7. The linguistics of Jamaican swearing: Forms, background and adaptations
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Joseph T. Farquharson
Abstract
Jamaican swear words are popular far beyond the borders of the Caribbean island. Swearing practices in Jamaican are interesting due to their linguistic set-up based on historical language contact and their socio-cultural contexts, their adaptations in music and material culture and their usage among various groups of people around the world. Moreover, the legal situation of swearing in Jamaica provides insights into controversies between law and practices that goes back to colonial times. Despite those various aspects, Jamaican swearing practices have not yet attracted attention in linguistic scholarship. Hence, this paper provides first insights into the linguistics of swearing in Jamaica and discusses not only etymological, semantic and syntactic aspects of swearing, but also reflects on the sociolinguistic background and the usage of swear words outside Jamaica as well as in music. A discussion of the legal background of using swear words sheds light on the colonial history of linguistic censoring and its effects on today’s society. This paper starts with some theoretical preliminaries that place linguistic swearing practices in its sociocultural context before examining Jamaican swearing expressions, discussing some aspects of their historical background and etymology, analyzing linguistic constructions and sociolinguistic implications as well as reflecting on social and legal regulation and adaptations in and outside Jamaica. This chapter provides an original and innovative account of swearing in Jamaican and thus contributes to a better understanding of swearing in a cross-cultural perspective.
Abstract
Jamaican swear words are popular far beyond the borders of the Caribbean island. Swearing practices in Jamaican are interesting due to their linguistic set-up based on historical language contact and their socio-cultural contexts, their adaptations in music and material culture and their usage among various groups of people around the world. Moreover, the legal situation of swearing in Jamaica provides insights into controversies between law and practices that goes back to colonial times. Despite those various aspects, Jamaican swearing practices have not yet attracted attention in linguistic scholarship. Hence, this paper provides first insights into the linguistics of swearing in Jamaica and discusses not only etymological, semantic and syntactic aspects of swearing, but also reflects on the sociolinguistic background and the usage of swear words outside Jamaica as well as in music. A discussion of the legal background of using swear words sheds light on the colonial history of linguistic censoring and its effects on today’s society. This paper starts with some theoretical preliminaries that place linguistic swearing practices in its sociocultural context before examining Jamaican swearing expressions, discussing some aspects of their historical background and etymology, analyzing linguistic constructions and sociolinguistic implications as well as reflecting on social and legal regulation and adaptations in and outside Jamaica. This chapter provides an original and innovative account of swearing in Jamaican and thus contributes to a better understanding of swearing in a cross-cultural perspective.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Foreword VII
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Part I: Othering and abjection as deep practice
- 1. “I will kill you today” – Reading “bad language” and swearing through Otherness, mimesis, abjection and camp 1
- 2. Ten issues facing taboo word scholars 37
- 3. “Damn your eyes!” (Not really): Imperative imprecatives, and curses as commands 53
- 4. “Oh, bald father!”: Kinship and swearing among Datooga of Tanzania 79
- 5. Aesthetics of the obscure: Swearing as horrible play 103
- 6. “I sh.t in your mouth”: Areal invectives in the Lower Volta Basin (West Africa) 121
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Part II: Cultural mobility as context of transgression
- 7. The linguistics of Jamaican swearing: Forms, background and adaptations 147
- 8. ‘Don’t say it in public’: Contestations and negotiations in northern Nigerian Muslim cyberspace 165
- 9. Mock Chinese in Kinshasa: On Lingala speakers’ offensive language use and verbal hostility 185
- 10. The name of the wild man: Colonial arbiru in East Timor 209
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Part III: Disruptive and trashy performance
- 11. Found and lost paradise: Bad language at a beach in Diani, Kenya 239
- 12. The sexy banana – artifacts of gendered language in tourism 259
- 13. English- and Spanish-speaking teenagers’ use of rude vocatives 281
- 14. “He shall not be buried in the West” – Cursing in Ancient Egypt 303
- Afterword 327
- Index 333
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Foreword VII
-
Part I: Othering and abjection as deep practice
- 1. “I will kill you today” – Reading “bad language” and swearing through Otherness, mimesis, abjection and camp 1
- 2. Ten issues facing taboo word scholars 37
- 3. “Damn your eyes!” (Not really): Imperative imprecatives, and curses as commands 53
- 4. “Oh, bald father!”: Kinship and swearing among Datooga of Tanzania 79
- 5. Aesthetics of the obscure: Swearing as horrible play 103
- 6. “I sh.t in your mouth”: Areal invectives in the Lower Volta Basin (West Africa) 121
-
Part II: Cultural mobility as context of transgression
- 7. The linguistics of Jamaican swearing: Forms, background and adaptations 147
- 8. ‘Don’t say it in public’: Contestations and negotiations in northern Nigerian Muslim cyberspace 165
- 9. Mock Chinese in Kinshasa: On Lingala speakers’ offensive language use and verbal hostility 185
- 10. The name of the wild man: Colonial arbiru in East Timor 209
-
Part III: Disruptive and trashy performance
- 11. Found and lost paradise: Bad language at a beach in Diani, Kenya 239
- 12. The sexy banana – artifacts of gendered language in tourism 259
- 13. English- and Spanish-speaking teenagers’ use of rude vocatives 281
- 14. “He shall not be buried in the West” – Cursing in Ancient Egypt 303
- Afterword 327
- Index 333
