“Buenos Días/((Military Salute))”: The Natural History of a Coined Insult

In this article, I adopt an interpretive approach to the study of Maya children's peer talk to examine how Maya children's verbal arsenal of types of conflict talk—namely, teasing, shaming, and insulting nicknames—comprise powerful discursive strategies within caregiver and peer practices in the everyday negotiation and co-construction of peer politics and kin group social relationships. I specifically examine how children from 3 different households, members of an extended family network, entextualized a formulaic politeness routine to fight, tease, and shame rival siblings and peers. To illustrate this process, I trace the natural history (i.e., the birth, near death, and subsequent institutionalization) of an improvised insult within shifting kin and peer alliances. In all of these scenarios, sibling and peers' talk-in-interaction reveal how one's clever ways with words include interactional tactics that exploit adult-centric perspectives on who can be heard as a “competent speaker.”