Pollard analyses the speech code of the Rastafari of Jamaica, a group that adjusted the languages of the Jamaican people to suit their religious, philosophical, social and economic concerns as people speaking from "under".
The book includes descriptions of Dread Talk, the speech of the Rastafari, as an example of lexical expansion in a creole language, and the influence of the lexicon on Jamaican English. It also discusses the adjustment of the language to other creoles, both English and French-related, in the Eastern Caribbean. New to this revised edition is a chapter on "Dread Talk in the Diaspora" that discusses the language as used in the urban centres of North America and Europe.
