Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:57:57.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conversation in a West Indian taxi: an ethnolinguistic analysis1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Jay Edwards ,
Michael Rosberg  and
Luis ‘Modesto’ Pryme Hoy
Jay Edwards
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University at Baton Rough
Michael Rosberg
Affiliation:
DESA Foundation San Andreés Isla, Columbia
Luis ‘Modesto’ Pryme Hoy
Affiliation:
Principal consultant and translator
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the stylistic use of language by West Indian men. A verbal duel is explored and related to an opposition between two West Indian value systems. The concept of ‘vertical code switching’, such as in diglossia, is found to be inadequate to account for the verbal behavior. More significant is a type of ‘horizontal’ switching which involves phonological and suprasegmental features. (Multilingualism, creole languages, code and style switching, ‘lente’ and ‘allegro’ speech, ethnography of communication; San Andrés Island, Colombia.)

Type
Articles: Conversational devices and structures
Information
Language in Society , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , December 1975 , pp. 295 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrahams, Roger D. (1963). Deep down in the jungle, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Abrahams, Roger D. (1967). The shaping of folklore traditions in the British West Indies. Journal of Interamerican Studies 9 (3). 456–80.Google Scholar
Abrahams, Roger D. (1970). Positively Black, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Abrahams, Roger D. (1972). The training of the man of words in talking sweet. LinS I (1). 15–29.Google Scholar
Abrahams, Roger D. (n.d.). Worlds of action, worlds of order: Patterns of behavior in performance in a West Indian community. Mimeographed MS.Google Scholar
Alleyne, Mervin (1963). Communication and politics in Jamaica. Caribbean Studies 3. 22–61.Google Scholar
Alleyne, Mervin (1968). The culture matrix of Caribbean dialects. Paper delivered before the 1968 annual meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society in Gainesville, Florida, February 29, 1968.Google Scholar
Alleyne, Mervin (1973). Some notes on linguistic research in the Caribbean. (Mimeographed research report).Google Scholar
Bickerton, Derek (1971). Inherent variability and variable rules. Foundations of Language 7. 457–92.Google Scholar
Bickerton, Derek (1973). On the nature of a creole continuum. Language 49. 640–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bickerton, Derek (1975). Dynamics of a creole system. Binghampton, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cassidy, Frederic G. & Le Page, R. B. (1967). Dictionary of Jamaican English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Day, Richard R. (1974). Decreolization: coexistent systems and the post-creole continuum. In DeCamp, and Hancock, (eds), Pidgins and creoles: current trends and prospects. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 38–45.Google Scholar
DeCamp, David (1971). Towards a generative analysis of a post-creole speech continuum. In Hymes, Dell (ed.), Pidginization and creolization of languages. London and New York: Cambridge University Press. 349–70.Google Scholar
DeCamp, David (1973). What do implicational scales imply? In Bailey, Charles-James and Shuy, Roger W. (eds), New ways of analyzing variation in English. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Dollard, John (1939). The dozens: Dialect of insult. American Imago I (1). 3–25.Google Scholar
Dundes, Alan (ed.) (1973). Mother Wit from the laughing barrel. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Edwards, Jay (1970). Social linguistics on San Andréa and Providencia Islands, Colombia. (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Tulane University, Dept. of Anthropology.)Google Scholar
Edwards, Jay (1974). African influences on the English of San Andrés Island, Colombia. In DeCamp, David and Hancock, Ian (eds), Pidgins and creoles: Current trends and prospects. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 1–26.Google Scholar
Edwards, Jay (nd.). Walker's War: History and folklore in a Caribbean Legend Complex. (Ms. 86 pp. with maps and transcriptions.)Google Scholar
Hymes, Dell (1971). Introduction to Part III. Pidginization and creolization of languages. London and New York: Cambridge University Press. 65–90.Google Scholar
Kochman, Thomas (1972). Rappin' and Stylin' Out. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1971). The Notion of ‘System’ in Creole Languages. in Hymes, Dell (ed.), Pidginization and creolization of languages. London and New York: Cambridge University Press. 447–72.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1972). Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Liebow, Elliot (1967). Tally's corner: a study of Negro streetcorner men. Boston: Little Brown & Co.Google Scholar
Kernan, Claudia Mitchell (1971). Language behavior in a Black urban community. Berkeley: Language-Behavior Research Lab. University of California.Google Scholar
Reisman, Karl (1970). Cultural and Linguistic Ambiguity in a West Indian Village. In Whitten, Norman Jr, and Szwed, John (eds), Afro-American anthropology. N.Y.: The Free Press. 145–62.Google Scholar
Reisman, Karl (1974). Contrapuntal conversations in an Antiguan village. In Bauman, Richard and Sherzer, Joel (eds), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. London and New York:Cambridge University Press. 110–24.Google Scholar
Rickford, John R. (1974). The insights of the mesolect. In DeCamp, David and Hancock, Ian (eds), Pidgins and creoles: current trends and prospects. Washington, D.C.:Georgetown University Press. 92–117.Google Scholar
Washabaugh, William (1975). On the development of complementizers in creolization. Ms. Department of Anhropology, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.Google Scholar
Whitten, Norman E. Jr, and Szwed, John F. (eds) (1970). Afro-American anthropology. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Peter J. (1969). Reputation and respectability… in the Caribbean. Man 4 (1) (03): 70–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Peter J. (1973). Crab antics: The social anthropology of English-speaking Negro societies of the Caribbean. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar