Directions in Sociolinguistics

Directions in Sociolinguistics is a now classic collection of pioneering essays by leading sociolinguists. It is published here for the first time in paperback and incorporates an extensive new bibliography. Preface.

Introduction: John J. Gumperz.

Plan of the Book.

Part I: Ethnographic Description and Explanation.

1. Models of the Interaction of Language and Social Life: Dell Hymes.

2. Culture Patterning of Speech Behavior in Burundi: Ethel M. Albert.

3. “Struck by Speech”: The Yakan Concept of Litigation: Charles O. Frake.

4. The Strategy of Turkish Boys' Verbal Dueling Rhymes, Alan Dundes, Jerry W. Leach, and Bora Özkök.

5. Signifying and Marking: Two Afro-American Speech Acts: Claudia Mitchell-Kernan.

6. Riddles: Expressive Models of Interrogation: John M. Roberts and Michael L. Forman.

Part II: Discovering Structure in Speech.

7. On Sociolinguistic Rules: Alternation and Co-occurrence: Susan Ervin-Tripp.

8. Context and Alternation in Koya Kinship Terminology: Stephen A. Tyler.

9. Social Context and Semantic Feature: The Russian Pronominal Usage: Paul Friedrich.

10. Remarks on Ethnomethodology: Harold Garfinkel.

11. On the Analyzability of Stories by Children: Harvey Sacks.

12. Sequencing in Conversational Openings: Emanuel A. Schegloff.

13. A Kinesic-Linguistic Exercise: The Cigarette Scene: Ray L. Birdwhistell.

Part III: Genesis, Maintenance, and Change of Linguistic Codes.

14. Social Meaning in Linguistic Structures: Code-Switching in Norway: Jan-Petter Blom and John J. Gumperz.

15. Domains and the Relationship between Micro- and Macrosociolinguistics: Joshua A. Fishman.

16. Ethnic Process on the Pathan-Baluch Boundary: Fredrik Barth.

17. A Sociolinguistic Approach to Socialization; with Some Reference to Educability: Basil Bernstein.

18. The Stylistic Significance of Consonaantal Sandhi in Trukese and Ponapean: John L. Fischer.

19. On the Mechanism of Linguistic Change: William Labov.

Appendix I: Background Reading.

Appendix II: Outline Guide for the Ethnographic Study of Speech Use: Joel Sherzer and Regna Darnell.

Bibliography.Index.

"Classic and ground-breaking -- highly influential in the development of sociolinguistics." Peter Trudgill

"It's hardly possible to claim to know anything about the field of sociolinguistics without having read the articles in that collection. A number of them are classics in the field, by any standards." Ralph W. Fasold

John J. Gumpertz is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dell Hymes is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Directions in Sociolinguistics is a now classic collection of pioneering essays by leading sociolinguists. It is published here for the first time in paperback and incorporates an extensive new bibliography.

The book proceeds from the assumption that we may learn from language as interactional behaviour, illustrating both advances in theoretical insights and changes in research interests. Taking a speaker's communicative competence as a social as well as grammatical fact, this volume is an invaluable compendium of articles by some of the most eminent researchers in Sociolinguistics, and in the sociology and anthropology of language.