This article presents an exploration of the discourse-level phenomenon known as ‘backwards talk’ in Smith Island, a small, endangered dialect community in Maryland’s Chespaeake Bay, on the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast. The article examines how backwards talk, basically pervasive, highly creative irony, compares with irony more generally; how it patterns across generations and contexts; how important it is to island residents, who view backwards talk as the defining feature of their dialect; and why the feature has gained such importance in the face of dialect loss - and potential loss of community continuity as well. Because backwards talk is irony, it has important solidarity functions. As playful, nonliteral language, it serves as a symbol of the performed ‘islandness’ that islanders increasingly take up as they come into more and more contact with outsiders. Finally, as a means of offering critical evaluation of outsiders, backwards talk can be seen as a form of anti-language or counterlanguage, with a central function of resistance against outside forces.

中文翻译：

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马里兰州史密斯岛的“倒退谈话”

本文介绍了在美国中大西洋沿岸马里兰州切斯帕克湾的一个小型濒危方言社区史密斯岛，被称为“倒退谈话”的话语层面现象的探索。这篇文章研究了反话，基本上是普遍的，高度创造性的讽刺，与更普遍的讽刺相比；它是如何跨代和跨环境的；这对岛屿居民来说是多么重要，他们将倒向谈话视为他们方言的定义特征；以及为什么该功能在面对方言丢失以及社区连续性的潜在损失时变得如此重要。因为逆向说话具有讽刺意味，它具有重要的团结功能。作为俏皮的、非文字的语言，随着岛民越来越多地与外人接触，它象征着表演的“岛屿性”。最后，作为对局外人进行批判性评价的一种手段，倒退谈话可以被视为一种反语言或反语言的形式，其核心功能是抵抗外部力量。