Functions of Rasta Talk in a Jamaican Creole Healing Narrative: "A Bigfoot Dem Gi' Mi"

Abstract

Personal narratives are sites for the negotiation and construction of cultural and linguistic norms, and healing stories recontextualize bodily struggles as social and spiritual conflicts. We argue that a narrative of supernatural illness and cure told in Rasta Talk, a style of Jamaican Creole which is undergoing functional expansion, applies a historical critique of colonialism and racism to the health‐care system, while allowing the teller to reposition himself discursively to alleviate suffering and stigma. Creative performance in the genre of illness narrative provides an opportunity for linking the diffusion and transformation of speech styles and registers such as Rasta Talk to the strategic extension of their social functions.