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 Mühleisen 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 Pérez González, 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 Mühleisen 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

"This theoretically important and down-to-earth survey of Caribbean speechways delivers a long-overdue correction to Creole studies. From address forms and greetings to insults and kiss-teeth, from Surinam to Jamaica and Panama to Guadeloupe, it offers an alternative view of the richness and exciting variety of Caribbean Creoles. The contributions from an emerging generation of scholars exhibit deep understanding, respect and mastery of data, cutting through old impasses with argumentation based in the complexity of these small but vital New World speech communities." Peter L. Patrick, University of Essex (author of Urban Jamaican Creole)