Detecting Bajan Phraseology: A Metalexicographic Analysis

Within the broad spectrum of phraseology, this article focuses on the phrasemes typically used in Bajan, the English-based creole spoken in Barbados, and attempts to show how they work as harbingers of culture by highlighting the uniqueness of Bajan identity within (but also outside) the Anglophone Caribbean. By relying on the amateur lexicographic works on Bajan (and Barbadian English) produced over the past seven decades and on their comparisonwith the professional reference tools compiled by Richard Allsopp, namely the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage and the New Register of Caribbean English Usage, Bajan-proper phraseological items are quantified and commented on. In greater detail, this study aims at depicting the distinctworldviewof Bajan speakers by looking at the images conveyed through specific idioms which employ local toponyms; although the colonial history of Barbados is hitherto evident in the Bajanisms selected, the jocular connotations attached to them convert such idioms into emblems of the Barbadian character. A further intent of this analysis is to confirm the hypothesis that, for linguists and laypeople alike, Bajan and Barbadian English, the variety of English spoken simultaneously on the island, are separated by a fine line, especially if lexical and phraseological parameters are set.