face and the face of the other participants” (1969: 11). However, these rituals are neither universal nor unchangeable. They vary according to the communities and the periods in which they develop. They are one of the keys which allow access to the particular characteristics of a culture and consequently to the codes it uses for communicating. Nevertheless, within any community, all these codes have the same functions: to act as a basis for harmonious exchanges, to remove all risk of conflict, to allow those speakers present to avoid losing face. Indeed, codes regulating communication and community life may always have existed. Thus, Pons (1992: 26, my transl.) notes that Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, speaks of “virtues which concern ‘living together’ (suzen), the ‘trading of words and actions,”’ and that Cicero in De officis considers “the ‘institutio vitae communis,’ which allows man to fully realise his social nature, this nature which ‘in accordance with reason, reconciles man with man with the aim of a common language and way of life’. . . This is why a certain respect (reverentia) must be shown towards men.”3 In “La littérature des manières au XVIe siècle en Italie” (‘The Literature of Manners in Sixteenth Century Italy’), Pons (1994: 103–104, my transl.), in comparing Giovanni Della Casa’s Le Galatée (Galatea) (1558), Baldassar Castiglione’s Le Livre du Courtisan (The Book of the Courtier) (1528) and Stefano Guazzo’s La Conversation Civile (The Civil Conversation) (1574),4 elicits the fact that for Della Casa, man is naturally a ‘social’ being, and, for him, ‘to be in company,’ ‘in conversation,’ ‘to communicate and to have relationships’ (communicare ed usare) with others is a good in itself, perhaps the most precious of all. The imperative of good manners comes down, in the final analysis, to always doing that which will facilitate communication, and doing nothing which will trouble it or render it impossible.5

Moreover, almost all Western societies have produced numerous treatises on the subject of the rituals of polite behaviour, known as guides to ‘etiquette’ or ‘good manners,’ which prescribe what expressions to use and what bodily attitude to have in different situations in society. These books were certainly in everyday use, particularly during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and

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one might think that books of their ilk are no longer published, in our contemporary life of speed and profitability, which, as Theodor Adorno writes, “forgets the human being, characterises ‘modern’ life which has seen civility, etiquette, and politeness disappear.”6 However, this is far from the case. A brief bibliographic search reveals that over the past few years, in France alone, books and articles concerning the rituals of how to behave have been published regularly. However, when there are no such relevant books, when interaction takes place according to a subtle play between explicit and implicit, as is the case in Guadeloupe, we may ask ourselves not only how these rituals are learnt, but also how they are understood by those who are not members of this particular community. As we have already said, it is certain that greetings form part of cultural traditions and preside over interpersonal exchanges. It is for this reason that they are learnt in the first instance from other family members. However, their variability sometimes makes them difficult to perceive for the uninitiated in certain contexts. But neither must we lose sight of the fact that greetings also form a part of what Dell Hymes calls “means of speaking,” i. e. the local linguistic repertoire, a group of varieties, dialects and styles particular to each community. Therefore, in order to grasp their particularity, it is necessary to look not only at verbal and non-verbal interaction, but also “at the importance of culture and situation in the understanding of human communication,” as Malinowski (1935) has shown. Greetings are also markers of social identity, and as such have their place in the socialisation of the child. Parents must teach the child these rituals of polite behaviour from as early an age as possible. However, this activity is not the exclusive reserve of the family, because speaking also concerns other members of the community. We have said that learning to greet someone and to behave in a polite manner is one of the keys to verbal and non verbal interaction taking place smoothly, without serious incident, whatever the place and the people present. It is for this reason that one cannot describe greetings without mentioning how they are learnt, in other words, without evoking their social context, the different people who take part in their teaching, and especially the socio-linguistic context in which they take place, particularly when these rituals are those of a bilingual society (and above all when the status of the languages present is officially that of diglossia).

Learning respect in Guadeloupe 

. Understanding the rituals involved in greetings in Guadeloupe First of all, it must be pointed out that traditionally, Guadeloupe, a French overseas department, and part of the Lesser Antilles group of islands, presented and continues to present, though less markedly, an interesting dichotomy in terms of language. The region surrounding the administrative centre of BasseTerre, where the “middle class” population was concentrated, generally spoke mainly French, and in this aspect was different from Pointe-à-Pitre, the commercial capital, and from the whole region of Grande-Terre, which was predominantly Creole speaking. Burke, who has examined “the place of polite behaviour in language and, inversely, that of language in polite behaviour” notes that “polite forms vary as much according to period as to place, and forms of language are linked to social and political structures and to different levels of freedom and equality” (1999: 111–115). Thus, the question of language is a social question, which takes on a regional dimension in the case we are looking at. In addition, this choice of language is in part imposed from the outside, though it takes place within the family. In other words, the context within which one grows up fosters the use of one language over the use of the other. But how does this affect greeting rituals? They are certainly learnt first of all in a family setting, but they also allow verbal and non-verbal interaction between individuals. One of the conditions of social interaction is to avoid losing face, and the language used has a role to play in the smooth running of this interaction. Moreover, to comprehend greeting rituals is also to comprehend the language in which they take place and to ask oneself why one or the other language is chosen during this exchange, depending on the context of those individuals present. As the above quotation by Burke suggests, polite forms vary depending on the period. We will therefore examine these rituals first in the traditional context (Section 2), and afterwards in the current context (Section 3), the current context being located, on the one hand in Guadeloupe, and on the other, in the migrant community in France. This last point has its origin in the fact that a large number of Guadeloupians live in France. I also found it judicious to determine how far Goffman is right when he argues that each person, subculture, and society seems to have its own characteristic repertoire of face-saving practices. It is to this repertoire that people partly refer when they ask what a person or a culture is ‘really like’. (1969: 13)

My approach should be seen as primarily ethnographic in nature, and is based above all on observations I have made on a regular basis.7 I have also taken into account comments made by people who interact with members of this

 Alex Louise Tessonneau

community (e.g. child-care professionals, social workers, health visitors, etc.) in the course of seminars entitled “For a better understanding of children from elsewhere,” which I sometimes run for the Centre for Infant Research (Centre de Recherche sur la Petite Enfance), in Aubervilliers, France. In fact, it seems to me that the methods of participatory observation used in the ethnography of communication allows researchers to collect and note context of situations of interaction which are pertinent to their work, and is consequently a good way of collecting conversational data in a natural language context, as Stubbs explains in his book: Discourse Analysis – The Sociolinguistic Analysis of Natural Language (1983).8

. The traditional context Traditionally in Guadeloupe, the rules of community solidarity meant that everyone felt responsible for maintaining friendly relations within the group.9 The codes of respect and polite behaviour were strictly observed and instilled from a very young age. Moreover, bodily attitude had to be in accordance with the words used. One’s way of behaving was a way of telling others who one was, how one had been brought up. All adults took an interest in teaching children values which fostered sociability. It was about making the children respect themselves and others through their language and body, and consequently, enabling the children to learn, from their first faltering attempts at speech, to use the codes of polite behaviour. . Polite behaviour, a mother’s primary duty Whatever the type of family unit, the mother was responsible for bringing up and taking care of the children. It therefore fell to her to instil from a very young age the elementary rules of polite behaviour. And indeed it was she who got all the credit for having “well brought up” children. It was very common, from the first few months of life onwards, even before children learned to speak, to say to them when giving them something si for merci (‘thank you’), and to demand that whenever they asked for something, they say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you.’ Very early on, children learned to wave their little hand to say ‘Goodbye,’ and to say jour and soir (‘good morning,’ ‘good evening’). Thus, whilst learning to talk, children also learned to take their place within a highly codified interactive

Learning respect in Guadeloupe 

network. The relationship was both one of admission and of identification, where words and body played complementary roles. Thus, this first phase of learning included not only the access rituals of language, but also those of bodily attitude. According to Picard: The importance accorded by etiquette to dress may be read as an objectivised projection of the face. . . The face being an image of oneself shown to others, wholly exteriorised, it is subject to ‘dressing up’ and is watched over attentively. It is particularly threatened by all that is irruptive in nature, and primarily by all that comes from an organic source, natural or “emotional urges” which is why such importance was attached to mastering “bodily manifestations” and to “behaving ‘decently’. ” (1994: 380)10

Early up-bringing is therefore very important in enabling a child to master these things. Furthermore, by bringing up her children correctly, the mother ensured her own respectability whilst at the same time preserving that of others. As Goffman puts it: The person will have two points of view – a defensive orientation toward saving his own face and a protective orientation toward saving the others’ face. Some practices will be primarily defensive and others primarily protective, although in general one may expect these two perspectives to be taken at the same time. In trying to save the face of others, the person must choose a track that will not lead to a loss of his own; in trying to save his own face, he must consider the loss of face that his action may entail for others. (1969: 14)

. Being a polite child: A difficult thing to learn As a child became more independent, she or he learnt to greet an adult with a nod of the head and a Bonjour Madame X / Monsieur Y (‘Good day, Mrs. X / Mr. Y’) according to the status of the person11 and the context in which they met. Children had to lower their eyes before an adult, wait until they were noticed, not speak unless spoken to, refrain from asking questions, and keep quiet when adults were conversing. From the age of six, children had to behave so that neither their movements nor their words had any negative social consequences. Children were not supposed to involve themselves in adult affairs (such as discussions, arguments, etc.), nor be a source of trouble, nor insult anyone, nor openly mock people. Even when their parents were in conflict or had had a misunderstanding with someone, children were not allowed to infringe even the most insignificant rule of politeness or respect in its relations with that person. Not to have greeted

 Alex Louise Tessonneau

them, or to have looked them in the eye, would have been seen as an act of aggression, or a challenge. By doing this, the child was refusing to stay in a child’s place, he/she was attacking the adult’s sense of propriety and was no longer obeying the codes of discretion and polite behaviour towards an adult. These codes demanded that a child never stare at an adult, whoever they might be, and must always lower their eyes when speaking to them. In line with this bodily attitude, only formal language was permitted, and a child was forbidden from saying anything without being invited to speak, even the smallest murmur. A child’s parents were immediately informed of his/her failure to obey one or other of these rules (either by the person concerned, or a bystander), and the child was severely punished. When a visitor came to the house, the children were called to greet them, but had either to leave or to sit on a chair without moving, until they were given permission to go and play. If the visitor were a man, the father stayed with him alone. These rules had to be scrupulously respected, or punishment would ensue. Sometimes corporal punishment was given in public. One might think that this was to make the children concerned feel ashamed, but public chastisement was above all a means of showing that their behaviour was not approved of, and did not correspond to what they had been taught, and therefore was a way of avoiding losing face in front of other members of the community. To put it another way, this modus operandi kept intact the family honour, and meant that the family would not be blamed for having “badly brought up” the child. However, the offended party could ask that the child be “pardoned,” if they thought that the punishment was too harsh, though this did not excuse the child from asking his/her parents to “pardon” him/her for having offended them. Here, then, we find those same “phases of the corrective process – challenge, offering, acceptance, and thanks – [which] provide a model for interpersonal behaviour” as described by Goffman (1969). . Sexual discrimination and the importance accorded to the relationship between body and language in behavioural codes As noted above, polite and respectful behaviour implied a bodily attitude of submission, and this, no matter who the person spoken to. However, it is also necessary to point out that this polite and respectful behaviour was always accompanied by formal, polite language, whether this was Creole or French. These obligations were far more strict for girls than for boys. How one presented oneself had a constraining aspect for a girl, who had to avoid vulgarity, show herself to be modest and decent, someone with self respect. When greet-

Learning respect in Guadeloupe 

ing someone, remaining in the background, being discrete, reserved, and placid were far more highly valued than an ostentatious or provocative attitude. When a girl reached adolescence, others would become even more suspicious of her, and she was closely watched to ensure that she respected the rules. Thus a young girl had to be doubly careful about how she greeted people and the bodily attitudes which accompanied those rituals. Girls were more constrained by having to master their bodies and words while boys were commonly allowed more freedom both in their movements and their speech. A boy, for instance, could choose, in certain contexts, to use Creole or French when speaking to his father. However, the rules concerning interactions with his mother, his grandmother, and his godmother remained as restrictive as ever. When speaking to these female relatives, a boy had to use formal language, known as “French,”12 although it was not necessarily this language that the child used, particularly in the countryside and in regions where Creole was more readily spoken than French. As a boy grew up, these constraints also came into play in the verbal interaction of seduction, because it was inconceivable that a boy who wanted to walk out with a girl should break the rules by addressing her in anything other than formal language. From mother to daughter, the transmission of the same rules was ensured directly by upbringing, and indirectly by children copying the behaviour of adults around them and their acceptance of the roles that their gender had defined for them. . The region around Basse-Terre I have already pointed out that traditionally, the communities around BasseTerre were more inclined to use French and to demand that their children use it, especially when in the presence of an adult, whereas in Pointe-à-Pitre and in Grande-Terre, Creole was more widely used. In both parts of the island, use of one or other language did not have the same connotations in terms of polite behaviour. Around Basse-Terre, a child using Creole whilst speaking to an adult was thought of as not only impolite, but also as aggressive and vulgar. In Grande-Terre, however, formal Creole was distinguished from gros (‘common’) Creole, which was seen as vulgar. Just as more demands were made of her concerning language, a girl living in the region around Basse-Terre also had to be more discrete. Fear of “what people will say” was so great that when one of the parents was too weak, it fell to the other to ensure that the codes were respected and that the family did not lose face at any time. Children of civil servants, intellectuals, the middle classes and wealthy people were subject to even more constraints because through them, their parents

 Alex Louise Tessonneau

were judged most severely. Most of the time they were not allowed to speak Creole. In fact, this ban encouraged them to put in place, without their parents’ knowledge, their own communicative strategies concerning the use of one language or the other, depending on the situation in which they found themselves. Indeed, it was not uncommon to hear a girl being criticised for her conduct in the following manner: (2) You should be ashamed of speaking Creole. (3) A well brought up girl sits up straight, is careful about how she walks, does not forget to greet people.

Parents used the vous-form when reprimanding their children, and this was accompanied by the term Mademoiselle or Monsieur (‘Miss’ or ‘Master’), to underline the distance between them, caused by their reprehensible actions or words. . Linguistic usage in greetings In any society, whenever the physical possibility of spoken interaction arises, it seems that a system of practices, conventions, and procedural rules comes into play which functions as a means of guiding and organizing the flow of messages. An understanding will prevail as to when and where it will be permissible to initiate talk, among whom, and by means of what topics of conversation. A set of significant gestures is employed to initiate a spate of communication and as a means for the persons concerned to accredit each other as legitimate participants. (Goffman 1969: 33–34)

In Guadeloupe, generally, and this is still so today, we speak to someone in French when they are not close to us or we don’t know them. But if someone speaks to you in Creole, failure to use that language in your reply to them is considered as an insult, a way of ending the communication, and of indicating that no exchange is possible between you. The change of language acts as a barrier which it is impossible to break down, a way of showing the interlocutor that one does not want to continue the conversation any further. However, when two people are close, the change in language shows either that someone may be listening who shouldn’t be, or that something unexpected has happened, or that the person who changes language does not want to continue a conversation which might turn out to take a long time, or that the subject matter is painful to them at that time. In everyday life, there was no question of entering an enclosed space (bus, waiting room, etc.) without saying Bonjour / Bonsoir, messieurs et dames or Messieurs et dames bonjour13 (‘Good morning /

Learning respect in Guadeloupe 

Good evening, everyone’). But usually greetings varied and continued to diversify according to the place, and the status, age and gender of the speakers, as the following examples illustrate: (a) A man greets another man, more often than not in Creole, when they meet in the street or he is passing by his house and sees him at the window, in the yard, or on the balcony. (4) X: Ka-w fè? Ki nouvèl a-w? ‘How are you doing? What’s your latest news?’ Y: An la! An ka kenbe. E ou menm sa kay? ‘I’m fine. Things are doing all right. And you, how are you?’

or: (5) X: Zanmi an mwen, koman ou ye? ‘My friend, how are you?’ Y: Tou dou, chè, e ou menm? ‘Things are quiet, and you?’

If they haven’t seen each other for a long time, they may add: (6) X: An kontan vwè-w toubòlman. ‘I’m really pleased to see you again.’

To which the other speaker will reply: (7) Y: E mwen menm! A pa ti kontan an kontan vwè-w! ‘So am I! I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you!’

If the speaker is ill or tired, he may say: (8) Y: An kraze. ‘I’m really very tired.’

or: (9) Y: Sa pa kay, men ka-w ou vle fè an ka pouse. ‘I’m not so well, but what can you do, I have to put up with it.’

If a woman is present, he will also greet her with Bonjour la compagnie or Bonjour ma commère (‘Good morning all’ or ‘Good morning my fellow-sponsor’), and then the ritual will follow its usual course between the two men. When greeting someone, one asks about their health, and in fact it is common to go into the details of an illness, and to hear a speaker advise on which herbal tea

 Alex Louise Tessonneau

to drink, which medicine to take, or who to go and see about it. One can also mention a difficulty one has had, in the hopes that the other speaker may be able to propose a solution. During these exchanges, the men may shake hands quickly and then stand a certain distance apart from one another. In the region around Basse-Terre, and especially if the speakers do not have the same social status, the ritual will be played out in French: (10) X: Bonjour. Comment allez-vous? Cela fait quelque temps que je ne vous avais pas vu. ‘Good morning. How are you? I hadn’t seen you for a while.’ Y: Oh, j’étais un peu malade ces temps derniers. ‘Oh, I’ve been a bit ill recently.’

Then, perhaps, they would talk about the symptoms of the illness and offer advice. (b)

A man greets a woman more often than not in French:

(11) X: Comment vas-tu? ‘How are you?’

He often adds a little compliment such as the following: (12) X: Tu es de plus en plus belle. ‘You get more and more beautiful.’

To which the woman will reply, smiling, to show him that she knows very well that this is a ritual of good manners: (13) Y: Eh oui! Je te vois venir! ‘Oh yes? You don’t think I believe that do you?’

And the man can defend himself, saying: (14) Y: Je t’assure! Pour un peu je ne t’aurai pas reconnue! ‘I promise you it’s true! I almost didn’t recognise you!’

And this playful dialogue can go on for five or ten minutes.14 If the speakers are closely related or have known each other for a long time, their dialogue may possibly continue in Creole, still along the same lines. (15) X: An ka vwè-w byen an fòm. ‘I see you’re looking pretty fine.’ Y: Ou ka di sa pou fè mwen plezi. ‘You’re just saying that to be nice.’

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or: (16) X: An ka vwè-w byen frèch, zafè a-w ka mache. ‘You look well, things must be going well for you.’ Y: Ou ka fè je! Pa konèt move. ‘You must be joking! You don’t know the first thing about it.’ X: Me non ka-w ka di la? ‘What are you saying?’ Y: Se kouto sél ki sav sa ki ka pase an kè a jiromon.15 ‘Only the knife knows the inside of the pumpkin.’ Y: Men ou menm sé-w ki byen. ‘But you, you’re the one who’s looking good.’

In fact here we find something of the wordplay involved in double entendres which has survived from the civilities of the seventeenth century, when polite conversation becomes the “erotic conversation of seduction,” the perversion of which, according to Montandon (1997: 118–119, my transl.), lies in the “use of social interaction to gain . . . a particular thing, using the rules of courtesy for pragmatic ends, . . . the terms have a double meaning.”16 In other words, it is up to the person receiving the compliment to choose how to decode it – either as an invitation to begin an affair, or simply as an inconsequential exchange of facetious remarks. In a similar context, Goffman notes: Tact in regard to face-work often relies for its operation on a tacit agreement to do business through the language of hint – the language of innuendo, ambiguities, well-placed pauses, carefully worked jokes, and so on. The rule regarding this unofficial kind of communication is that the sender ought not to act as if he had officially conveyed the message he has hinted at, while the recipients have the right and the obligation to act as if they have not officially received the message contained in the hint. Hinted communication, then, is deniable communication; it need not to be faced up to. It provides a means by which the person can be warned that his current line or the current situation is leading to loss of face, without this warning itself becoming an incident. (1969: 30)

And, as Gumperz says, of course the choice between the different possible interpretations of what is said depends on the aims of the speaker, but the listeners must also choose their own interpretation: But, once one interpretation (. . . ) has been chosen and accepted, it cannot be changed. In other words, a particular strategy of interpretation remains in place until something happens in the conversation which makes the participants realise that a change of strategy is necessary. Interpretations are therefore

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negotiated, corrected, and altered within the interaction rather than being communicated in a unilateral manner. (1989: 62–63)

By behaving in this way, the man shows that he is being tactful in his relations with this person. However, this “mask” (to use Alain Montandon’s term) of civility can have a positive effect when the “art of pleasing” becomes simply a part of the “art of living” and works on “three levels: communicative, social and psychological” as described by Picard (1995a), and of which the following examples are illustrations: (c) A man or a woman may address an elderly member of their family, particularly in the countryside or in Grande-Terre, in the following manner: (17) X: Bonjou la mèr-la (pè X), koman va? ‘Good morning, mother or father X, how are you?’ Y: Pitit a manman kò la pa bon. ‘Child, my body is no good.’

or: (18) Y: Kò la pa bon, a pa ti las an las, ti gason a manman. E se ti moun la? ‘My body is no good, I’m so tired, my son. But, how are your children?’ X: Se yo ki byen mèsi. ‘They’re fine, thank God.’ Y: Ti ni lontan an pa vwè [first name or nickname of another member of the family], i pa malad? ‘I haven’t seen X for ages, he/she isn’t ill, is he/she?’

The following dialogue may also be heard: (19) X: Alò la mèr-la! An ka vwè-w byen frèch! ‘Good morning, mother, you’re looking as fresh as a daisy!’ Y: Frèch? La fason mwen kraze-la! ‘As fresh as a daisy, with the way I’m feeling tired?’ X: Me non! Ou ke tere nou tout! ‘But no, you’ll have the better of us all yet!’ Y: Gade mwen! Ti moun! Pa fè je avè tet an mwen! ‘Careful, child! Don’t make fun of me!’ X: En en! An pe ke permèt mwen! ‘No, no! I wouldn’t dare!’

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Spinning out the greeting and asking about someone’s health are tokens of affection and kindness allowed within the community, but this sign of interest may take the form of a kind of parade, with a psychological aim, in other words, the speaker is attempting to make the elderly person feel better, and to stop them thinking about death. However, if the elderly person is not a member of the family, and especially if this person comes from a high status family, French will be spoken, even if the elderly person replies in Creole.17 In the latter case, the exchange will also be considerably shorter: (20) X: Bonjour Madame ou Monsieur Y. ‘Good morning Mrs. or Mr. Y.’ Y: Bonjour! Comment allez-vous? ou Bonjour X! Ki nouvèl aw? ‘Good morning! How are you? or Good morning X! What’s your latest news?’ X: Ça va. ‘Everything’s fine.’

However, whoever they are speaking to, when they leave, they will simply say: (21) Je continue. ‘I’ll be moving on.’

or: (22) À un de ces jours. ‘See you around.’

or: (23) Kon nou di.18 ‘As we said.’

or: (24) Je suis pressé. ‘I’m in a hurry.’

(d) In the street, a child must always greet an adult with a nod of the head and using the following terms: (25) Bonjou man + surname or misye + name or surname ‘Good morning Mrs. + surname or Mr. + name or surname’

or:

 Alex Louise Tessonneau

(26) Bonjou man + nickname19 ‘Good morning mother X’

The child may then continue on his/her way, unless kept back by the person he/she have greeted to answer a question. If the person is a close relation, the child goes up to them, kisses them, and then waits until told to go on their way, with the following expression, for example: (27) Allons depêche-toi! Ta maman va s’impatienter. ‘Come on, hurry up! Your mum will be wondering where you’ve got to.’

(e) In the marketplace, a stallholder will most often speak to a potential customer in Creole (28, 30), but sometimes in French (29):20 (28) Doudou, vini vwè, mwen ke ranje avè ou. ‘Come here, sweet, I’ll ask a fair price.’

or: (29) Doudou, vient me voir, je vais te faire un bon prix. ‘Come here, sweet, I’ll ask a fair price.’

or: (30) Pitit an-mwen, vi-n fè manman vann. ‘Child, come and buy something from mother.’

In (30), the stallholder greets the customer like a foster mother, someone who can help to keep them alive. The status of the individual is not taken into account, because the stallholder is in the dominant position. This is all the easier in that stallholders are generally women old enough to be mothers or grandmothers themselves. Thus, these different examples serve to illustrate the fact that polite behaviour worked (and still works) as a sort of ritual, on the three levels as described by Picard (1995b: 85–87, my transl.): 1. On a communicative level, its role is essentially that of a facilitator and a regulator. . . . [It] is a way of telling us to show signs of recognition and attention to others if we ourselves wish to be recognised. 2. On a social level, [it] works principally as a system for producing distinctions [as defined by Pierre Bourdieu, 1982] . . . it is a ‘communicative act, but of a particular kind: it signifies a person’s identity, by at the same time expressing it to them and imposing it on them by expressing it in front of everyone.’21

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3. On a psychological level, polite behaviour takes on an essentially ritualistic role of reassurance and this works in two ways: – it enhances self worth (of oneself because one is behaving well, and of others by means of one’s considerate and deferential behaviour towards them); – it gives protection (to oneself and to others) via reserved and tactful behaviour. (. . . ) a kind of ‘parade’ in the full sense of the term, i. e. a game in which one must at the same time show one’s worth and one’s talents, but also protect oneself from possible attacks. Here then are the two fundamental aspects of social interaction which have been identified as ‘face’ and ‘territory.’

These traditional values remained in place until the 1960s.22 But could they hold up under the stress of globalisation, the impact of television, the media, and mass communication, which gave rise to new ways of living, and in the contemporary economic, social, and cultural context?

. The contemporary context Over the past few years, several events have deeply affected the structure of Guadeloupian society. There has been an acceleration in the economic and urban imbalance between the regions of Basse-Terre and Pointe-à-Pitre, which dates from the period where the Soufrière Volcano was threatening to erupt, in July 1976. During that period, the Basse-Terre region was evacuated, and by the time the volcano calmed down in December of the same year, many people originally from Basse-Terre had chosen to relocate to Pointe-à-Pitre and Grande-Terre. The business zone in Pointe-à-Pitre was preferred to the port in Basse-Terre and became an increasingly important industrial pole. The BasseTerre region saw its population decrease, while Pointe-à-Pitre has become an overpopulated town. Shanty towns have grown up around Pointe-à-Pitre, and delinquency is on the increase. At the same time, during this phase of relocation, the evacuated population lost its bearings, and we have seen an abrupt change in this traditional society. There was talk of a crisis in society, in the Guadeloupian family (cf. Alizés 1998). Relational and family networks were being redistributed and redefined, and the average family size declined. The community no longer felt responsible for its young people’s bad behaviour. Ethical and psychosocial conflicts appeared in the new interactional dynamic that was coming into being. There had been a move from a repressive to a

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permissive society, without a true transitional phase. The changes were too abrupt, and they caused the links between generations too be broken. Parents were unable to cope and did not understand what was happening to them. They were seen as too demanding, aggressive, absent, and dominating. Grandparents were sometimes excluded because they were old-fashioned. As seems to have happened everywhere, the child as a fully-fledged23 consumer has replaced the polite, obedient child. In the face of this contradiction between on the one hand, a tradition based on solidarity and friendliness, on family and community bonds, and on the other hand, a “modernity” which has the undesirable effects of rejecting just such traditional values and of fostering a kind of self-disdain, nostalgia for the principles of honour and an attachment to traditional values increase. Various institutions have tried to analyse and to understand what has taken place. Those involved in education24 complain that parents no longer fulfil their role. According to them, it is utopian to wish to replace a system based on formal respect, on ritualised respect for one’s parents, by an absence of respect, by a system which placed parents on the same level as their children, in the belief that this would solve any problems. Some people put forward the idea that living conditions are the cause of this breaking up of the community. Thus, in the magazine Église de Guadeloupe (‘The Church in Guadeloupe’), in a column entitled “Regards sur la famille: Familles en difficulté” (‘A look at the family: Families in difficulty’), one may read that people complain about: – Unemployment, which has become a real plague, destroys any sense of self worth and attacks a person’s dignity. – Housing, in particular social housing (L. T. S.), is ‘not suitable for our lifestyle’ and makes relationships with family members and neighbours difficult.

The surveys also denounce an “absence of dialogue”, i. e. the fact that courtesy and polite behaviour rituals are no longer respected, that French individualism has wiped out the habit of taking others into account which is present in these greetings codes: In Guadeloupe there was a time . . . when people had time to listen to someone who had got something to say, and even if there was some scandal mongering, or comments about one’s neighbours, people were always ready to comfort or help each other at the end of the day. Now, with the developments that have occurred in housing and in the way people think, we don’t see, we don’t hear what goes on around us. . . And the authorities. . . problems. . . laws. . . and everything else. (1993: 6–9; my transl.)

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In fact, what Guadeloupians are complaining of is a feeling of anonymity. Moreover, the arrival of education for all and standards imported from metropolitan France have been responsible for misunderstandings because they failed to take into account the particular situation on the island, and their imposition was accompanied by a certain disempowerment of the community network. As departmentalisation took hold, traditional values were left behind and came to be seen as old fashioned, but the abrupt changes in urban habitat, urban transition, and new population movements also had their own destabilising effects. Young people felt freer to behave in the way they wished. This was certainly one of the undesirable effects of “modernity,” which asserted itself by trying to reject everything to do with tradition. As Brown and Levinson (1987: 73) point out, “[n]egative politeness, (. . . ) is addressed to a generalized desire for freedom of action.” Yet the factors which explain this process remain complex ones, and merit a more in-depth investigation than may be attempted within the framework of this article. Thus, today, on getting into a bus, one no longer greets the assembled company. In the street and in school, children and adolescents pass by adults without greeting them. However, some of these rituals continue to exist. The same terms of address are still used by adults, even though they no longer entail the same obligations as formerly.

. Migrant communities It is well known that migration is generally accompanied by a crisis of identity, by a rethinking of one’s self image. We said earlier that, on the one hand, the community participated in “respecting the rules,” which ensured a kind of safety, and, on the other hand, that there was a kind of interdependence between the body and the use of language in codes of polite behaviour. We can now ask ourselves what happens to all these codes when migration happens. How does an isolated individual in an individualistic society, where nobody knows anyone else, an individual who is also desirous of having the freedom to begin a new life, face up to difficulties which he or she encounters alone? How will these individuals be able to continue to respect the codes which were theirs in the society from which they came? We should not forget that [r]ules of conduct impinge upon the individual in two general ways: directly, as obligations, establishing how he is morally constrained to conduct himself;

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indirectly, as expectations, establishing how others are morally bound to act in regard to him. (Goffman 1969: 49)

. What becomes of the rituals of polite behaviour? When migration happens, as we have said, the context fosters certain types of behaviour. We are therefore going to try to see what becomes of greetings in public places and in interpersonal relationships. .. Public places and the public sector One of the characters in the novel La Graine (‘The Seed’) by Jacqueline Manicom (1974) tells us: Do you know what happened to me . . . when I took the metro for the first time? I got into a carriage, and, like we are used to doing when we get into a ‘charabanc,’ I naturally said ‘Messieurs et dames, bonjour!’ [‘Good morning, everyone’]. Of course, no one answered! I didn’t know that it was ridiculous to try to be polite in a metro carriage! (1974: 144, my transl.)25

Thus, as soon as the Guadeloupians comes into contact with French society, they learn that they must lose their habit of greeting everyone in public places. This can only be a cause of further difficulties where the workplace is concerned, particularly as it is more often than not also in the public sector. In hospitals, where they make up a significant part of the workforce, the Antillais26 are accused of being noisy, of having problems communicating, of being over-sensitive, of displaying hysterical behaviour, and of going against accepted forms of behaviour. It is true that a greeting shouted out, as described by Manicom (1974: 31): (31) Ka-w fè, Monsieur Cicéron? ‘How are you, Mr. Cicéron?’ Je suis là, comme l et a font La, Madame, et vous? ‘I am here, as h-e-r-e spells here, Mrs. X, and you?’

is unusual and might well bother people. In fact, this means that the exchange resembles those analysed by Kate Fox in her book: Watching the English, the Hidden Rules of English Behaviour, when she speaks about the rule of the English weather-speak, qualified by her as “‘choreographed’ exchanges, conducted according to unwritten but tacitly understood rules” (2004). For this midwife, it is a question of forgetting her status and reminding the ‘ward assistant’ that they come from the same island, that they share the same nostalgia

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and that this aspect of their relationship brings them closer together. This is why the translation fails to reflect the full impact of loyalty to one’s community, a sort of ‘personal’ and ‘transactional’ interactions27 and this is another example of what Goffman (1961) found,28 and Hatim and Mason (1990: 237–238) argued: When two people of the same culture and language converse with each other, there is constant use of politeness strategies to ensure cooperative interaction. When an interpreter mediates between interlocutors of different languages, he or she is faced with two sets of problems: on the one hand, politeness strategies are likely to vary from culture to culture. On the other hand, there is always a danger that in the effort to relay propositional meaning, subtle indicators of the way the interaction is going, as well as those of interactive strategies such as hedging and down-toning, may be overlooked and the exchange may become more brusque than intended.

In short, in the complaints that we have heard from social workers, a certain number of points occur time and time again and concern both adults and children alike. Grievances concerning adults have as much to do with their behaviour as with their way of expressing themselves. “They make us feel that we are different,” say the accused. In reality, they are criticised for greeting the assembled company, and they will not necessarily receive an answer to their greeting. But, if they greet using specific names or surnames, omitting the names of those who regularly fail to respond to their greeting, they are seen as impolite. They are confronted with some quite curious rules which have taken root in certain areas of the public sector in France. Some people, thinking that they have a superior status, believe themselves excused from answering when someone greets them, but dare to demand a greeting of those whose status is inferior, and this is unacceptable to a Guadeloupian as they respect themselves and expect to be respected by others. An account entitled “Moi, flic antillais” (‘Me, a Caribbean cop’), published under the name of Priam in an issue of Alizés, emphasises the importance of respect: “I am a coloured man . . . Respect for other people is vital for me! . . . I am first and foremost an Antillais.”29 When talking about Guadeloupian children, people find them “very clean, hair combed, very polite.” People appreciate the fact that they greet them when they arrive, but they underline the fact that their behaviour is different. They are criticised either for being too reserved, or for being too turbulent, and also for only expressing themselves when asked to do so. In fact, behaviour which should be rewarded becomes a cause for complaint.

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At the same time, Guadeloupians are aware that one’s self image is an important part of what goes to make up one’s identity. It is for this reason some of them want their children to use “respectful language when conversing with adults, whether this is in Creole or in French,” and to be “well brought up: children nowadays tend to be very rude;” they state that “knowing how to live in society, how to respect others” is important.30 In sum, all the above recriminations can be traced to cultural and linguistic misunderstandings. We know, on the one hand, that all communication in an unfamiliar language and culture leads to the pleasure of finding differences and similarities with others, but also to the fear of revealing oneself to others in a language of which we are not entirely master, which gives rise to a feeling of symbolic insecurity. On the other hand, we also know that learning new codes depends as much on the attitudes and representations which the family has concerning its own traditional values as on what it knows or thinks it knows about the codes in the new country. Yet on top of this comes the choice of the French and Creole languages, both in communication within the family31 and in interaction with compatriots. .. Interpersonal relationships Within interpersonal relationships, the management of codes appears to be easier. However, even a meeting with a compatriot may go badly if linguistic codes habitually in use in Guadeloupe are not respected. A student I interviewed said that she had learned to express herself in Creole when with friends in France, after having been “told off by a friend,” because he had spoken to her in Creole and she had replied to him in French. This caused him to remark: “Do you think I’m not good enough for you then?” She had to excuse her behaviour by saying that in Guadeloupe she was not used to expressing herself in this way. Here, we could think that the student had answered in French because in general a boy does not greet a girl in Creole, especially in such an unaccustomed place. To reply to him in French was a way of saying indirectly that the boy had been impolite. And this had been noticed indeed by him, because his answer was a little aggressive. Failure to respect linguistic codes in the course of verbal interaction between students quite often occurs, and generally the girls complain about it whilst at the same time learning to live with it. Another student admits: “When I first came to Lille, all my friends spoke only Creole. I was shocked to see that girls as well as boys spoke it in quite a vulgar, common way, and I couldn’t keep

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up with them. . . ”. This characteristic of certain student circles is not necessarily found elsewhere. In reality greetings are often copied from the French model. (32) Bonjour! Comment vas-tu? ‘Hello, how are you?’ Ça va, et toi? ‘Fine, and you?’

And no details are given of what is going well or badly. No one has time to listen to someone else. However, if the speaker adds for example: (33) Bonjour! Comment vas-tu? Oh tu as l’air bien ‘kraze’.32 ‘Hello, how are you, you look really tired.’

The answer could be: (34) C’est rien de le dire! An plis ki ‘kraze, men kaw vle fè! Et toi, comment vas-tu? ‘You don’t say! I’m just about worn out, but what can you do? And you, how are you?’

And the conversation might carry on in a mixture of the two languages, with Creole adding a conspiratorial touch, a feeling of sharing the same values, of confidence, of being members of the same community. If, on the other hand, the answer is: (35) Non! Ça va! Et toi? ‘No, I’m fine, and you?’

this will mean that the person addressed does not wish to continue the conversation. It will be a way of telling the speaker to put an end to it. In fact, in the context of migration, even though the generation gap seems to be widening, Guadeloupians remain attached to the rituals of greeting and to the choice of the language they may use in addressing someone, because the length of their exchange will depend on this choice.

. Conclusion We have seen that Guadeloupian society has changed rapidly, and that this change has led to behaviour which attracts certain recriminations. However, even though social and community structures have changed in Guadeloupe, the principles of self respect and respect of others which were contained in the

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relationship between language/type of language/body are still there. If someone speaks to you in Creole, to insist on replying to him or her in French becomes a mark of rudeness, of disdain for the other person. In fact, what we expect of the other person, as much in traditional as in modern society, is that they “do what they can to avoid hurting the feelings of others, or making them lose face” (Goffman 1969: 13). Thus, even when upbringing is seen to be less strict, it is nevertheless true that the parameters which identify respectful behaviour have remained essentially the same. Moreover, in the migrant population, more so than in the country of origin, what Goffman calls “face-work”33 is very important for Guadeloupians. In this context, where who one appears to be is often more important than who one actually is, face-work is really used to “counteract ‘incidents’ – that is, events whose effective symbolic implications threaten face” (Goffman 1969: 12). It is above all about getting respect for oneself, and in many cases the only way to do this is to base one’s behaviour on traditional codes of politeness. Consequently, respect is demanded in the name of one’s upbringing, it is almost a social obligation, and, whether it be in Guadeloupe or in France, the Guadeloupian will put forward the same basic belief: “when one is well brought up, one will always get by.” Here, it is once again worth quoting Goffman: One must look rather to the fact that societies everywhere, if they are to be societies, must mobilize their members as self-regulating participants in social encounters. One way of mobilizing the individual for this purpose is through ritual; he is taught to be perceptive, to have feelings attached to self and a self expressed through face, to have pride, honour, and dignity, to have considerateness, to have tact and a certain amount of poise. These are some of the elements of behaviour which must be built into the person if practical use is to be made of him as an interactant, and it is these elements that are referred to in part. (1969: 44–45)

Notes . For the transcription of Creole, I use the method most commonly used by Caribbean people. . I use “ritual” in the sense in which Goffman uses it: “I use the term ritual because I am dealing with acts through whose symbolic component the actor shows how worthy he is of respect or how worthy he feels others are of it . . . One’s face, then, is a sacred thing, and the expressive order required to sustain it is therefore a ritual one” (1967: 19). . “. . . de l”institutio vitae communis’, qui permet à l’homme de réaliser pleinement sa nature ‘sociale’, cette nature qui ‘en vertu de la raison, concilie l’homme avec l’homme en vue

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d’une communauté de langage et de vie’ . . . C’est pourquoi il faut montrer un certain respect (reverentia) à l’égard des hommes” (Pons 1992: 26). . Pons says that he quotes “these titles in the French form to which long use has accustomed us” (1994: 103, my transl.). . “Pour Della Casa, l’homme est ‘social’ par nature, et, pour lui, ‘être en compagnie’, ‘en conversation’, ‘communiquer et avoir des relations’ (communicare ed usare) avec les autres est un bien en soi, le plus précieux de tous les biens peut-être. L’impératif des bonnes manières se ramène, en dernière analyse, à faire toujours ce qui rend plus facile la communication, et à ne rien faire qui la gêne ou la rende impossible” (Pons 1994: 103–104). . Quoted by Montandon (1992: 17): “vitesse, rentabilité oublie l’être humain, caractérise la vie ‘moderne’ qui a vu disparaître civilité, étiquette et politesse.” . I grew up in Guadeloupe. Because I lived in the Basse-Terre region, while my parents lived in the Grande-Terre region, I was confronted with this dichotomy of language from a very early age. Moreover, my generation was one which, during its adolescence, loved listening to older people tell us about their childhood and the codes of language and behaviour which they had to abide by. I regularly return to Guadeloupe and have continually observed the development of its society, heard the recriminations aimed at younger generations, and seen the loss of solidarity which has become increasingly evident . Stubbs discusses several different ways of collecting and analysing data for discourse analysis. . For example, when someone was ill, everyone would gather round to help them, preparing herbal tea, fetching medicine, asking what they wanted, and also offering support and help to their partner or looking after children if that became necessary. . “L’importance que le savoir-vivre accorde à la tenue peut se lire comme la projection objectivée de la face. . . La face étant une image de soi pour les autres, toute en extériorité, elle doit faire l’objet d’une ‘mise en scène’ et d’un contrôle attentif. Elle se trouve particulièrement menacée par tout ce qui est de l’ordre de l’irruptif et d’abord par tout ce qui ressort de l’organique, du pulsionnel et de ‘l’émotionnel” d’où l’importance attachée à la maîtrise des “manifestations corporelles” au “maintien ‘décent”’ (Picard 1994: 380). . I give details of these rituals below. . “For traditionally raised children, French was (and still is) the sign of a good upbringing for girls, and Creole a sign of greater freedom for boys” (Tessonneau 2000: 32, my transl.). . Bonjour is used during the morning and Bonsoir from 3 pm onwards. . Here we find what Goffman calls ‘interchange’ (1969: 19), but also ‘ritual interchanges’ (1981: 17) when he comments ‘Replies and Responses’ in Forms of Talk. . This is a proverb. . “[La perversion consiste à] user d’une interaction sociale pour un profit . . . singulier, utiliser les règles de la courtoisie à des fins pragmatiques, . . . les termes sont à double sens” (1997: 118–119). . In this situation, French is a sign of respect and distance between two speakers, and Creole is a sign of affection for the other person. In fact an answer given in Creole usually

 Alex Louise Tessonneau

comes from a man who wishes to rise in the esteem of the other speaker, or to ask him or her for something. . Kon nou di is an expression which does not necessarily mean that the two speakers have promised each other something. . Traditionally, the diminutive form of the first name was added after man (‘mum’). . The language used would depend on the place and the way the customer is perceived. . Bourdieu quoted by Picard. . In the 1960s, emigration intensified, departmentalisation, voted in 1946, really started to take effect, and there was drastic change in society, which oscillated between adopting models which had their origins in a certain representation of French society, and attempting to save certain local values. . Under the influence of advertising and role models (singers, sportspeople, . . . ), children want to wear the kind of clothes these people, their “idols,” are wearing, which will show that they are “up to the minute,” that they follow current fashions. . The first colloquium “Éducation des Parents, Éducation Familiale” (‘Parental and Family Education’), which brought together psychotherapists, teachers, social workers and some young people, was held on the 10th and 11th June 1972, in Martinique. Since then, other meetings have been and are still being held. . “Sais-tu ce qui m’est arrivé . . . quand pour la première fois, j’ai pris le métro ? Je suis entrée dans le wagon, et comme nous avons l’habitude de le faire quand nous entrons dans un ‘char’, j’ai dit tout naturellement: ‘Messieurs et dames, bonjour!’ Évidemment, personne ne m’a répondu ! Je ne savais pas que la politesse était une chose ridicule dans un wagon de métro!”. . The French term Antillais is applied to anyone coming from the Caribbean. . Fishman remarks: “Transactional interactions are those which stress the mutual rights and obligations of their participants. Personal interactions are more informal, more fluid, more varied” (1972: 38). . Goffman: “Financial status is not the only fundamental aspect of a person’s life which can enter through the membrane of an encounter and enliven or spoil the proceedings” (1961: 70). In Behavior in Public Places, Goffman writes in a note “I have attempted to consider the internal dynamics of encounters in ‘Fun in Games’ in Encounters pp. 17–81” (1963: 89 Note 12). . This is my translation of: “Je suis un homme de couleur . . . Le respect de l’autre est pour moi primordial! . . . Je suis antillais avant tout” (1985: 22). . We collected these statements in the course of a small enquiry into “Antillais identity” in metropolitain France, in 1999. . Cf. Tessonneau (1988). In this article, I presented the language rules within the West Indian family and more particularly the rules for polite behaviour at meals. . Kraze may be translated by ‘worn out,’ ‘fed up with everything.’ . “By face-work I mean to designate the actions taken by a person to make whatever he is doing consistent with face” (Goffman 1969: 12).

Learning respect in Guadeloupe 

References Alizés (1998). “La famille guadeloupéenne en mutation.” N◦ octobre 1998. Revue publiée par l’Aumônerie catholique Antilles-Guyane de Paris. Bourdieu, Pierre (1982). “Les rites d’institution.” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 43, 58–63. Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burke, Peter (1999). “Les langages de la politesse.” Terrain, 44 (September 1999), 111–126. Église de Guadeloupe (1993). “Regards sur la famille: Familles en difficulté.” Première quinzaine de juillet 1993, 560, 6–9. Fishman, Joshua, A. (1972). The Sociology of Language. An Interdisciplinary Social Science Approach to Language in Society. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Goffman, Erving (1961). Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Indianapolis, New York: Bobbs-Merrill. Goffman, Erving (1963). Behavior in Public Places. Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press. Goffman, Erving (1969). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behaviour. Middlesex, England: Penguin. Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of Talk. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hatim, Basil & Ian Mason (1990). Discourse and the Translator. London: Longman. Gumperz, John (1989). Engager la Conversation. Introduction à la Sociolinguistique Interactionnelle. Trans. Michel Dartevelle, Martine Gilbert, & Isaac Joseph. Paris: Les éditions de minuit. Malinowski, Bronislaw (1935). Coral Gardens and their Magic. London: Allen & Unwin. Manicom, Jacqueline (1974). La Graine – Journal d’une Sage-Femme. Paris: Presses de la Cité. Montandon, Alain (1997). “Civilités érotiques.” In Alain Montandon (Ed.), Civilités Extrêmes (pp. 115–129). Clermont-Ferrand: Association des Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Clermont-Ferrand. Picard, Dominique (1994). “Caractéristiques et évolution de la ritualité sociale dans les traités de savoir-vivre contemporains.” In Alain Montandon (Ed.), Pour une Histoire des Traités de Savoir-vivre en Europe (pp. 371–399). Clermont-Ferrand: Association des Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Clermont-Ferrand. Picard, Dominique (1995a). Les Rituels du Savoir-vivre. Paris, Seuil. Picard, Dominique (1995b). “Lieux publics et savoir-vivre.” In Alain Montandon (Ed.), Les Espaces de la Civilité (pp. 79–94). Clermont-Ferrand: Association des Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Clermont-Ferrand. Pons, Alain (1992). “Sur la notion de civilité.” In Alain Montandon (Ed.), Etiquette et Politesse (pp. 19–32). Clermont-Ferrand: Association des Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Clermont-Ferrand. Pons, Alain (1994). “La littérature des manières au XVIe siècle en Italie.” In Alain Montandon (Ed.), Pour une Histoire des Traités de Savoir-vivre en Europe (pp. 91–110). Clermont-Ferrand: Association des Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Clermont-Ferrand.

 Alex Louise Tessonneau

Stubbs, Michael (1983). Discourse Analysis. The Sociolinguistic Analysis of Natural Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tessonneau, Alex Louise (1988). “Le créole? Je ne connais pas! je suis né ici, moi!” Textes présentés pour le Colloque la Communication familiale CERPL. Mai 1988. Publication de Paris V-Sorbonne, Université René Descartes. Supplément au no. 1 de la revue Plurilinguismes, 86–97. Tessonneau, Alex Louise (2000). “Les représentations, obstacles à l’interculturalité: le cas antillais.” Europe Plurilingue, Décembre 2000, 31–51.

Notes on contributors

Nicholas Faraclas is an Associate Professor in Linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. Having received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, he has taught courses and published several books and articles in the areas of theoretical, descriptive, socio-, and applied linguistics. Over the past two decades, he has been conducting research on creole languages as well as promoting community based literacy activities in Africa, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. His co-authors Lourdes Gonzalez, Migdalia Medina and Wendell Villanueva Reyes are all graduate students in English Linguistics and Literature at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. Joseph T. Farquharson has previously served as Part-time Lecturer at the University of the West Indies where he is registered as a PhD candidate. He is currently at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) doing research on the substrate lexical influence in Jamaican Creole. Joseph is founder and co-ordinator of the Jamaican Lexicography Project. Janina Fenigsen, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of South Carolina, received her PhD at Brandeis University in 2000 and taught at Brandeis and Yale before coming to South Carolina. Her principal research interests are in language ideologies, inequality, and semiotics of representation. She is the author of articles on language and inequality in Barbados and was a guest editor of the special issue of Pragmatics, “Misrecognition, linguistic awareness, and linguistic ideologies.” Esther Figueroa received her PhD from Georgetown University and is a writer, filmmaker and linguist. Her book Sociolinguistic Metatheory (Pergamon, 1994) examines the philosophical foundations of theory and methodology in Sociolinguistics. Her collection At Home the Green Remains (Caribbean Quarterly, 2003) combines her love of family, place, biography and literature. Born and raised in Jamaica, Figueroa is currently studying the prominent African Diaspora oral gesture known in Jamaica as ”kiss teeth”.

 Notes on contributors

Bettina Migge is currently a lecturer in the Linguistics Department at University College Dublin, Ireland and an associate researcher at the Centre d’Etudes des Langues Indigenes d’Amerique (CELIA), France. Her main areas of research are contact linguistics, sociolinguistics, creoles, Gbe languages. She is currently doing research on creole genesis and on the sociolinguistics of the maroon creoles in Suriname and French Guiana. Recent publications include “The origin of the copulas (d/n)a and de in the Eastern Maroon Creole” (Diachronica 2002) and “The speech event Kuutu in the Eastern Maroon community”, in Escure, G. & A. Schwegler, Eds. Creoles, Contact and Language Change: Linguistic and Social Implications (Benjamins, 2004). Susanne Mühleisen is a lecturer in Linguistics at the Johann Wolfgang GoetheUniversity Frankfurt. She has published Creole Discourse: Exploring Prestige Formation and Change Across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles (Benjamins, 2002) as well as various articles on Caribbean Creoles in connection with sociolinguistics, cultural semantics, literature and translation. Jack Sidnell is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the organization of talk and interaction in a range of settings. He has conducted fieldwork in Guyana and St. Vincent and is the author of Talk and Practical Epistemology: The Social Life of Knowledge in an Indo-Guyanese Village (forthcoming, Benjamins). Peter Snow received his PhD from the University of California, LA and is now an Assistant Professor of English at Christopher Newport University. His articles on language contact and Caribbean Creole language varieties have appeared in the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages and the International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Alex-Louise Tessoneau is a Senior Lecturer in Cultural Anthropology and didactic of French language at the University of Paris 8. Her research interests include Haitian and Guadaloupian society, notably the study of oral tradition, the relationship between speech and the body, language and society, the first Haitian writing after independence, the problems of identity and representation. She has published numerous articles including “Le conte, moyen d’évasion ou matériau pédagogique pluridisciplinaire” Dialogues et cultures – Textes littéraires et enseignement du français – la français face aux autres langues – FIPF (Revue de la Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Français) 2004 n◦ 49; “Les pratiques littéraires haïtiennes et antillaises et le

Notes on contributors 

mouvement de la négritude” Lagarde Christian (éd) Écrire en situation bilingue, CRILAUP – Presses Universitaires de Perpignan 2004 Vol I. She is the editor of – Le “Kont” créole: à l’interface de l’écrit et de l’oral – Études Créoles. Vol. XXV n◦ 2–2002. Valerie Youssef Valerie Youssef is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. Her major research areas are Discourse Analysis and Language Acquisition, but she has also published with Winford James a descriptive sociolinguistic study on Tobagonian entitled The Languages of Tobago. Her most recent book is Writing Rage: Unmasking Violence through Caribbean Discourse, with Paula Morgan.

Name index

A Abrahams, Roger , , , , , , , ,  Aceto, Michael , , ,  Allsopp, Richard , , , , , , , , , ,  Altman, G.  Andersen, Elaine  Andersson, Lars  Arndt, Horst  Auer, Peter  Austin, John , , 

B Baker, Philip , , , , ,  Bach, Kent , ,  Bakhtin, Mikhail , , ,  Baqueda-Lopez, Patricia  Basso, Keith  Bauman, Richard , , , ,  Bennett, Louise , ,  Beauvoir, Simone de  Bilby, Kenneth  Bird, Charles  Bloom, Lois  Blum-Kulka, Shoshana  Bourdieu, Pierre  Braine, Michael  Branaman, Ann , ,  Brand, Dionne , ,  Braun, Frederike ,  Bremer, Frederika  Briggs, Charles L.  Brown, H. Rap 

Brown, Penelope , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Brown, Roger ,  Bruner, Jerome , ,  Burke, Peter  Burton, Richard ,  C Cambridge, Joan , , , ,  Cameron, Demorah ,  Cassidy, Frederic , , , , , , , , , ,  Caton, Steven , , ,  Chomsky, Noam  Christie, Chris  Cicourel, Aaron  Clancy, Patricia  Collymore, Frank  Cooke, Mel  Cooper, Carolyn ,  Crowley, Daniel  D Day, Charles   DeCamp, David ,  De Kadt, E.  Demme, Jonathan ,  Devonish, Hubert , , ,  Dillard, Joey  Dockrell, Julie  Doggett, Scott  Dollard, John , ,  Doyle, Bertram ,  Dundes, Alan , , , , , , , , 

Duranti, Alessandro , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  E Edwards, Walter , ,  Eelen, Gino ,  Escure, Geneviève ,  F Faraclas, Nicholas , , ,  Farquharson, Joseph ,  Fenigsen, Janina , , , , , , ,  Ferguson, Charles  Figueroa, Esther , , , , , , ,  Figueroa, Mark ,  Fisher, Lawrence , , , , ,  Fishman, Joshua  Foster, H. L. , , , , , , ,  Foucault, Michel  Fowler, Roger  Fraser, Bruce  Fukushima, Saeko  G Garrett, Paul ,  Geertz, Clifford ,  Gilman, Albert ,  Gleason, Jean  Goffman, Erving , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 Name index , , , , , , , , , , ,  Gole, Nilufer  Gonzalez, Lourdes  Goodwin, Charles , , , , ,  Goodwin, Majorie , , ,  Goody, Esther , ,  Gopnik, Alison  Goudenough, Ward  Goury, Laurence  Grice, Herbert , , , , ,  Grimshaw, Allen  Gumperz, John , , ,  Günthner, Susanne 

H Halliday, Michael , , ,  Handler, Jerome  Hanks, William  Harnish, Robert , ,  Harré, Rom  Hatim, Basil  Held, Gudrun  Hellinger, Marlis , ,  Herbert, Robert  Heritage, John , , ,  Herskovits, Melville , ,  Herzfeld, Anita  Hickey, Raymond , ,  Hickey, Tina  Hill, Jane ,  Holm, John ,  Holmes, Janet ,  Holtgraves, Thomas ,  Holzman, Mathilda  House, Juliane  Huber, Magnus , , , ,  Huttar, George , , , , ,  Huttar, Mary , , ,  Hutton, Clinton  Hymes, Dell , , 

I Ide, Sachiko  Irvine, Judith , , , , , , , ,  J Jakobson, Roman  James, C. L. R.  Janney, Richard  Jayawardena, Chandra  Jefferson, Gail  K Kasper, Gabriele  Kawash, Samira  Keens-Douglas, Paul  Kenner, Rob  Kinsbourne, Marcel  Kochman, Thomas  Kulick, Don , ,  L Labov, William , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Lakoff, Robin , ,  Lambek, Michael  Lemert, Charles  Lempert, Henrietta  LePage, Robert , , , , , , , , , ,  Leech, Geoffrey ,  Lee-Wong, Song-Mei  Lemert, Charles ,  Levinson, Stephen , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Lewis, Matthew , , , ,  Levy, Andrea  Lynch, Michael  M MacDonald, Judy ,  Maduka-Durunze, Omen ,  Makoni, Sinfree 

Malinowski, Bronislaw ,  Manicom, Jaqueline  Marshall, Gordon  Marshall, Paule ,  Mason, Ian  McElhinny, Bonnie  Medina, Migdalia  Melzoff, Andrew  Meier, Ardith ,  Messer, David  Migge, Bettina , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Mills, Sarah ,  Mintz, Sidney , ,  Mitchell-Kernan, Claudia ,  Montando, Alain ,  Morgan, Marcelina ,  Morrison, Toni  Mühleisen, Susanne ,  Mühlhäusler, Peter  Myerhoff, Miriam  N Narfisi, Azar ,  O Ochs(-Keenan), Elinor , , , , ,  Oloruntoba, Christiana , , , ,  Olshtain, Elite  P Patrick, Peter , , , , , , , ,  Payne-Jackson, Arvilla  Pereira, Joe  Peters, Ann , ,  Philips, Susan  Piaget, Jean  Picard, Dominique , , ,  Pizer, Ginger  Pollard, Edward  Pomerantz, Anita  Pons, Alain ,  Price, Richard , , , , , , , 

Name index  Price, Sally , , , , , ,  R Reddock, Rhoda  Reisman, Karl , , , , , , ,  Reyes, Wendell Villanueva  Richardson, Gina ,  Rickford, John , , , , ,  Riska, A.  Roberts, Peter  Rommetveit, Ragnar  Roy, J. D.  S Sacks, Harvey , , , , , ,  Salmond, Anne  Schegloff, Emanuel , , , , ,  Schieffelin, Bambi , ,  Schiffer, Stephen ,  Schutz, Alfred  Scott, James 

Searle, John , , , ,  Sefi, Sue , ,  Shields-Brodber, Kathryn  Sidnell, Jack , , , , ,  Sifianou, Maria  Silverstein, Michael ,  Simon, Horst  Sistren, with Honor Ford-Smith ,  Smith, Janet  Smith, Norval  Snow, Catherine  Snow, Peter , ,  Spears, Arthur , ,  Spencer, Nancy  Stubbs, Michael  Syea, Anand  T Tabouret-Keller, André  Taylor, Douglas  Tessonneau, Alex Louise , ,  Thomas-Brereton, Leticia  Thompson, Sandra 

Trevarthern, Colwyn B.  Trudgill, Peter , ,  Turner, Lorenzo , ,  V Vanderveken, Daniel ,  Verschueren, Jef  Vološinov, Valentin  W Watts, Richard , ,  Weinbach, Liora  White, Edmund ,  Wierzbicka, Anna ,  Williams, Raymond  Wilson, Peter , , , ,  Winer, Lise , , , , , , , ,  Winford, Donald , ,  Woolard, Kathryn , ,  Y Youssef, Ibrahim  Youssef, Valerie , , , , , , 

Subject index

A Address forms , , , , , , , , , , , , – and gender , ,  and homophobia , , ,  kinship terms , – multiple names –,  names and titles , , , , , , , , , , –, – pronouns of address , , , , , , , , , , , – Adjacency pairs – Advice (giving and receipt) , , –,  and organization of knowledge , , , , ,  and (un)certainty –,  African (esp. West African) cultural practices , , , , ,  diaspora , , , , ,  African American community , , ,  English (AAVE) , , , , – speech patterns ,  Aluku ,  Ambiguity cultural and linguistic  Anguilla & Barbuda  Antigua  Anthropological studies 

in the Caribbean , ,  Apologies , , , , , ,  Assessments general , –, , ,  positive , , –,  negative , –,  requested ,  unrequested – B “Bad” language , , , , , ,  Bahamas  Barbados , , , , ,  Bajan , , , , –, , ,  Basse-Terre , , , ,  Bastimentos , , ,  Belize  Body idiom ,  Brazilian  Broad talking  C Calypso  Cameroonian Pidgin  Caribbean Creole communities , , , , , , ,  plantation slavery , , , , , , ,  region as a socio-cultural area , , , , , , ,  resistance strategies , , ,  Carriacou 

Cayman Islands  Code-mixing ,  Code-switching , , , , , ,  Communicative competence , , , ,  Communicative practices , , , , –, , , , , , ,  Compliments , ,  Condolences  Conversation Analysis , , , ,  Cooperation in communication –, , –, , , ,  Creole continuum  Cursing , ,  D Diglossia  Dropping remarks , ,  E Eastern Maroon community –,  Ethnography of communication , , , , , , , , , ,  F Face and self , , , , , , ,  attention to , , , , , 

 Subject index concept of , , , , , , , , , , ,  development , , – losing ,  maintenance  negative face , , , , , , , , ,  positive face , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  restoration  saving , , , ,  work , , , , , , ,  Face Threatening Act , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Footing  French Guiana , , , ,  G Gender and performance of masculinity , , ,  and politeness practices , , , , , ,  and public sphere  Gesture (oral, facial, physical) and communication , , , , , , , , , , ,  Good talking  Grenada  Greetings , , , , , , –, –, –, , , –, – calling up  inverted greetings  structure of – and social meaning –, ,  Guadeloupe , , , , , , , , – Creole , , , , ,  Gullah , 

Guyana , , , , , , ,  Guyanese Creole English  H Haiti ,  Homophobia , , , , –, ,  and person reference , , , , ,  I Illocution , , , ,  Indirectness , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Indo-Caribbean communities –, –,  Insults , , , , , , , , –, , , , , ,  Interaction in public , , , , , , ,  Interactional sociolinguistics ,  Interactional structure , , , –, , , –, –, ,  Invitations  J Jamaica , , , , , , , ,  Jamaican Creole English , ,  dancehall culture , –, , ,  K Kiss Teeth , , –, , , – and conflict management – and moral positioning , , , ,  and shared norms ,  L Language acquisition , 

choice (see also register choice)  and identity , , , , , , , , , , ,  and socialization , , , , , , , , , , , – M Moral positioning in communication , , , ,  N Ndyuka , , , ,  Nevis  Nigerian Pidgin , , – O Obscenity , , , ,  P Pamaka , , , ,  Panama  Panamanian Creole English , , , ,  Para-linguistic communication , ,  Participation , , , , , , , ,  Performative language , , , , , , , –,  Perlocution , , ,  Personhood  Playing the dozens , , ,  Politeness and cultural specificity , , , , ,  and normativity , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  and universality , , , , , ,  Principle , ,  practices , , , , , , –, , , , , , , , 

Subject index  studies ,  theory , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Port Harcourt , , ,  Positional identity ,  Pre-linguistic communication , , , , , , , , , , ,  Promise  Public sphere , , , –, , , , ,  access to , ,  R Register choice , , , , , , , –,  Requests , , , , , , , ,  Respect , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Respectability , ,  Response cries ,  Ritualized behaviour , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  ritual insults , , , –, –, – “Rude” behaviour , , , , , , , 

S Saramaccan , ,  Self and face , , , ,  presentation of , ,  private and public  Sense of decorum ,  Shipmate principle , ,  Sierra Leonean Creole  Silence  Social change , , , –, ,  Social relations , , , , , , , , ,  Social roles , , , ,  Sounding , – Speech act , , , , , , , , , , , –,  theory , , ,  Speech community , , , , ,  Speech event , , , , –, , , , , ,  Sranan Tongo , , ,  St. Kitts  St. Lucia  St. Vincent , ,  Suriname , , , , , , , , 

T Threat , –,  Tobago , , ,  Transatlantic cultural continuities , , , , , , , , , ,  Trinidad , , , , , , , ,  Trinidadian Creole , , , ,  Turkey  Turkish (verbal dueling) , – Turn-taking in conversation , –, , , , , 

V Varilingual competence  Verbal dueling , , , , – performance , , , 

W Wolof , ,  Wording –

Y Yemen 

In the series Varieties of English Around the World the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: G36 MURRAY, Thomas E. and Beth Lee SIMON (eds.): Language Variation and Change in the American Midland. A new look at ‘Heartland’ English. xii, 311 pp. + index. Expected December 2005 G35 HICKEY, Raymond: Dublin English. Evolution and change. 2005. x, 270 pp. (incl. CD-Rom). G34 MÜHLEISEN, Susanne and Bettina MIGGE (eds.): Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles. 2005. viii, 293 pp. G33 LIM, Lisa (ed.): Singapore English. A grammatical description. 2004. xiv, 174 pp. G32 HACKERT, Stephanie: Urban Bahamian Creole. System and variation. 2004. xiv, 256 pp. G31 THOMPSON, Roger M.: Filipino English and Taglish. Language switching from multiple perspectives. 2003. xiv, 288 pp. G30 ACETO, Michael and Jeffrey P. WILLIAMS (eds.): Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean. 2003. xx, 322 pp. G29 NELSON, Gerald, Sean WALLIS and Bas AARTS: Exploring Natural Language. Working with the British Component of the International Corpus of English. 2002. xviii, 344 pp. G28 GÖRLACH, Manfred: Still More Englishes. 2002. xiv, 240 pp. G27 LANEHART, Sonja L. (ed.): Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English. 2001. xviii, 373 pp. G26 BLAIR, David and Peter C. COLLINS (eds.): English in Australia. 2001. vi, 368 pp. G25 BELL, Allan and Koenraad KUIPER (eds.): New Zealand English. JB/Victoria UP, 2000. 368 pp. G24 HUBER, Magnus: Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context. A sociohistorical and structural analysis. 1999. xviii, 322 pp. (incl. CD-rom). G23 HUNDT, Marianne: New Zealand English Grammar – Fact or Fiction? A corpus-based study in morphosyntactic variation. 1998. xvi, 212 pp. G22 GÖRLACH, Manfred: Even More Englishes. Studies 1996–1997. With a foreword by John Spencer. 1998. x, 260 pp. G21 KALLEN, Jeffrey L. (ed.): Focus on Ireland. 1997. xviii, 260 pp. G20 MACAULAY, Ronald K.S.: Standards and Variation in Urban Speech. Examples from Lowland Scots. 1997. x, 201. G19 SCHNEIDER, Edgar W. (ed.): Englishes around the World. Studies in honour of Manfred Görlach. Volume 2: Carribbean, Africa, Asia, Australasia. 1997. viii, 358 pp. G18 SCHNEIDER, Edgar W. (ed.): Englishes around the World. Studies in honour of Manfred Görlach. Volume 1: General studies, British Isles, North America. 1997. vi, 329 pp. G17 PATRICK, Peter L.: Urban Jamaican Creole. Variation in the Mesolect. 1999. xx, 329 pp. G16 SCHNEIDER, Edgar W. (ed.): Focus on the USA. 1996. vi, 368 pp. G15 DE KLERK, Vivian (ed.): Focus on South Africa. 1996. iv, 328 pp. G14 McCLURE, J. Derrick: Scots and its Literature. 1996. vi, 218 pp. G13 GÖRLACH, Manfred: More Englishes. New studies in varieties of English 1988–1994. 1995. 276 pp. G12 GLAUSER, Beat, Edgar W. SCHNEIDER and Manfred GÖRLACH: A New Bibliography of Writings on Varieties of English, 1984–1992/93. 1993. 208 pp. G11 CLARKE, Sandra (ed.): Focus on Canada. 1993. xii, 302 pp. G10 FISCHER, Andreas and Daniel AMMAN: An Index to Dialect Maps of Great Britain. 1991. iv, 150 pp. G9 GÖRLACH, Manfred: Englishes. Studies in varieties of English 1984–1988. 1991. 211 pp. G8 GÖRLACH, Manfred and John HOLM (eds.): Focus on the Caribbean. 1986. viii, 209 pp. G7 PENFIELD, Joyce and Jack ORNSTEIN-GALICIA: Chicano English. 1985. vii, 112 pp. G6 PETYT, K.M.: 'Dialect' and 'Accent' in Industrial West Yorkshire. 1985. viii, 401 pp. G5 GÖRLACH, Manfred (ed.): Focus on Scotland. iv, 241 pp. Out of print G4 VIERECK, Wolfgang (ed.): Focus on: England and Wales. 1984. iv, 304 pp. (includes 40 maps). G3 VIERECK, Wolfgang, Edgar W. SCHNEIDER and Manfred GÖRLACH (comps.): A Bibliography of Writings on Varieties of English, 1965–1983. 1984. iv, 319 pp. G2 DAY, Rita (ed.): Issues in English Creoles. Papers from the 1975 Hawaii Conference. (Julius Groos) Heidelberg, iii, 188 pp. Out of print G1 LANHAM, Len W. and C.A. MACDONALD: The Standard in South African English and its Social History. (Julius Groos) Heidelberg, 96 pp. Out of print

T9 MÜHLHÄUSLER, Peter, Thomas E. DUTTON and Suzanne ROMAINE: Tok Pisin Texts. From the beginning to the present. 2003. x, 286 pp. T8 McCLURE, J. Derrick: Doric. The dialect of North-East Scotland. 2002. vi, 222 pp. T7 MEHROTRA, Raja Ram: Indian English. Texts and Interpretation. 1998. x, 148 pp. T6 WINER, Lise: Trinidad and Tobago. 1993. xii, 368 pp. T5 WAKELIN, Martyn F.: The Southwest of England. 1986. xii, 231 pp. T4 PLATT, John, Heidi WEBER and Mian Lian HO: Singapore and Malaysia. 1983. iv, 138 pp. T3 MACAFEE, Caroline: Glasgow. 1983. v, 167 pp. T2 HOLM, John: Central American English. (Julius Groos) Heidelberg, iv, 184 pp., + tape. Out of print T1 TODD, Loreto: Cameroon. (Julius Groos) Heidelberg, 180 pp., 1 map. Out of print

Politeness And Face in Caribbean Creoles (Varieties of English Around the World General Series)

Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean (Varieties of English Around the World)

Filipino English and Taglish: Language Switching from Multiple Perspectives (Varieties of English Around the World General Series)

St Helenian English: Origins, evolution and variation (Varieties of English Around the World)

Discourse and Politeness: Ambivalent Face in Japanese

Varieties of English (Studies in English Language)

Doric: The Dialect of North-east Scotland (Varieties of English Around the World)

Due Respect: Essays on English and English-Related Creoles in the Caribbean in Honour of Professor Robert Le Page

Tok Pisin Texts: From the Beginning to the Present (Varieties of English Around the World Text Series, 9)

Postcolonial English: Varieties around the world (Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact)

Requests and Culture: Politeness in British English and Japanese

Creoles of Color in the Bayou Country

Desserts Around the World

Christmas Around The World

Around The World

Religions Around the World

Arabic Around the World

Animals Around the World

Homes Around the World

The Politeness Of Princes

Creole Discourse: Exploring Prestige Formation and Change Across Caribbean - English-lexicon Creoles (Creole Language Library)

Latin and Caribbean Dance (World of Dance)

The Wall Around the World

The Wall Around the World

Around the World in 80 Dinners

Around the World in 80 Days

The Power of Prayer around the World

Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions

Politeness In Europe

Politeness in East Asia

Pidgins and Creoles

Politeness And Face in Caribbean Creoles (Varieties of English Around the World General Series)

Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean (Varieties of English Around the World)

Filipino English and Taglish: Language Switching from Multiple Perspectives (Varieties of English Around the World General Series)

St Helenian English: Origins, evolution and variation (Varieties of English Around the World)

Discourse and Politeness: Ambivalent Face in Japanese

Varieties of English (Studies in English Language)

Doric: The Dialect of North-east Scotland (Varieties of English Around the World)

Due Respect: Essays on English and English-Related Creoles in the Caribbean in Honour of Professor Robert Le Page

Tok Pisin Texts: From the Beginning to the Present (Varieties of English Around the World Text Series, 9)

Postcolonial English: Varieties around the world (Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact)

Requests and Culture: Politeness in British English and Japanese

Creoles of Color in the Bayou Country

Desserts Around the World

Christmas Around The World

Around The World

Religions Around the World

Arabic Around the World

Animals Around the World

Homes Around the World

The Politeness Of Princes

Creole Discourse: Exploring Prestige Formation and Change Across Caribbean - English-lexicon Creoles (Creole Language Library)

Latin and Caribbean Dance (World of Dance)

The Wall Around the World

The Wall Around the World

Around the World in 80 Dinners

Around the World in 80 Days

The Power of Prayer around the World

Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions

Politeness In Europe

Politeness in East Asia

Pidgins and Creoles

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