This collective volume starts with an overview by the editors on “Politeness and face in Caribbean creoles.” Eleven chapters, mostly fieldwork-based, are presented in three sections: I, “Performing rudeness and face maintenance,” II, “Face attention and the public and private self,” and III, “Socialization and face development.”

In “The use of ‘bad’ language as a politeness strategy in a Panamanian Creole Village,” Peter Snow discusses the use of “obscene” curse words in “good ways” in the Panamanian Creole English spoken on the Island of Bastimentos. His study demonstrates that this constitutes a politeness and face preservation strategy that builds social action and maintains social order. In “Ritualized insults and the African diaspora: Sounding in African American Vernacular English and Wording in Nigerian Pidgin,” Nicholas Faraclas, Lourdes Gonzalez, Migdalia Medina & Wendell Villanueva Reyes analyze verbal dueling matches of “Wording” and systematically compare them to U.S. African American Vernacular English “Sounding.” Turkish “Dueling” (insults exemplified to illustrate contrast with the former) deals with sexual domination and is meant to hurt the opponent in devastating ways. “Rude sounds: Kiss teeth and negotiation of the public sphere” by Esther Figueroa deals with this oral gesture, providing insight into both shared norms of human interaction in the public sphere and social and linguistic theories. The book's first section closes with “Faiya-bon: The socio-pragmatics of homophobia in Jamaican (dancehall) culture.” Joseph T. Farquharson places homophobic speech acts, faiya-bon, into sociopragmatic perspective by showing how they support heterosexual norms, refusing acceptance of white people's values.

The second part starts with Bettina Migge's “Greeting and social change.” She discusses two sets of greeting routines in the Eastern Maroon community of Suriname and French Guiana – the “urban” and the “village” greetings – and new practices that emerge to assert social distinctions. “Advice in an Indo-Guayanese village and the interactional organization of uncertainty,” by Jack Sidnell, shows that phenomena such as expert advice and recipient uncertainty are the products of a complex interactional organization of turn-taking. In “Meaningful routines: Meaning-making and the face value of Barbadian greetings,” Janina Fenigsen questions the universal function of greetings as a “courteous indication of recognition” by demonstrating that Barbadian greetings can serve a subversive and satirical purpose. Susana Mühleisen investigates the use of nominal and pronominal forms of address in “Forms of address in English-lexicon creoles: The presentation of selves and others in the Caribbean context.” She has found continuities from African and European practices in nominal addressing that reflect social transformations and the interplay between politeness and face work.

Part III starts out with “‘May I have the bilna?’ The development of face-saving in young Trinidadian children,” by Valerie Youssef. A detailed study of four children shows that, even at the prelinguistic stage, face concerns are primary drivers of the socialization process and of language acquisition. The book ends with “Learning respect in Guadeloupe: Greetings and politeness rituals,” in which Alex Louise Tessonneau shows that even when present-day upbringing is less strict, the parameters of polite behavior are still very important in this Creole community.