ABSTRACT
Creole was used in ways that varied considerably in the degree to which it was ritualized. All the data suggest that Creole crossing was associated with phenomena that differed from the routine norms. Roger Hewitt suggests that in the context of close black-white friendship, interpersonal uses of white Creole develop in ways that lose all group-referencing function, that involve undemonstrative alignment, and that can be considered "as part of normal convergence of cooperating interlocutors". This chapter considers other-ethnic uses of Creole and explores the extent to which different degrees of crossing can be arranged on a rudimentary scale of ritualization. Mashuk's speech bore a number of similarities to the way in which Creole was used by both 'minimal' and 'extensive but joking' crossers. Mashuk's Creole was embedded in a well-defined and relatively stable engagement enclosure/conversation.
