Speech Acts in Guyana

In the present article I shall discuss in some detail the discourse characteristics of two Guyanese speech events, namely, Tantalisin and Busin. ' In the course of the discussion I shall draw attention to some important insights which the rules of these performances give into the communication culture of working-class Guyanese. Tantalisin and Busin are salient performances in the speech culture of Guyana. They are also speech events in the sense in which the expression is employed by ethnographers of communication. One such ethnographer described speech events as