`This wonderful Handbook establishes the central, and complex place ethnography now occupies in the human disciplines. All future work will begin here. This Handbook will soon become required reading for all scholars and graduate students who wish to be knowledgeable in this complex field of inquiry. This is a stunning accomplishment. The field owes the editors and their contributors a major debt of thanks' - Norman K Denzin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign `A marvellous achievement! The Handbook has all the marks of a winner - compelling writing, comprehensive coverage and very useful discussions. This is a real benchmark for ethnography. It will set the background for debate and point to ne
The Ethnography of Communication presents the terms and concepts which are essential for discussing how and why language is used and how its use varies in different cultures. Presents the essential terms and concepts introduced and developed by Dell Hymes and others and surveys the most important findings and applications of their work. Draws on insights from social anthropology and psycholinguistics in investigating the patterning of communicative behavior in specific cultural settings. Includes two completely new chapters on contrasts in patterns of communication and on politeness, power, and politics. Incorporates a broad range of examples and illustrations from many languages and cultures for analyzing patterns of communicative phenomena.
In a bold attempt to redirect the ways theories of communication are conceived and research on communication processes are conducted, this volume questions prevailing communication scholarship that emphasizes the cultural, psychological, and sociological variables that impact on, and/or are impacted by, communication. Instead of focusing on the consequences of communication, this books urges readers to examine the consequentiality of communication -- what it is about the communication process that enables it to play a defining role in our lives. Communication is not a neutral conveyor of meanings derived from culture, cognition, or social structure, and is not explained by correlations with external variables. Meaning emerges from the communication process itself; it is dependent upon what transpires during the real-time moments of communicators behaving with each other. To properly study this new paradigm, a new vocabulary for thinking about the consequentiality of communication is needed and proposed. Four theoretical orientations are used to stake out this new territory: coordinated management of meaning, neo-rhetorical theory, conversation analysis, and social communication theory. While there are points of agreement and overlap on the need to study communication as inherently consequential, there are also differences across the four theories -- in the value of "rules" as an explanatory concept, on the relationship between structure and process, and on the very constitution of a "theory." Thus, this book has the benefit of articulating a new paradigm for communication scholarship without losing sight of the discipline's rich diversity.
This collection of work addresses the contribution that ethnography and linguistics make to education, and the contribution that research in education makes to anthropology and linguistics.; The first section of the book pinpoints characteristics of anthropology that most make a difference to research in education. The second section describes the perspective that is needed if the study of language is to contribute adequately to problems of education and inequality. Finally, the third section takes up discoveries about narrative, which show that young people's narratives may have a depth of form and skill that has gone largely unrecognized.
In The cultural Communication of Emigration in Bulgaria, Sotirova examines Bulgarian emigration discourses as cultural currency through the frameworks of ethnography of communication and cultural discourse analysis. Such discourses enact larger cultural notions of being, social relations, dwelling, and action.
Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader is a comprehensive collection of the best work that has been published in this exciting and growing area of anthropology, and is organized to provide a guide to key issues in the study of language as a cultural resource and speaking as a cultural practice. Revised and updated, this second edition contains eight new articles on key subjects, including speech communities, the power and performance of language, and narratives Selections are both historically oriented and thematically coherent, and are accessibly grouped according to four major themes: speech community and communicative competence; the performance of language; language socialization and literacy practices; and the power of language An extensive introduction provides an original perspective on the development of the field and highlights its most compelling issues Each section includes a brief introductory statement, sets of guiding questions, and list of recommended readings on the main topics
This collection reflects not only the multidisciplinary nature of current thinking about performance, but also the complex and contested nature of the concept itself.
This volume seeks to enable language and education practitioners and researchers to get a sense of the range of issues being pursued in language and education research and the array of methods employed to do so. It focuses on language and education in relation to society, variation, culture, and interaction. Its unity of purpose and outlook with regard to the central role of language as both vehicle and mediator of educational processes and to the need for continued and deepening research into the limits and possibilities that implies is most impressive.
