| On the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, people engage in spontaneously created aggressive verbal dueling called chattista (Cyprus rhyming improvisations). By taking the reader for a sociolinguistic-ethnographic journey into the Greek Cypriot culture through its folk poetry, the study explores how and why symbolic gendered identities are constructed and displayed during chattista performances, at both the more obvious and underlying levels. Although the focus is on male performers, female discourse is also taken into consideration. The study also provides a general description of the genre as oral art and compares chattista as a phenomenon of verbal dueling with Greek mandinadhes of Crete and Dodekanese islands, and with African-American capping.;Through an interdisciplinary approach, the study displays the interface of song, conversation, and culture. An interactional discourse analysis is employed supported by participant observation and interviews. Through a combination of microanalysis and macroanalysis of verbal, visual, and tactile resources, the study demonstrates how meaning and identities are constructed and negotiated in the performance of chattista.;The results indicate that the self Greek Cypriot men project in chattista has two oppositionally-complementary aspects. The more obvious identity projected is an antagonistic masculine self with aspects such as the physically powerful, the witty, the protector of family honor, the amorous and the gambler. A deeper analysis of discourse unveils a more hidden aspect of selfhood, which coexists simultaneously with, but is often masked by the projected aggressive male. This is an underlying cooperative self that carries social values, and attempts to maintain and create interpersonal relationships, sustain discourse, and preserve tradition. The study provides a framework depicting the signs of cooperation, despite the antagonistic nature of chattista. It also demonstrates that the man-of-words phenomenon (Abrahams 1964 & 1983) is not restricted to the African-American cultures, but can be extended cross-culturally. The approach and results of the study have implications and applications for studies of oral art, language and gender, conflict talk, verbal dueling, and pedagogy. |
