Phraseology and Culture in English

are you?
I: It’s nice to see you too. I’s fine. How are you?
DS: Oh, I’m fine. 
I: That’s nice to hear. (turning to her mother) How you is, ma? Everything 
all right? 
G: I’s still troublin’ a bit with my back, you know, but it ain’t too bad now. 

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362
Daniel Schreier 
Clearly, the pragmatic context of the interaction can – in some cases at 
least – influence intra-individual variability and therefore entail context-re-
lated switching between the two formulae. In this case, it is clear that I. 
imitates the exact wording of the person addressing her, and that she replies 
using an echo expression; the fact that she would not use this formula with 
Tristanians is corroborated by her switching to local norms the very next 
sentence, namely when addressing her mother and inquiring about her health. 
Within seconds a speaker may use a non-local form when talking to an 
outsider and the local form when initiating a conversation with another 
member of her community. Switching between distinct formulae may thus 
indicate a sense of awareness of distinct norms and also a sense of related-
ness and social significance, namely with whom such formulae are associ-
ated and used and with whom not. 
Even though these samples throw light on individual variability and 
give insights into the interactional usage(s) of various greeting formulae by 
Tristanians, they do not indicate value judgments on the part of the speak-
ers, and it is not clear whether the fact that outsiders use local formulae is 
approved or not. This is different in cases where How you is? evokes meta-
linguistic reactions, which, needless to say, are particularly insightful for 
the purpose of this study. Indeed, we find several cases where there is amuse-
ment and open comment, which may be friendly and good-hearted or, on 
the contrary, openly challenging and disapproving. Such reactions are thus 
more informative and allow an identification of the reactions evoked, and a 
few selected exchanges illustrate this. 
DS: How you is?
De: (laughing) Funny to hear a station fella say that!
6
This exchange shows surprise and mild amusement on the part of De, a 53-
year old Tristanian male. His reaction is particularly revealing since his 
amusement to hear an unexpected expression overrides his impulse to take 
his (expected) turn in a conversational opening. Whereas De’s comment is 
without doubt good-natured, other reactions are disapproving and entirely 
critical; this is illustrated in the following exchange: 
DS: How you is, B? 
B: You mean how are you? How I am? Well, I’m fine, thanks. You? 
B, a 52-year old Tristanian male, openly corrects the wording of the 
question he is asked, and by doing so explicitly challenges the fact that an 
expatriate uses the local greeting formula. This strongly suggests that B is 

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Greetings as an act of identity in Tristan da Cunha English 
363
fully conscious of the value of How you is? Strong reactions of this kind 
(which, by the way, make fieldworkers cringe) bear testimony to the inter-
pretation that an outsider has crossed the line and ventured into sensitive 
territory. They reveal attitudes that local expressions are reserved for locals, 
and the open thematisation and correction implies this speaker’s conviction 
that the usage of this formula should be strictly limited for interactions be-
tween members of the Tristan speech community and must not be used by 
outsiders. B’s reaction is certainly a strong indication that he disapproves of 
outsiders using it. 
The question pursued in the following is whether we can pinpoint exter-
nal events and developments that overlap with these reactions, or, in other 
words, whether there is a tendency for such attitudes and comments to in-
crease or decrease. Indeed, the recent social history of Tristan da Cunha has 
seen unprecedented changes, which started in the early 1940s and culmi-
nated with the 1961–3 exile in England. The Tristanians today are in more 
extensive and regular contact with outsiders than their grandparents were, 
as a result of which the awareness of local versus outsider norms is now 
more poignant than it was in previous generations (this can be measured 
and analysed quantitatively, as the morphosyntactic variables analysed in 
Schreier 2003 show). Have these social developments led to a more endo-
centric perspective on the part of the Tristanians, namely that they now 
comply with different views on the usage of local norms? I will address this 
question in more detail below, but first approach it from a more general 
perspective, by discussing similar processes in other isolated and post-iso-
lated communities.