Description
Book SynopsisDescribes the language of Rastafari, tracing its development as an expansion of Jamaican Creole while showing how it is distinct both from Creole and Standard English. This title examines the effects of Rastafarian language on Creole in other parts of the Carribean, its influence in Jamaican poetry, and its effects on standard Jamaican English.
Trade Review"Dread Talk is one of the most dramatic examples of the imbrication of language, culture and society to be found anywhere, and no one has explored this topic with as much sensitivity, detail, and insight as Velma Pollard. I regard this book as required reading for sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists, and I recommend it enthusiastically to scholars in social and cultural anthropology, sociology, comparative literature, lexicography, Caribbean Studies, and Africana/Black Studies." John R. Rickford, Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor of Linguistics and Director, African and Afro-American Studies, Stanford University.
Table of ContentsForeword to the first edition Rex Nettleford; Preface; Dread talk - the speech of the Rastafari in Jamaica; The social history of dread talk; Rastafarian language in St Lucia and Barbados; Dread talk - the speech of Rastafari in modern Jamaican poetry; The lexicon of dread talk in standard Jamaican English; Globalization and the language of Rastafari; The road of the dread - Lorna Goodison
