Milford Jeremiah lecture, "Speech Acts in Slave Narratives," at the University of Iowa, June 19, 1974

Speaker 1: The following was recorded June 19th 1974 as part of the sixth Annual Institute on Afro-American Culture held at the University of Iowa. Speaking on speech acts in slave narratives is Dr. Milford Jeremiah, assistant professor at Morgan State in Baltimore. Introducing Professor Jeremiah is Fred Woodard, a professor in the department of Afro-American studies at the University of Iowa. Fred Woodard: Our speaker for this afternoon is Dr. Milford A Jeremiah who is presently assistant professor of reading and linguistics at Morgan State in Baltimore. He was born in Antigua, West Indies. Later moved to St. Louis, Missouri. He did his BA at Hampton Institute in modern languages. His MA and PhD degrees at Brown University in linguistics. His dissertation topic was Linguistics: Our Linguistic and Socio-Linguistic Parallels in Black English and Antiguan Creole. He has done articles such titles as A Look at Antiguan Creole, A Case for Re-Creolization, and Religion and Language and Society. It is my pleasure to present Dr. Jeremiah. Dr. Milford Jer...: Thank you, Fred. After such an eloquent introduction then I guess I can't afford to mess up, in so many words. At this point in the institute you wonder, well, what can I say that hasn't been said before? But this looks like a good audience so I'll just do my best. Let me define a few terms before I actually begin. The reason for my having the board is psychological. See, if you have a black board then it eliminates the concept of a lecture. It puts you more in a classroom environment, which I can deal with. But just as you have a lecture, then it's too formal, it's too structured. So any time, this is a good crutch. Any time you're going to give a lecture, get your little blackboard, okay? Dr. Milford Jer...: Now two terms which I need to define are speech acts and Creole. Let me define a speech act as being a sub-set of a speech situation. So you have a speech situation. For instance, a cocktail party is a speech situation. A joke at the party is a speech act. People sitting on a porch simply talking, cursing somebody, becomes a speech act within the dimension of what I call a speech situation. So the speech situation becomes a poem, and the speech act is some element, some verbal element, built into the situation itself. See, if I went out here and said, right on, that's a speech act within the dimension of something called Black Awareness, you see? So speech act is what I'm going to deal with. Dr. Milford Jer...: And Creole, this term is very cumbersome. By Creole I mean the language spoken by the majority of the field slaves or that's the majority of the slave population up to about 1865. So let me say Creole is the language spoken by the majority of slaves up to the year 1865. And I'm using the linguistic definition. That is the language must have features so distinct from other models that you can identify the speaker of a given community based upon those kinds of features. What do I mean by features? For instance, any representation of slave speech within the 18th and 19th century would have things like a be for be in final position. You have things like B-E. You have things like no distinction between subject and object pronouns. Noticing that the negation here does not have a [du]. I don't know, I'm sorry I have to make this comparison between Creole and standard English in quote, but this is simply a basis for my saying that these are some of the evidences you look for in trying to characterize what's meant by Creole language. Dr. Milford Jer...: It must have features which are different from other varieties. And this does not mean that slaves could not manipulate other kinds of varieties. Some slaves can use I. I don't know. If you look hard enough. But we're saying that forms like me, unknown, or be in final position, as opposed to be, would be statistically important for you to say, well, this seems to represent what the language of the slaves looked like at that particular time. Dr. Milford Jer...: I'll just fill you in, another 30 seconds. The reason for this talk really grew out of my dissertation. I wanted us to prove that the dialects in Black American speech at that time, and certain dialects of the Caribbean, were related simply more than isolated instances of lexical items. See, you just don't go and pick up a word in Louisianan, one in Carolina, one in [Legoa]. Something in Jamaican, something in [Sirunam], and say, well, these are related because these are shared vocabulary words. I'm trying to say that a much more enlightening or a much more deeper analysis would have to take other dimensions of language. Some system, morphology, word categories, aspect of sentence combination, and speech acts, to really substantiate some degree of relatedness. So this what I'm going to be talking on is really chapter five of my research. Dr. Milford Jer...: Investigations of Afro-American culture, especially those aspects of culture which deal with slave narratives are by no means a new phenomenon. According to [Baylis], slave narratives date back to about the year 1720, and a conservative estimate of slave narratives is put at 10,000. We must acknowledge such distinguished scholars on slave narratives as J. Mason Brewer, Arna Bontemps, Sterling Brown, Richard Dawson, J. Chandler Harris, Melville Herskovits, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Elsie Clews Parsons, to name just a few. And incidentally, if you know of other persons who need recognition, I couldn't put all the names in the paper, so please excuse me. Dr. Milford Jer...: Studies of a quantitative nature have been undertaken by the Federal Writers Project and the Georgia Writers Project. The major concerns of these studies were geared to depicting aspects of slave life. These tales were analyzed and evaluated from both subjective and objective viewpoints, by social scientists and others interested in slave narratives. Sociologists and anthropologists used these studies to point out such constructs as social structure, acculturation, cultural retention of the African past, while psychologists focused their attention on personality and behavior, especially where such factors pertained to a master/slave relationship and patterns of interaction where these two groups were concerned. Dr. Milford Jer...: The linguist is rather late getting his share of the narrative action. Because the topic of slave narratives is one of such magnitude I have chosen to look at a few speech acts as a structural aspect of a narrative. By speech act is meant a minimal utterance that is directly governed by rules or norms for the use of speech, according to [Heim] '72. At least two persons should be present, a speaker and a listener, if a speech act is to be valid. Talking to oneself would not be considered a speech act in this discussion. The speech acts which I will focus on are, A, the address systems, B, evasive speech, and C, indirection. Some writers have called C, indirection, inversion. Grace Sims Holt. Dr. Milford Jer...: I have also decided to probe this topic from a comparative framework to see what similarities and/or differences there are in speech acts of slaves in the Southern slave states and in Antigua. The territories on this study are the Southern plantations of the United States and those of Antigua. These regions have had a comparable socio-historical background where plantation slavery and the [inaudible] and slave culture were concerned. Historical evidence such as [Donald Huskowitz-Drummer] show that there were socio-cultural parallels in the following areas. Origins of slaves in these areas, patterns of occupation, kinship structure, structural patterns of language, modes of worship, food styles, folklore. Dr. Milford Jer...: These topics have so well been demonstrated that we do not need go into them further here. [inaudible] were collected from reporters who wrote on the topic of slave narratives. For this discussion I have chosen with possible narratives that were told by the slaves themselves, or narratives which were recorded as being slave-specific. The latter was chiefly determined by the fact that the narratives were written in slave speech. That is plantation Creole. These sources are Andrew Jackson, Homestead [Parlor Pocket Bodkin]. Use another from [Osofsky], and Harvey Wish. For Antigua the sources are Edwards, [Loughman], [Lewis] and Flanagan. These were historians and missionaries in the islands during that particular time. Dr. Milford Jer...: Most of the informants were adult men, however, there are also women in the samples. There are hardly any which depicts the narratives of children. Samples were also chosen which reflected more of the slaves' true vernacular. That is a style in which the minimum of attention is paid to speech. One possible shortcoming in the representation of slave speech is that investigators may have used I dialect. I'll probably discuss that a little later one. We see this in the writings of J. Chandler Harris, among others, who depict slave speech by using such orthography as was, says. We have things like was, says, here, never. What I'm saying is that there's a thin line between what you think you hear and what's actually said. Most of the time I dialect is simply a means of mimicking those persons who you think can't speak so well. Dr. Milford Jer...: For instance, there's a sign I saw, it's between Durham and Chapel Hill, that reads, I just et at [inaudible]. And so are you saying this... I'm not debating whether not you didn't hear poor for poor, just et... But what I'm saying is that there's a very thin line between trying to represent the language of the people and simply playing linguistic games with what you think you hear. So that becomes a very touchy problem, trying to capture the true patterns of a speech community. Thus a full linguistic representation of slave vernacular would still be difficult to attain. These discrepancies should not detract from the main topic to be discussed, important as they may be. Dr. Milford Jer...: We may now turn our attention to the speech acts under consideration. Number one, the address systems. By address systems we mean the common mode of verbal expression used between master and slave and between slave and slave, as a means of recognizing each other's presence. Such modes of interaction have been shown elsewhere by Irvin [Trip] to be subjected to societal cultural and sub-cultural norms when used by members of a speech community. On plantations in the South, and in Antigua, address systems were also conditioned by rules established by the dominant white ruling class in instances where slaves greeted masters or had to verbally acknowledge the latter's presence. Among the slaves themselves address systems, rather than being an obligation, was carried out as a result of the African past, where respect and deference were the factors which governed this type of speech act. Dr. Milford Jer...: Let us look at a few of these address forms between slaves and masters, and between slaves and slaves, and see what socio-cultural factors have shaped their form and usage. The most common forms of address used by slave to whites, and common to Southern and Antiguan states were master, mister, [ge'man], gentleman, missus, master, [ma'am], suh, yasuh. I'm starting [inaudible] see if I can capture some of the phonological rules used then. Yasuh, mistis. Seldom found in Antigua, but occurring in the South are [capt'n], colonel, general, doctor, ['fessor]. Notice what we have here is a kind of [inaudible] rule where stress syllable, professor. And this is definitely a phonological process in black speech ways where, for the most part, the stressed syllable becomes deleted and you have what they call a [ferrasis]. My explanation for this seems to be... Well, I'll come to that. Dr. Milford Jer...: These differences in address forms could probably be explained at the ground, that the Revolutionary War and the Civil War might have been social forces influencing the development and utility of these address forms in the speech of North American slaves where there was a marked degree of interaction between whites and slaves, especially during the Civil War when Union soldiers were in the South in large numbers. I think we saw a little of that in the life of Miss Jane Pittman. When the white person, child tried to answer, "Yes, sir," and he said, "No, call me Jack," or whatever. I think he was consciously trying to break down the rules for address systems then. You see, the slaves still had this yes and no sir, and sah, whatever your name is. Dr. Milford Jer...: This position also seems tenable in light of acculturation processes of cultural transmission on both sides. That is although the majority of the slave populous was not directly engaged in hostilities during these [inaudible] periods of American history, nevertheless, slaves might have picked up these terminologies. Captain, colonel, doctor, from soldiers and other professional personnel connected with the wars, and reinterpreted these address forms with the specific semantic content, namely anyone in authority. Dr. Milford Jer...: So I'm saying it's a kind of generalized transmission of a title. So long as you represent white structure, they call you anything. Make you feel more than what you really are. Social historical data on Antigua do not point to activities of this sort, which would be in some way comparable to the South, thus the apparent lack of these address terms in Antigua. The address forms just given may also contain sub-forms. For example, a particular form of address found in Antigua and the South is the [congo sah], defined by Lewis, congo sah. Defined by Lewis as a highly stylized form of addressed used by slaves to whites, primarily on the latter's arrival or departure from a slave plantation. The congo sah form of address incorporated amorous, endearing and sexual tags when directed to male owners or masters. Dr. Milford Jer...: On leaving the island of Antigua, Lewis tells us, "Women called me by every endearing name they could think of. My son, my love, my husband, my father. You not my master, you my tata." T-A-T-A. I think it's still in Jamaican Creole. Writing on this topic of congo sah, the French writer, [Chester Law], who was traveling in the US back about 1776, tells of the slaves' use of the word honey in addressing white male owners or travelers, further adding that the term honey was equivalent to the French form of address, [foreign language]. My little heart. Dr. Milford Jer...: I think right here I want to inject that presently forms of things like baby, my baby, my darling and so on have a kind of a slave transmission. Hey babe, what's happening? I think that babe context have its origin somewhere back then. With respect to socio-cultural factors which shape the address forms using slave/master in commerce, these forms as has been mentioned above were conditioned by the rigid policy of, quote, keeping the slave in his proper social milliard. Homestead, 1856, tells us of a slave in Louisiana who, on encountering a white person, at all times had to take off his hat, accompanied by, howdy master or howdy missus. Harvey Wish mentions a similar situation in North Carolina when slaves and masters interacted. This is a slave's report. Dr. Milford Jer...: Unless I took off my hat and made a bow to a white man, when I met him he would rip out an oath. "Damn you, ain't you got no politeness? Don't you know not to take off your hat to a white man?" I'm trying to tie in the gesture accompanying the address form. In the Antiguan situation Loughman tells us that proper deference was expected on the part of slaves to the new and, quote, social climbers. These social climbers in Loughman's description were poor Scotch lads and former indentured servants who rose to managerial positions on account of the high degree of absenteeism on the part of land owners and merchants. In making these demands of proper address form on the part of slaves, whites not only maintained the status quo, but also used it as a means to acquire social status. Dr. Milford Jer...: On this topic Smith notes, "Terms of address and reference were developed to maintain social stratification, and rigid observation of the norms of their use was necessary by subordinate slaves." In her observations of slave/master address systems in Antigua, Flanagan tells us, "They," meaning the slaves, "uniformly stopped as they came opposite to us to pay the usual civilities. This the men by touching their hats and bowing, the women by making a little curtesy, and adding sometimes, 'howdy, master,' or 'morning, master'." Dr. Milford Jer...: The above instances of master/slave interaction where address forms are considered would support the position that comparable systems existed in both Antigua and the South, and to a certain extent these aspects of master/slave interaction were rule governed in the sense that what a speaker had to know to communicate in these aspects of day-to-day life. What instances there were of masters addressing slaves in a kind of rule-governed manner were limited chiefly by the variables of age and occupation. Slaves who were older, chronologically, and were in direct contact with the master or mistress as a result of the occupation status were addressed with some degree of deference. On a plantation in Mississippi, [Pitaki] makes this observation. "They," adolescent whites, "established friendships as long as they," slaves, "live. They called the older Negros mammy and daddy, uncle and auntie, mama and papa, to show their respect. But their nurses were usually called da." As a matter of fact, my great-grandmamma, they call her dada. So, it could be showing this retention. Dr. Milford Jer...: So far we have been investigating address forms in the Southern plantations of North America and in Antigua within an interpersonal framework. That is in instances where the superordinate and subordinate groups interacted however minimally. I would now like to look at address forms within an intrapersonal framework. That is forms of address used by slaves among themselves, and see what socio-cultural factors shaped them also. The main variables which affected the address forms in both geographic areas were age, network strength, and sex. Of these, age was the most important variable to be noted. This verbal has been given much attention and analysis by investigators, namely Herskovits, and others, working in the area of African cultures and peoples, and has been looked upon as a direct African retention by new world Afro-Americans, and has survived over three centuries. Dr. Milford Jer...: On Antiguan slave life and the use of address forms among the slave themselves, Edwards writing about 1777 notes, "Their happiness chiefly arises from the high veneration in which all ages held by Negros in general, and I consider as one of the few pleasing traits in their character." Notice he cannot take himself from being the non-objective. He has to say that people were not really pleasing in character, so this is one thing that stands out. In addressing such of their fellow servants as are any ways advanced in years, they prefix to their names the appellation of parent, as [ta kwa ku] and [ma kwa shiba], ta and ma signifying father and mother, by which a designation they mean to convey not only the idea of filial reverence, but also that of esteem and fondness. Dr. Milford Jer...: As a matter of fact, an African pointed this out to me that [Tom Mar] definitely was using [inaudible] in certain West African languages, and also, this seems tenable if you look at the naming practices since then. In which the kwa [mi], kwa ku [cofi] and so on. These are definitely African patterns of name. Slave [inaudible] different name, one born on Tuesday and one... Isn't that why we have [Kwami Kumu], Paul Cofi? And so on and so. These things would definitely point to a kind of direct African retention or restructuring. Dr. Milford Jer...: Carmichael, writing about 1834, tells us of similar forms of address in Antiguan slave life, where age was the main variable influencing them. She writes, they have also particular ways to designate persons of all ages among themselves. The old women they called [grandi]. Those of a middle age, auntie. While the younger women are nominated si or sisi. In the same manner the old men go by the title of daddy, the middle aged uncle, and the young men buddy. So today's, hey buddy, well, look back years ago. Dr. Milford Jer...: Not only in Antiguan plantation do we find these forms of address where age is a salient feature in intra-slave relationships, but we also find them in Southern plantations as well. Wish makes this observation. "These mechanics were called uncles by all the younger slaves, not because they really sustained that relationship through any, but according to plantation etiquette, as a mark of respect due from the younger to the older slaves. Strange, and even ridiculous as it may seem among a people so uncultivated and with so many stern trials to look in the face, there is not to be found any among a people more rigid enforcement of the law of respect to elders than is maintained among them." So the point here seems to be regardless of who you are, so long as you're an elderly person, then automatically you seem to know what prefix to attach. Aunt Jemmy, Aunt So-and-So. Not really your aunt, but somebody who shows some differences in age. Dr. Milford Jer...: Thus the above would tend to illustrate that the socio-cultural verb of age and the social psychological factor of deference were the dominant features of address forms in both regions. What follows are some of the more common address forms in Southern plantations and Antigua. And the brief comment regarding the forms of these address terminologies. In addition to uncle we may add auntie, aunt, auntie. These are variations of pronunciation. Mammy, brother, bo, bro, brethren, sister in a religious community. Granny, the old man, son, sonny, pop, pops, papa. Old boy, hale, folks, smarty, child, judge, old coon. Structurally what we have is an appellate plus a first name to give such names as Uncle Ben, where uncle's the appellate, Ben is a first name. Sister Charlotte, Brother John, Auntie Sue. Apparently there's a reduction of sister to si, brother to bro, or bo, auntie to aunt, if the first name is polysyllabic. If the first name was monosyllabic, then the full appellate forms are used without first names, and any possible core [inaudible] with naming elements is with last names. Dr. Milford Jer...: In addition to what may be considered regular in core address forms as those just cited we may also note in passing the use of nicknames in the address system of intra-slave verbal and commas in both geographic areas. On this subject, Dillard, '72 in his book Black English, argues for a West African influence on this naming practice, which is found in widely scattered areas. The Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, Santa Isabel, some in the Pacific, I think. Fernando Poo, West Cameroon. "What may have begun as work and called work names and gift names," end of quote, according to Dillard, has evolved as a positive element in the nomenclature and address systems in the plantations South, and in Antigua. Dr. Milford Jer...: In instances where the speaker wished to be colorful and vividly descriptive in speech, he or she would resort to the use of nicknames. Nicknames depicted some characteristic attributable to an individual, be it physical trait, general conduct and demeanor, attitude to work, or some accomplished deed. Homestead tells of this naming phenomenon, a sojourn to the back country. Quote, "The overseer said he generally could call most of the Negros on the plantation by their names in two weeks after he came to it. But it was rather difficult to learn them on account of there being so many of the same name, distinguished from each other by a prefix. There's a Big Jim here, and Little Jim, Eliza's Jim. There's Jim Bobo, Jim Clarisi. What's Jim Clarisi? How does he get that name? He's Clarisi's child, and Bob is Jim's father." Rather complicated naming system. Dr. Milford Jer...: I think this comes from the West African Coast in which if you were captured around a given port your name was the port plus your name. So you might be called Luango John, in which the Luango would specify that particular place in which you were captured. Or still observing nicknames, "His name is Swamp on the plantation register. That's all I know of him. I believe his name is Abraham," said the overseer. "He told me so. He was bought off Judge." He says, "And he told me his master called him Swamp because he ran away so much." So here is a name depicting some trait. Dr. Milford Jer...: From Newbell Puckett we get this account. "It was hopeless trying to understand their titles. There was two hired brothers in school. One was called Dick, the other Richard. Their father was Jimmy of the Battery, or Jimmy Black. I was asked why his title was Black. 'Oh, him look so. Him one very black man,' they said." Isn't that why we call people curly, so-so-so, all? Red, it's also if you're light skin. As we said earlier, nicknames were shared aspects in Southern plantations in Antigua. For instance, we find patterns of nicknames in Antigua as those just listed above in the plantation South, where the names point to kinship systems and particular characteristics of the individual. These examples would tend to illustrate these concepts. Langford's Billy, Martin's Jimmy, Lynch's Tom, Lynch as in Lynch in the sense of a person's name. I think it's Irish or Scottish retention. Dr. Milford Jer...: In 1736 we are told of a gang of runaway slaves in Antigua who had taken up residence in some of the more mountainous parts of the island, and who are in the habit of issuing out at night and committing many and great depredations. The leaders of the gang, often called vagrants, quote, "were three men by the name of Africa, Papa Will, and Sharper." Here the nicknaming concept. "And to ensure their capture award of 20 pounds was offered to any person who should place them, dead or alive, in the hands of the provost marshal. For the most part, nicknames were generally given to slaves by other slaves in cases where the network relationship was very strong. I am making this claim based on the context in which nicknames appear. That is, the persons involved must know each other fairly well and have interacted quite frequently, thus creating strong network ties." Dr. Milford Jer...: So you couldn't have... If I didn't know you, you couldn't call me a nickname because it would break certain rules of deference established earlier. Respect to elderly persons, or even persons of chronological aging. So that I'm merely suggesting that you had to know somebody to call them a nickname, so that they won't be insulted, as the case may be. "If such network patterns were not established, then either there was no use of nicknames, or such usage could not be made in face to face," in commas. "The latter point seems to have been born out in social situations where slaves used nicknames to describe their masters." You don't call your master nickname in front of his face. Dr. Milford Jer...: "Slaves [inaudible] Louisiana plantation," says [Osofsky], "referred to their master probably as [hagai], [haja]." Hardly terms of endearment. You just don't call, hey haja. You can't do that. Thus far we have been looking at the speech act of address systems in Antigua and the US South. These acts have... Sorry, this speech act, singular, speaking of the address system, has been conditioned by such factors as a speaker in inter- and intra-group situations. Forms and uses of such acts. We have also seen the social deference expressed with the, excuse me, proper system of address by a plantation slave to their masters and to whites in general was a basic and obligatory aspect in the maintenance of plantation social structure. Dr. Milford Jer...: What we're not so sure about is whether or not slaves were merely, and quote, "putting on old master," unquote, using expression from Osofsky, or simply playing linguistic games as a kind of rule expectation where proper address forms to the superordinate group were concerned. This apparent dual cultural semantic concept has been looked upon by such analysts as [Pollag] and Pollard. I didn't know I was playing with words that well. As a kind of survival technique used by the plantation slaves. At the same time, Patterson has shown that in the Caribbean, and for that matter, wherever blacks encounter similar social structure, there seems to be both a conscious and a sub-conscious rule of, in quite, "play fool to catch wise." A partial discussion we had coming over from the cafeteria. Dr. Milford Jer...: We're not so sure if a waiter says, sir, another drink? Or is there anything else? If he really means it, or this is what he expects you to do. There's a very thin line between sincerity and your role, so to speak. On a related topic where sincerity of such address forms was questionable, Pollard relates this account. "My blood boils when I recall how often I have seen poor," and quote, "cracker and dressed in striped cotton, going through the streets of some Southern towns, gazing at the shop windows with scared curiosity, made sport of by the slave dandified Negros who lounge in the streets. Never unmindful, however, to touch their hats to the ge'mum who are," and quote, "stiff in their heels," end of quote. Dr. Milford Jer...: I think Pollard's position seems to be, I cannot tell whether or not these slaves are serious or they just putting you on. And if they know this is the role, why not give it to you, doesn't cost them anything. In Antigua, Flanagan tells of a comparable situation in which we are not sure whether slaves are merely playing the fool or as a kind of role expectation on their part. She writes, "As I was returning to the house with pensive steps and slow, I overtook the driver with one of the head slaves upon the property. With the native for likeness, which many Negros possess, he pulled off his hat with, 'howdy, missus.' Are they just jibing you or are they really serious? If you expect it, give it to you." To put briefly, what seems dubious is not the speech act itself but the dual semantic implication which the act itself embodies. Dr. Milford Jer...: Speech act number two, evasive speech. The second speech act which I would like to discuss is evasive speech. Although this may be posited to be universal linguistic phenomena, characteristic of all peoples and cultures, I do not think that in plantation life, in both regions, evasive speech had a specific... I do think that in plantation life in both regions, evasive speech had a specific form and purpose. I'm making this claim on the grounds that speech acts are part of a social interaction in most oral cultures, and that they're subject to specific rules for their formulation and purpose, in much the same as rules of grammar are. I shall attempt to clarify the concepts of form and purpose of evasive speech in order to give it a unique place in plantation life. Dr. Milford Jer...: Early analysts, I have in mind Edwards, notably, of slave speech acts, have given us some information to this topic. However, they have been misinterpreted as a kind of behavioural pathology on the part of the slaves, and these reports have been infused with racial and ethnocentric overtones. For instance, Edwards writing in his History, Civil and Commercial of the British West Indies notes, "I think the vice of falsehood is one of the more prominent features in their character. If a Negro is asked even indifferent question by his master, he seldom gives an immediate reply, but affecting not to understand what is said, compels repetition of the question, that he may have time to consider. Not what is the true answer, but what is the most politic one for him to give." Dr. Milford Jer...: So Edwards didn't really know the form and the purpose of the speech act. He simply misconstrued it as being something, well, behavioural pathology. From this observation it is apparent that Edwards, being a part of the dominant white group and an outsider to slave culture and community, drew his own conclusion in this speech act without really understanding the full form and purpose of such an act. If a definition is possible, this is a subjective definition, this is what I think is, we may say this evasive speech is a manner of speaking by slaves, especially in dialect form, to their masters in which slaves attempt to extricate himself or herself from real or imaginary charges of subordination, misconduct, or petty crimes. Dr. Milford Jer...: Evasive speech is generally executed in the best possible grammatical form, and it is interspersed with interjections such as my Jesus, lo and behold, I declare, or I 'clare if you're from Virginia, you generally drop the de and say I 'clare. For missus sake, and replete with notions of the occult or possible occult influences and elements in everyday life. Let me cite a for example examples as we're found in both areas. In Antigua, for instance, I'll try to see if I can capture the slaves' speech, if possible. This is a slave, Lemon. "Lemon," this is the master talking, "what is that you have in your pocket?" He replied to this question by asking another. "Pocket, master, what pocket? You see that, master? You see that, missus? You ebber see how the devil follow me? Evil come quite in me pocket. Come put fish dere. So make you all take me go [tefid]." So here is a kind of evasive speech. Dr. Milford Jer...: In this example from the plantation South, Baker narrates an incident in which John is accused of stealing a note from his employer. Apparently a forged note to get his freedom. The master says, "You knew nothing of it?" "I did not do it," gasped the boy. "I do not know," said John in a loud and firmer tone. "But someone must have put it there without my knowing it." Notice the drawing on the occult. Somebody had put it there, someone did it to me. Then the missus says, "Pretty language this for a young thief to use." On the subject of subordination and the use of evasive speech, extricating oneself from this charge, we are told of John the butler who is late for work due to his having attended a Christmas party the night before, and had consumed his share of libations. All right. Dr. Milford Jer...: "At this moment," this is the scene, "At this moment the door opens and John enters. His head tied up in a handkerchief and a quantity of plantain leaves." I don't know if you're accustomed, if you're very close to folk culture, people relied more on herbs and leaves and so on as a means of curing illness. "His countenance, deprived of his natural deep black, displays a sickly-looking hue. His heavy, bloodshot eyes turning from one member of the family to the other, as if to inquire what they have been saying about him." You imagine John coming in, sick, dressed up and looking like that? "And presenting altogether most rueful appearance. 'Why John?' Cries his master, elevating his eyebrows and wiping spectacle to be certain it is really the lost butler. 'Why John, where have you been and what have you been doing with yourself?' 'Quite sick, master,' returns poor John." John was probably drunk or something. Dr. Milford Jer...: "In a very doleful tone, 'Had fever all last night, never sleep at all, at all. Head really hurt me. Believe me, go get [haiga].'" I think haiga's a kind of fever. So, imagine John, he know he stuck, so he has to use that language, the linguistic device, to get out of trouble. Another example of evasive speech in Antigua which would tend to support the claim of its use to ward off punishment by the masters is given by Flanagan. In this account she tells of a groom called [Thomas] who's accused of riding his master's horse, an act which annoys his master. Master speaks, "'Why, Thomas, what's the matter with this horse? How jaded he looks,' says the gent. Addressing his groom. 'I hope it's not ill.' The slave replied, 'Me don't know, master. Me quite sick meself. That the truth.' 'And this one,' continues his master, 'his legs are quite swollen and he's all over mud. I hope you haven't been riding them last night. I know you're full of tricks.' The slave replies, 'Eh, eh, master, me no say. Me no say me quite sick,'" meaning, didn't I say I was quite sick? You know, how you going to say I was riding your horse? Dr. Milford Jer...: "'Why for,'" this is really a causative why, "'Why for me go ride the poor dumb brute for?'" That's all. If you get the Creole translation? [Eh-eh] is what I call a performative. It initiates a declarative sentence. Eh-eh will mean I say to you, "'Master, me no say me quite sick,'" meaning didn't I say I was quite sick? Why for means why. "'Why for me go ride the poor dumb brute?'" So, if I said I was sick, how come you going to say I was riding the horse? On a Southern plantation, Pollard details a certain slave by the name of Sam. "In the process of making his escape, Sam received a notice that was scratched on his elbow. The master became suspicious of this attempt to escape and asked Sam to explain the reasons for this scratch on his elbow. Sam blames the devil for his predicament, and attributed the scratch on his elbow to his frequent prayer routine." Sam said he got the scratch on his elbow because he prays so much. Dr. Milford Jer...: This is Sam. Apparently Sam was narrating this in the social confines of after work. I'm saying that Sam was probably telling this to another slave, the way it's written. "The last time he," the devil, "comes, says Sam, he knock at the door. I blow out the light and tell him the nigger done dead two weeks ago. And then he says, 'If you don't open the door, you damn nigger, I will straighten you out.' And then I just go right clean out of the window. And as I turned the corner, here come old master right agin me." Agin, A-G-I-N. "And when I tell him how I's just see the devil with my own eyes, he tell me I going to get [inaudible] on me by hoping." Writer tried to indicate whipping by H-O-P, but people weren't phonetically sophisticated, so a whipping. Whipping. Dr. Milford Jer...: Sometimes evasive speech can become a topic for humor in certain instances of master/slave interaction. On an Antiguan plantation, [Kayto] is accused of telling his master that a fine rain, here we read it in plain words. It was like presently bad in black vernacular speech, where bad can mean what is said or just the opposite. Fine rain meant either a good shower fell, they had a fine shower, or it means that the rain fell and it was so insignificant that you can call it fine too. In the islands you make a distinction between fine salt and coarse salt. Fine salt is what you get at the table, coarse salt is the hard thing you got to pound and grind and make it fine salt. So here, depending upon your orientation, this could mean either exactly what it says on the surface, or there's another deeper semantic implication to it. Dr. Milford Jer...: Kayto's accused of telling his master that fine rain had fallen the previous night when in actuality little or no rain had fallen. With emphasis on the evasive semantic value of the word fine. Kayto tells his story to his master who at this time had become enraged and threatened to punish Kayto. Kayto beings to talk, "Me no tell no [tori], master." Tori means, it's shortened for story. Any of you have this consonant, one can get deleted, well, you can't delete [inaudible] be the one to say that it's a form of black speech where you... What is seemingly consonant clusters becomes the leader in certain environments. Constrained by whether or not [inaudible] by stops and so on. Dr. Milford Jer...: Kayto, "'Me no tell no tori, master,' retorted the Negro, determined to stand his master's ire undaunted. And, like many other guilty ones, striving to have the last word. 'Me no tell no tori. What for me go tell tori? Me no peak the truth.' 'You speak the truth, indeed. Here's the manager who tells me that there has been no rain at all. But on the contrary that my stock,'" this is the master talking, "'that my stock are all dying from want of water. And yet you dare to tell me you had fine rains last night?' 'Yes, master. And so we have fine rain. Me tell the truth. And more than that, the rain fine so tilt,'" And then he drags out, till, prolonging the word, "'me hardly able to see him, he so fine.'" So notice the plain words. Dr. Milford Jer...: Both owner and manager found it difficult to maintain the gravity at this definition of fine rains, while Kayto with a grin of self-congratulation, and having adroitly got himself out of a bad scrape. There must have been instances of evasive speech used by the slaves among themselves, although I have not been able to find any specific ones. I'm saying this, something it says slave talking to slave about evasive speech. This seems to be an input for sociability. The way you look back and reminisce of the kinds of things that went on when you were trying to get over on your master. A good present analogy can be found in Hannerz's Soulside, in which there are a couple of instances of guys in DC talking about getting drunk and the police then locking them up. They go before the judge and how they talk the judge out of them not being drunk and so on. Dr. Milford Jer...: This speech act might have served as a topic for social interaction as the example cited above by the slave, Sam, would suggest. What we have seen is that evasive speech was used primarily to extricate slaves from physical abuse by the masters, seeing that the former group could not or seldom did resort to physical force in confrontation with their masters. Slaves performed the speech act in style which was shifted slightly upwards in direction of, and quote, "To standard American and standard British English." And with accompanying gestures as a means of giving clarity and persuasion to the message. I've got eight more pages. This is the third one. Dr. Milford Jer...: Third, indirection. The third speech act in this analysis of slave narratives has been labeled indirection. As I mentioned earlier, Grace Sims Holt and [Cottonman's] book, Rapping and Capping, uses the term inversion. This speech act pertains to a given message carried out by a word or song in which the speaker, in this case slaves, attempts to retaliate at their masters and symbols of white power structure. On the surface, the message could be taken for its immediate intent. That is, one could give a literal interpretation to the words. However, the real meaning of the speech act is in its hidden or deeper meaning. This could be thrown into here to evasive... That element of evasive speech could also be thrown in. So there's a thin line to certain things which can be considered evasive speech or indirection, especially where lexical items are concerned. Dr. Milford Jer...: It is because of this surface dichotomy why I have termed this speech act as indirection. Indirection takes place between slave and slave and between slave and master. The point to note, however, is when using intra-slave relationship between slave and slave the real meaning is more easily recognized than when used in situations of master and slave. These are structures governed in usage. Here the meaning tends to be more subtle, but it is usually taken at surface value. Thus, what seems to be happening here is that the bringing together... Seems to be happening here is the bringing together of both linguistic rules and other kinds of rules governing face-to-face encounter. There's a good book by Goffman, Social Interaction. I saw it '74, University of Philadelphia. Dr. Milford Jer...: Put another way, the slaves use indirection as a kind of mask which permits them to, quote, "disguise speech and verbally turn the tables on a knowledgeable opponent." Let us look at a few examples in the plantation South and in Antigua to support the claim for a parallel existence and use of indirection in slave narratives. This example is from Carmichael on her visit to Antigua. She writes, "Soon after coming to Laurel Hill I heard some of the young Negros singing. And as I thought rather singular song." Isn't that what we get in the Carry Me over the Jordan and Role Jordan, Role, and so on? Dr. Milford Jer...: "I asked Jean to sing it for me. He hesitated and said, 'Missus, it no good song.' 'Why do you sing it then?' ''Cause, missus, it a funny song. And me no mean bad by it.' At last, I prevailed upon Jean not only to sing the song, which turned out to be an insurrection, but to explain it. The words are these. Fire in the mountain, nobody for out him. Take the daddy's boat tick and make a monkey out him. Poor John, nobody for out him." John is a play on words for John Bull, which is similar, the British power structure. "Go to the King's jail, you'll find the [dubling] there. Go to the King's jail, you'll find the dubling there." The explanation of the song, according to Carmichael, is that when the, quote, "bad", quote, slaves wanted to vent their rage on the master's sugar crop they would make a fire in the mountain as a signal to other slaves to begin their incendiary act. There was no one about to put out the fire except the monkeys who ran the cane fields. I have no doubt that monkeys could not put out a fire. Dr. Milford Jer...: The chorus means that John or John Bull has nobody to put out the fire set to his crops, and that during this state of turmoil and upheaval slaves were to go to the coffers and steal the money. So here you have the message really hidden in song. Unless you're a slave you couldn't really determine what's being said. Although this particular song took place in Trinidad, Carmichael tells us that, and quote, "Much of that which forms the subject of these volumes is strictly applicable to many, and in great degree to all the West Indian colonies," end of quote. Seeing that, open quote, "Negro characters the same, whether they be exhibited in St. Vincent or in any other island," close of quote. Dr. Milford Jer...: One could also explain the applicability of this song to the majority of West Indian Island and the count of sugar production at the height of slavery in subsequent years. In the plantations South, Margaret Jackson relates an incident which has an element of indirection. In this account, the slave, Pompi, gets back at his master who is preparing to fight a dual. Most of you might have seen that, Osofsky took it from Margaret Jackson. "'Pompi, how do I look?' 'Oh, master, mighty.' 'What do you mean, mighty, Pompi?' 'Why, master, you look noble.' 'What do you mean by noble?' 'Why, sir, you look like one lion.' 'Why, Pompi, where have you seen a lion?' 'I seen one down yonder field the other day, master.' 'Pompi, you foolish fool, that was a jackass.' 'Was it, master? Well, you look just like him.'" Dr. Milford Jer...: It should be noted that some messages which could be construed as indirection were transmitted not only verbally, but also with accompanying gestures. Osofsky tells us, "Two slaves were sent out to dig a grave for old master, they dug it very deep. As I passed by I asked Jess and Bob what in the world they dug it so deep for. It was six or seven feet. I told them there would be fuss about it and they had better fill it up some. Jess said it suited him exactly. Bob said he would not fill it up, he wanted to get the old man as near 'home' end quote as possible. 'When we got a stone to put on this grave, we haul the largest we could find, so as to fasten him down as strong as possible'" So here you have the covert message. The man is so bad you have to really put him away. But if you just pass by, see somebody digging a grave, you're not going to relate to the surface meaning. Dr. Milford Jer...: Speech acts are not autonomous holes. Sometimes two acts can be found in one message. For example, evasive speech can occur with indirection as a means of showing master with such acts. This usually takes place in slave to slave patterns of verbal interaction. This account from Bodkin, '45, points at the nature of embedded speech acts with the specific purposes. Joe Rains, the field hand, admonishes Joe Murray, another field hand, to, and quote "cuss back" at his master the next time his master curses him. That is the slave Joe. An incident soon presented itself in which Joe Murray cussed back at Master Ed, who then whipped him. "You didn't cuss him right. You never cuss him like I cuss him or you'd never got a whipping." Joe Murray allow, "How you cussing then, Joe?" Say Joe Rains very slowly, "Well, when I cuss Master Ed, I goes way down in the bottoms where the corn grow high and got a black color. I looks east and west and north and south. I see no Master Ed. Then I pitches in to him and gives him the worse cussing a man ever give another man. The next time, cuss him, but be sure to go way off somewhere so he can't hear you, nigger." Dr. Milford Jer...: So this one slave was trying to show him that he has evasive speech and that same speech can be used to get back at his master as a kind of indirection. As had been previously mentioned, speech acts provided slaves with topics for social interaction and sociability. In this example, a slave by the name of Junk, a shoemaker by occupation, constantly holds forth among the other plantation hands on the topic of intimacy and cruelty to the French. Another field hand calling his joke only disputes the assertions made by Junk regarding his intimacy and cruelty with barbarians that were, and quote, "white folks." Junk on plantation wanted it claimed that his master took him to France and that he has beaten up a lot of white people and so on. As a means of getting back again. Dr. Milford Jer...: I begin the dialogue. This is one of the slaves to Junk. "'How was it, Junk?' 'Well, you see, I was walking with the guard, with my britches tucked down in my boots, when two of these mean Frenchmen come along and the one to tother,'" tother means the other, "'[inaudible 00:53:46] insulting my boots. Because, you see, he didn't know that I knowed the language and could hear him.'" This slave has claimed that he knows French. "'Well, I wouldn't stand no insult from no Frenchman, no how, so I just struck him with my nerves. And one lick was just enough. It killed the man. And they sent for the secretary to sot on him.'" S-O-T. "'But what did he say about the boots, big hus?' Would inquire Culling." This is the other slave. "'Well, you see, the man talk French, and tend while to tell that to poor, ignorant black fresh like you.'" Notice you can only call people nigger within a given social milieu, so as not to be offended. Dr. Milford Jer...: So here we have the same kind of explanation. You can call him black trash so long as there's a kind of black-black interaction. "But Culling was pressing. He wanted to hear Junk's French. The house maid too desired a specimen of the same, if Mr. Junk would kindly consent to put his rival down. 'That nigger Culling had too much sass about he. About I be how.'" I don't know what that means. "' Mr. Junk, won't you please say what the Frenchman said?' 'Well, replied Junk,' with a sudden jerk of condescension. 'The man didn't say much. He say Polly go so. And the American for that, you know, is the boots brought the fool.' And while all join in laughing at Culling's discomfiture, Junk would make his retreat good, wailing off with a careless and provoking whistle." Isn't this what goes on when you claim and debunk? You got some money? Yeah, it's done. Down in so-and-so bank. Oh man, you don't have that money no bank. Yes, I got some money in the bank. Where's the bank? Oh man, you don't know where the bank is. You ain't got no money. This is the kind of structure from which I think present day forms of speech acts in Afro-American still persist. Dr. Milford Jer...: As a final segment in this discussion of speech acts and slave narratives, I would like to postulate two basic guidelines for the analysis of this topic in addition to the social and social psychological factors stated in this discussion so far, with respect to their formulation, the speakers and functions of such acts. These guidelines are A, communicative competence, and B, innovation. The first of these communicated competence has been advanced by Heim '71 and others in their study of the ethnography of speech and speech communities. Communicative competence focuses on what a speaker needs to know to communicate effectively in culturally significant settings. This knowledge transcends linguistic structures phorology, syntax, lexicon and semantics, and takes into account other factors such as the significant other, network relationships, knowledge of the situation, and group-specific means of certain linguistic messages. These factors are also shaped by the speakers' experiences of background and world view. In short, you've got to know what to say. You have to be hip. You have to know what's going on. Dr. Milford Jer...: Plantation slaves must have had this competence, as expressed through these speech acts. This becomes more evident when we consider that language in all its forms was a chief means of coping with the hostile system, especially on the part of adult slaves. This variable of ages insofar as communicative competence is concerned seems feasible if we consider the fact that children may have used these speech acts, and that a distinction between them as an adult slave population may be proficiency in usage. I'm saying that although we haven't really seen any examples of speech acts by children, it doesn't mean that they did not exist. Or that they might have existed but we might have to give them other names. Dr. Milford Jer...: Thus, unlike linguistic competence in the manner advocated by [Chomsky], '65, page three, which states that the child attains this level of competence about the age of six years, communicative competence in my opinion in plantation life may be looked upon as being in a continuous state of development. Again, the fact that Antigua and the Southern states in this study are about 2,500 miles apart, and with the Atlantic Ocean serving as a natural boundary, would lead us to expect the significant differences in these speech acts. Would lead us to expect significant differences. This is the kind of argument postulated by dialect geographers. The reason why you have house in Carolina, as opposed to house in maybe Midland speech is because of the Alleghany or the mountain ridge forming a natural boundary. Dr. Milford Jer...: And I'm saying that here you have another natural boundary called Atlantic ocean, and you have similarities in speech acts. And so what do we attribute this to? Some higher level of analysis which is not subject yet to the kinds of pure linguistic arguments. It's really shaped by the kinds of structures of the society and the things that you need to know to effectively communicate. I'm taking this position that is dialect versus non-dialect differences, differences in speech. I'm taking this position based on the direct relationship which natural boundaries play in causing distinct differences in speech communities. In other words, in establishing isoglosses for speech communities. Whether you say pancakes or hotcakes or griddlecakes depends on where you're from. I'm sure if I took a random sample I'll get hotcakes here, griddlecakes, and pancakes somewhere in the back. So I'm saying that these differences are probably due to the exact location that you find yourself in. Dr. Milford Jer...: On the contrary, what we find in this study of speech acts across such distant areas of the US South and Antigua are minor variables, not so much in content but [inaudible] meaning but in form. The way it's put together. In other words, the meaning seems to remain constant. What version Antigua may be more usage of the Creole features of language in the US South, than in the US South, we may find that men engage in evasive speech more so than women. Or that in Antigua there was more use of the occult to enhance evasive speech than in the Southern areas. I can only attribute this similarity of speech acts, at least in terms of content to the broader parameters just mentioned which govern and shape communicative competence. Dr. Milford Jer...: A good test for this claim would be to investigate other societies of a comparable nature and see whether or not comparable speech acts do exist. The second point in this analysis is that of innovation. Innovation relates specifically to situations in which slaves would have to carve out verbal mechanisms when mere linguistic or communicative competence is insufficient to cope with one's immediate problems, especially in rigidly stratified societies. I think the same thing happens in the book by Fredrik Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, 1969. When mere linguistic competence is insufficient to cope with one's immediate problems, especially in rigidly stratified societies, on plantation the use of this innovative aspect of verbal behavior would be determined by such factors as stress, loneliness and periods of sociability. Dr. Milford Jer...: Innovation in speech and speech acts revealed the demand for relief from boredom, and influences to some extent the purposes of structural patterns of speech. Barnett 1953, seems to share this position by stating, "Verbal expressions are notoriously subject to alternation on the demand to introduce color, variety, and to avoid repetition. This holds for voice inflection, for vocabulary, and for syntax." There's a good article you should try to look at called Formal Analysis of Social Interaction by Jean Watson. Sociometry, I think 1965. Dr. Milford Jer...: Closely related to the innovative aspect insofar as speech acts are concerned is the phenomena of change or modification. After working at their very chores, slaves relied on evasive speech, nicknames, where these were directed toward white authority, verbal banter, claiming and debunking as a means of coping with the drudgery of plantation life. This coping mechanism was a part of the innovative techniques which created the distinct sub-culture from that of the superordinate group. Park, this is a famous anthropologist, takes a similar position when he speaks of collective behavior. He says, "Dramatic forms of collective behavior develop because customs and the mores that is society impede continuous adjustment in social structure. And the natural end product of collective behavior is a new or modified institution." Dr. Milford Jer...: Such an observation seems tenable in the plantation societies of Antigua and the Southern states, and the innovative fact to govern the uses and uses of language together with the speaker's communicative competence should tell us more about the similarities of speakers, speech acts and the societies in which they occur. In summary, speech acts and slave narratives should provide us with a background and framework by which we can better comprehend and appreciate similar forms in present day Afro-American societies. I'm using the term Afro-American in its broader sense, we find black folks. Present day investigations of Afro-American speech acts by linguists, anthropologists and sociologists should not fail to recognize that what we're experiencing is a direct continuity of certain verbal aspects of slave societies, handed down and retained with certain modifications in new world Afro-American societies. Dr. Milford Jer...: For linguistic and socio-linguistic theory, speech acts should serve as valuable information regarding such topics as style shifting, language change and retention, surface versus deep aspects of meaning, the nature of a linguistic continuum in speech communities. In short, speech acts may provide us with answers to language problems long since evasive. Thank you for your time. Fred Woodard: I'm sure the speaker will entertain some questions at this point. Dr. Milford Jer...: Can I get some water?