TY - JOUR T1 - What a Language Is Good for: Language Socialization, Language Shift, and the Persistence of Code-Specific Genres in St. Lucia JF - Language in Society Y1 - 2005 A1 - Garrett, Paul B. KW - bilingualism KW - code-switching KW - contact KW - creole KW - diglossia KW - genre KW - shift KW - socialization AB - In many bilingual and multilingual communities, certain communicativepractices are code-specific in that they conventionally require, and are constituted in part through, the speaker’s use of a particular code. Code-specific communicative practices, in turn, simultaneously constitute and partake of code-specific genres: normative, relatively stable, often metapragmatically salient types of utterance, or modes of discourse, that conventionally call for use of a particular code. This article suggests that the notions of code specificity and code-specific genre can be useful ones for theorizing the relationship between code and communicative practice in bilingual0multilingual settings, particularly those in which language shift and other contact-induced processes of linguistic and cultural change tend to highlight that relationship. This is demonstrated through an examination of how young children in St. Lucia are socialized to “curse” and otherwise assert themselves by means of a creole language that under most circumstances they are discouraged from using. VL - 34 SP - 327–361 N1 - + pdf ER -