Politeness And Face in Caribbean Creoles

Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles is the first collection to focus on socio-pragmatic issues in the Caribbean context, including the socio-cultural rules and principles underlying strategic language use. While the Caribbean has long been recognized as a rich and interesting site where cultural continuities meet with new "creolized" or innovative practices, questions of politeness practices, constructions of personhood, or the notion of face have so far been neglected in linguistic research on Caribbean Creoles. Drawing on linguistic politeness theory and Goffman's concept of face, eleven mostly fieldwork-based innovative contributions critically examine a range of topics, such as ritual insults, strategic use of "bad language", kiss-teeth, the performance of homophobic threats, greetings, address forms, advice-giving, socialization and discourse, parent-child discourse, register choice and communicative repertoire in the Caribbean context.

Table of contents

 

Acknowledgements	vii
Politeness and face in Caribbean Creoles: An overview Bettina Migge and Susanne Mьhleisen	1–19
Part I: Performing rudeness and face maintenance
The use of “bad” language as a politeness strategy in a Panamanian Creole village Peter Snow	23–43
Ritualized insults and the African diaspora: Sounding in African American Vernacular English and Wording in Nigerian Pidgin Nicholas Faraclas, Lourdes Pйrez Gonzбlez, Migdalia Medina and Wendell Villanueva Reyes	45–72
Rude sounds: Kiss Teeth and negotiation of the public sphere Esther Figueroa	73–99
Faiya-bon: The socio-pragmatics of homophobia in Jamaican (Dancehall) culture Joseph T. Farquharson	101–118
Part II: Face attention and the public and private self
Greeting and social change Bettina Migge	121–144
Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village and the interactional organization of uncertainty Jack Sidnell	145–168
Meaningful routines: Meaning-making and the face-value of Barbadian greetings Janina Fenigsen	169–194
Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles: The presentation of selves and others in the Caribbean context Susanne Mьhleisen	195–223
Part III: Socialization and face development
‘May I have the bilna?’: The development of face-saving in young Trinidadian children Valerie Youssef	227–254
Learning respect in Guadeloupe: Greetings and politeness rituals Alex-Louise Tessonneau	255–282
Notes on contributors	283–285
Index	287–293