Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:37:12.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The training of the man of words in talking sweet1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Roger D. Abrahams
Roger D. Abrahams
Affiliation:
Departments of English and Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Discussions of Negro non-standard English (or Black English) emphasizes the most socially stigmatizing features. It is clear, however, that within anglophonic black communities a diglossia situation occurs in which the high form is a speaking variety close to oratorical standard English. This paper explores how this high variety is learned in one Afro-American peasant community in the West Indies as an illustration of the social and ritual importance of certain codes. (diglossia, Creole languages, the formal teaching of speech varieties, oratory.)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , April 1972 , pp. 15 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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

REFERENCES

Abrahams, R. D. (1970 a). The black uses of black English. Unpublished ms.Google Scholar
Abrahams, R. D. (1970 b). Traditions of eloquence in the West Indies. Jnl Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 12. 505–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abrahams, R. D. (1970 c). The West Indian tea meeting and Afro-American expressive culture. Unpublished ms.Google Scholar
Abrahams, R. D. & Bauman, R. (1971). Sense and nonsense on St Vincent: speech behavior and decorum in a Caribbean community. AmA 73. 762–772.Google Scholar
Dalby, D. (1970). Reflections on the historical development of Afro-American languages: A discussion of Mervyn C. Alleyne's paper, ‘The linguistic continuity of Africa in the Caribbean’. Unpublished ms. from the Symposium ‘Continuities and discontinuities in Afro-American societies and cultures’, Mona, Jamaica, 2–5 April, 1970, sponsored by the SSRC (US) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.Google Scholar
DeCamp, D. (1971). Toward a generative analysis of a post-Creole speech continuum. In Hymes, Dell (ed.), Pidginization and creolization of languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. (1959). Diglossia. Word 15. 325–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lord, A. M. (1960). The singer of tales. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, P. J. (1969). Reputation and respectability: suggestions for Caribbean ethnology. Man 4. 70–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar