Sense and Nonsense in St. Vincent

Speech Behavior and Decorum in a Caribbean Community 1

Bibliographic Data

ID8211366
AuthorsRoger D Abrahams (The University of Texas at Austin), Richard Bauman (The University of Texas at Austin)
Year1971
Volume73
Issue3
Pages762-772
Publication date1971-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Anthropologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7294 • E-ISSN: 1548-1433
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/aa.1971.73.3.02a00160
OpenAlexW2109529739
LanguageEN
Citations received28
References cited19

Speech behavior, among the Afro‐American peasants of St. Vincent, British West Indies, is the focus of a high degree of interest, self‐consciousness, and value judgment. A segment of the speech economy of Vincentian peasants is analyzed in terms of a native taxonomy of speech acts and related terms, illuminating Vincentian ideas concerning proper and improper behavior as well as the realm of speech behavior itself. The analysis paves the way for a consideration of the conduct and significance of the tea meeting, one of the most popular performance events on the island and a key to the dynamics of social change in contemporary Vincentian society

Consciousness · Decorum · Epistemology · Nonsense · Realm · Social life · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Anthropology · Categorization, perception, and language · Computer Science · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy

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