The Grind Game: How Insults Form Solidarity and Resilience
Abstract
Conventions of politeness, though culturally specific, tend to apply broadly to different speech events and social settings. Certain social contexts, however, accomplish positive interactional goals by violating politeness conventions, one of these contexts being dialogue between prison employees. Prison employee dialogue encourages the use of insults via engagement in a ‘grind game’ that aims to build rapport between coworkers and demonstrate one’s competence in a prison environment. This paper locates these types of interaction within key concepts of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, and then develops a framework for understanding how they are used and the relational outcomes they accomplish.