932 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST
“Aguaruna Phonemics” (1964) for its cover-
age, within one frame, of linguistic and para-
linguistic phenomena. Among his smaller
contributions to the field of applied theol-
ogy “San Miguel: L’Envoi-1967” manifests
a depth of inspiration and a sobriety of
evaluation which should be the goal of many
a non-believer.
A biographical sketch (contributed by his
sister Eunice) provides personal background
which makes more understandable the
public events of a distinguished career.
Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnog-
raphy of Communication. JOHN J. GUM-
PERZ and DELL HYMES, eds. New York &
London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.
x + 598 pp., charts, figures, graphs, map,
tables, 2 appendices (Appendix 1: Back-
ground Reading), bibliography, indexes. n.p.
(cloth).
Reviewed by ROBERT ST.CLAIR
University of Louisville
In 1964 Gumperz and Hymes edited a
special issue of the American Anthropologist
which they entitled “The Ethnography of
Communication.” It contained numerous
articles by leading scholars in the fields of
anthropology, sociology, linguistics, philoso-
phy, and psychology who addressed them-
selves to the issue of the social basis of
verbal communication. The original publica-
tion has since gone out of print due to its
importance and popularity, and it has been
revised, updated, and expanded into the cur-
rent publication under review. There are
nineteen articles which have been divided
into three major areas of sociolinguistic re-
search, and each article is prefaced by intro-
ductory remarks which provide a back-
ground of the contributing scholar and the
nature of his or her presentation. These in-
troductions by the editors are a definite
asset of the publication.
The first section of the book deals with
ethnographic descriptions and explanations
and it consists of six articles which center on
the topic of “communicative competence.”
Hymes demonstrates by his taxonomy of the
uses of speech cross-culturally that one does
not know a language until he knows where
[76,1974]
to use it, when to use it, and how to use it.
This same theme is reflected in the article by
Dundes, Leach and Oezkoek on’ verbal
dueling among Turkish boys, Mitchell-
Kernan on signifying and marking in Black
English, Roberts and Forman in riddles as
expressive models of interrogation, Rake on
the Yakan concept of litigation, and Albert
on cultural patterning in Burundi. The con-
cept of communicative competence is an
original contribution to the ethnography of
communication, and it is one of the direc-
tions that sociolinguistics is taking.
The second part of the book contains
seven articles of a speculative nature, and
they are all addressed to the structure of
speech. Ervin-Trip provides her insights on
the alternation and co-occurrence of socio-
linguistic rules. The former concept is con-
cerned with the choice one has among alter-
nate ways of speaking, and the latter con-
cept addresses itself to the interdependence
within an alternative. Other articles which
investigate the parameters of the alternatives
in the repertoire of speech are the article by
Tyler on the importance of context in kin-
ship terminology, a clear presentation of the
Russian pronominal system by Friedrich and
the nature of sequencing in conversations.
Two of the speculative articles dealt with the
role of strategies in social and linguistic
interpretation of communication. Garfinkel
argues that the participants in a speech act
can successfully interpret the fragmented
aspects of language in a social context be-
cause they share the same assumptions. This
point is important because it runs counter to
the traditional view of communication in
which a message is embodied in the code.
Understanding what someone says is not
tantamount to the mere process of decoding
his speech signal. It involves the successful
use of perceptual strategies which are based
on the same assumptions, and hence the
same strategies of interpretation. The other
article which concerns itself with the use of
strategies in the perception of speech is that
of Sacks on the analyzability of stories by
children.
The third part of the book contains six
articles on the genesis, maintenance, and the
change of linguistic codes. Blom and Gum-
pen discuss the nature of situational switch-
ing and metaphorical switching, and they
find that the motivation for this phenome-
 LINGUISTICS
non resides in the individual. This view is
antithetical to that of Fishman where the
individual in constrained in code switching
by the domains of society. Hence, linguistic
differences reflect sociological differences.
The articles by Barth and Bernstein also con-
cern themselves with linguistic codes. Barth
investigates this phenomenon across ethnic
boundaries, and Bernstein formulates a
hypothesis of code switching within the
same society. The concept of “elaborated
codes” versus “restricted codes” by Bern-
stein is another original contribution that
can be found in this book. It has been the
subject of dispute as evidenced by Labov’s
excellent article on “The Logic of Non-
Standard English” which appeared in the
Twentieth Annual Round Table Meeting on
Linguistics and Language Studies in 1969.
The articles by Fischer and Labov both deal
with the social nature of linguistic change.
It should be noted that this book con-
tains many important insights in the relative-
ly new field of sociolinguistics, and for this
reason it must play an intrinsic role in the
educational processes of any scholar who is
seriously interested in the study of language
and society.
The Sociology of Language. An Interdisci-
plinary Social Science Approach to Lan-
guage in Society. JOSHUA A. FISHMAN.
Foreword by Dell Hymes. Newbury House
Language Series. Rowley, MA: Newbury
House, 1972. xiii + 250 pp., figures, graphs,
table, addendum for linguistics, references,
reading list. $8.50 (cloth).
Reviewed by JOEL SHERZER
University o f Texas, Austin
There are still relatively few textbooks
introducing the interdisciplinary field which
links linguistics with other social sciences.
This field has been called sociolinguistics,
the sociology of language, linguistic anthro-
pology, language and culture, etc. The labels
reflect in part parent disciplines and in part
the interests and concerns of particular re-
searchers. Joshua Fishman’s The Sociology
o f Lcrnguage is one of these textbooks. It is
an expanded version of an earlier book writ-
933
ten by Fishman, Sociolinguistics: A Brief Zn-
troduction.
The change in titlefrom sociolinguistics
to sociology of language-is significant. It
reflects Fishman’s insistence of the need for
a field which relates language to other forms
of social behavior by starting with social life
as basic and looking in at language. There is
an implicit criticism here of approaches
which begin with language and move out to
culture and society, only when necessary for
theoretical linguistic reasons or only when
particular language-culture-society problems
seem interesting. Thus Fishman is concerned
with such issues as types of speech commu-
nity, the description of patterns of talk, lan-
guage and role relationships, diglossia and
other forms of multilingualism, and language
planning.
Fishman attempts to deal with most of
the current research areas which relate lin-
guistics with other social sciences in one way
or another. This broad, somewhat general
approach is both a strength and a weakness
of the book. Its advantage is in opening
students’ minds to all of the possibilities
within the sociology of language. Its dis-
advantage is in often failing to go deeply
enough into any one approach to capture
the excitement felt by its practitioners. The
following areas, among others, are dealt with
in skeletal, almost outline fashion: the study
of linguistic variation (associated with
Labov, Sankoff, Decamp, Bickerton, and
others); of patterns of speaking from individ-
ual speech events to overall societal organiza-
tion (associated with Guinpen, Hymes, and
other ethnographers of speaking); of shared
understandings, conditions, and principles
necessary for the description of talk (as-
sociated with Goffman, Garfinkel, Sacks,
Shegloff, and others); of semantic patterns
underlying “ordinary” language use (as in
the work of Fillmore, G. Lakoff, R. Lakoff,
and others).
On the other hand, Fishman’s book is im-
portant precisely because Fishman does not
view language from any one, narrow perspec-
tive. He insists that language is a social
phenomenon and must be studied as such.
Any theory >f language usage must face this
.
issue squarel, It must begin with social pat-
terns and social meanings and ask how lan-
guage and languages are exploited in various