11. Found and lost paradise: Bad language at a beach in Diani, Kenya
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Angelika Mietzner
Abstract
Diani Beach in Kenya is a space where speakers violate norms through language practices that do not include swear words but tend to challenge the notion of the beach as “paradise”, and its rules of politeness, respect and privacy. Language here is used in exchanges where the hosts’ presence conflicts with the social expectations of guests, in terms of how they expect to be approached, addressed, and left alone. This results in extreme emotional behaviour as a perlocutionary effect of offence (Culpeper 2011) and presents the beach as a space of transgression. This article will give an insight into the encounters between Europeans and Kenyan beach boys in a space of bizarre relations and interdependencies of real life and “holiday dreams”.
Abstract
Diani Beach in Kenya is a space where speakers violate norms through language practices that do not include swear words but tend to challenge the notion of the beach as “paradise”, and its rules of politeness, respect and privacy. Language here is used in exchanges where the hosts’ presence conflicts with the social expectations of guests, in terms of how they expect to be approached, addressed, and left alone. This results in extreme emotional behaviour as a perlocutionary effect of offence (Culpeper 2011) and presents the beach as a space of transgression. This article will give an insight into the encounters between Europeans and Kenyan beach boys in a space of bizarre relations and interdependencies of real life and “holiday dreams”.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
