ABSTRACT

This chapter begins with describing chasing games, jocular abuse and their special value for crossing into a different language. Panjabi was a very different language for black and white adolescents. As second language learners, they often had to rely on the structure of specific recreational activities to help them overcome formal linguistic distance, and this is an issue that figures prominently in the interactional analyses. Interactional analysis shows that a great deal of the impetus behind the multiracial playground practices emerged from the tenuous coincidence of particular forms of adolescent recreation with the strategic needs of participants with limited P2L profiency. In 1984, chasing games provided legitimate opportunities for extravagant abuse that could spill over to other activities contemporary with them. The chapter looks at Panjabi crossing in games and jocular abuse and shows how each of these provided structures and possibilities that fitted well with the requirements of people who had only limited proficiency in the language.