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    B D D R O F f l f l f f l i n G S S E C O R D E D

    D Jj J .The University of Georgia

    WAVELAND

    PRESS, INC.

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    R

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    5.

    Introduction 2 s

    Franz Boas, Introduction to the Handbook o f j f American Indian Languages 9Edward Sapir, The Unconscious Patterning o f

    Behavior in Society 29Edward Sapir, Language 43Benjamin Lee Wliorf, The Relation o f HabitualThought and Behavior to Language 64

    George Herbert Mead, The Problem o f Society: How We Become Selves 85George Herbert Mead, Relation o f Mind to Response and Environment 95

    nf t

    9 5 0 s - 1 9 / O sn

    / Introduction 104 '\/jL Harry Hoijer, The Sap ir-Whorf Hypothesis 113

    /8.) Charles O. Frake, The Ethnographic Study ofCognitive Systems 125

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    \/io . Brent Berlin, Speculations on the Growth o fEthnobotanical Nomenclature 152

    11. Michael Silverstein, Shifters, Linguistic Categories,and Cultural Description 187

    ^12 . Erving Goffman, On Face-Work: An Analysis ofRitual Elements in Social Interaction 222

    v4 -3 . Dell H. Hymes, The Ethnography o f Speaking 248

    ^/'14 . John J. Gumperz, Linguistic and Social Interactionin Two Communities 283

    y/15. Susan M. Ervin-Tripp, Sociolinguistics 30016. Roy Turner, Words, Utterance, and Activities 367

    R E C I I 0 H Ss - 9 9 U s

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    22 .V

    ^ 23.

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    Introduction 388Jane H. Hill, The Grammar o f Consciousness andthe Consciousness o f Grammar 398

    John A. Lucy, Whorfs View o f the LinguisticMediation o f Thought 415

    Eugene Hunn, Ethnoecology: The Relevance o f

    Cognitive Anthropology fo r Human Ecology 439Paul Kay, Brent Berlin, and William Merrifield,Biocultural Implications o f Systems o f Color

    Nam ing 456

    Elinor Ochs and Bambi B. Schieffelin, Language Acquisitions and Socialization: Three Developmenta

    Stories and Their Implications 470Michael Silverstein, Language and the Culture o fGender: A t the Intersection o f Structure, Usage, an

    Ideology 513Ben G. Blount, Parental Speech and Language Acquisition: An Anthropological Perspective 551Charles L. Briggs and Richard Bauman, Genre,

    Intertextuality, and Social Power 567

    Contents

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    The Ethnography of SpeakingDell H. Hymes

    i

    I N T R O DUC T I O N

    The role of speech in human behavior has always been honored in anical principle, if sometimes slighted in practice. The importance of its

    been decla im ed (as by M alin owsk i [1 935]) , su rveyed w ith in sightfulin Sapir [1933]), and accepted as a principle of field work (see cHymes 1959).

    That the study of speech might be crucial to a science of man h

    rec urr en t anthro pologica l theme. Boas (1911) came to see langu agekind with ethnological phenomena generally (he interpreted ethnoloscience of mental phenomena), but revealing more of basic processmore out of awareness, less subject to overlay by rationalization. Som

    pologists ha ve seen language, and hen ce lingu istic s, as basic to a scienbec au se it prov ides a lin k between th e biolog ical and sociocultura l lehave seen in modern linguistic methodology a model or harbinger of

    '\i methodology for studying the structure of hum an behavior.k American anthropology has played an important part in the pr| linguistics in this country, thro ug h the careers of Boas, Sapir, Bloom

    V \ their students, and through the opportunities offered by Am ericlanguages. It has contributed to the development of particular technconcepts, and has used linguistics as a tool for other lines of researcrespects, anthropologys involvement with linguistics has come to be sby psychology. H av in g ass im ilated m odern advances in linguistics,

    ^ chologists have contributed studies of considerable relevance andj) recent years. One need cite only the work of Charles Osgood, Geor

    and Roger Brown. Hybridization between linguistic concepts, and ie t nologies of the com puters and exp erime ntal psychology, is prod ucinr/ 7 the most rapidly gro win g sector in the study of speech, one w

    \ ? b j anthropology mu st keep informed liaison.Indeed, diffusion of the tools of modern linguistics may be a hallm

    # j-seco nd half of this century. In the course of such diffusion, presumV I things will hold tr ue : 1. the discipline of linguistics will continue to

    u s\/(! studies of the history, structu re, and use of languages; 2. in other d (linguistic concepts and practices will be qualified, reinterp reted , subsu

    ' 'perhaps sometimes re-diffused in changed form into linguistics; 3.

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    will remain the discipline responsible for coordinating knowledge about verbalbehavio r fro m the vie w poin t of la nguage itself.

    In any event, the joint share of linguistics and psychology in the burgeoningstudy of verbal behavior seems vigorous and assured. Has anthropology a shareapart from some of its practitioners becoming linguists and psychologists, andapart from its traditional role as an intellectual holding company under theaegis of culture? Is the role of prime collaborator of linguistics among the

    sciences now to pass to psychology? Sheer weight of numbers may determine.It would be of no importance were it not for the value to linguistics andanthropology of a strengthening, not a relaxing, of mutual concern.

    In one regard, there is no danger of lapse. Modern linguistics is diffusingwidely in anthropology itself among younger scholars, producing work of compete nce th a t ra nges fro m his to rical and desc riptive studies to pro blems ofsemantic and social variation. Most such work is on well-defined linguistic

    pro ble m s; its th eoreti cal basis is estab lish ed , its meth odolo gy well gro unded,and its results important, especially for areas in which languages rapidlydwindle in numb er. T he re is no need to detail the contribution which such work

    makes to anthropological studies, nor to argue its permanent value to linguisticsproper. I f anyth in g, th e trad itiona l bonds betw een linguistics and anth ropolo gyin the United States are more firmly rooted now than a decade ago.

    What may lapse is an opportunity to develop new bonds, through contributions to the study of verbal behavior that cpllaboration between anthropologyand linguistics can perh aps alone provide. Th is is more tha n a m atter of puttinglinguistics to work in the study of other scientific problems, such as cognitive

    behavio r or express ive behavio r. T h e ro le of sp ee ch in both is im portant, andhas engaged anthropological attention: the cognitive problem in association

    with the name of Whorf, the expressive problem more recently under the heading of paralinguistics. But to pursue these problems, and to try to give themfirm anthropological footing, is to broach the study of a new problem area, one

    of which little accoun t is taken.There are indeed several underdeveloped intellectual areas involving speech

    to which anthropology can contribute. All are alike in that they need freshtheoretical thought, methodological invention, and empirical work, and haveroots in anthropologys vocation as a comparative discipline. Among these areasare the revitalizatiorPof dialectology (perhaps under the heading of sociolinguistics ) ; the plac e of language in an e volutionary the ory of cu lture ; the.

    sema ntic typology of lan gu ag es; and the truly com para tive study .of ve rba l .a ttiFortunately, "air those mentioned have begun to attract attention. For theanthropological study of behavior there is another area of importance, one that

    1 Tow ards the fi rs t of these , see Gum perz (1961) ; towards the other three , see respectively, Hymes (1961c., 1961a, and 1960a [for the typology at the close of the latter]).Such developments will require rapprochement with established philological disciplines,which control much of the essential data.

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    1I seems general, central, an d neglected. I t can be called the ethnogr\ ypeaking. '\ \" In one sense this are a fills the gap between w ha t is usually d esc(grammars, and what is usually described in ethnographies. Both use sp(evidence of other patterns; neither brings it into focus in terms of patt erns. In ano th er sense, th is is a que stion of w hat a child in te rn al iz espeaking, beyond rules of grammar and dictionary, while becoming fledged member of its speech community. Or, it is a question of wha

    eigner must learn about a groups verbal behavior in order to parappropriately and effectively in its activities. The ethnography of speaconcerned with the situations and uses, the patterns and functions, of sas an activity in its own right.

    W hat the con tent of this area may be in detail, wha t a description a system might be likethese things are hard to state, although I shall

    j it in this paper . Fie ld studies devoted to th e to pic hard ly exist , nor haI been much attention to what the theory and method of such studies wo! Occasional information can be gleaned, enough to show tha t the patteI functions of speaking can be very different from one group to anothe

    ;; speech enters into socialization and education, for example, may diffe|j ingly. But the evidence is not enough to itemize all variables, or to t| system. Hence the orientation of what follows must be toward the fiel that is necessary.

    Why undertake such field work? The reasons are several: because tnomena are there, ready to be brought into order; so that systematic dtions can give rise to a comparative study of the cross-cultural variatiomajor mode of human behavior (a comparative speaking beside compreligion, comparative law, and the like), and give it its place in theory;contribution to other kinds of concern, such as studies of the forma

    per so nal ity in ea rly years.

    I shall attempt to bring out the nature and problems of this area by ing first that study of speech as a factor in cognitive and expressive bleads to concern with the ethnographic patterning of the uses of speecommunity. Then I shall sketch a descriptive framework for getting at

    patt ernin g. A note s-a nd-q ueries su rvey of the ro le oL speecli .i n sociawill bring m uch of the conten t and method in the frame of one problem. I shall sketch the changes -in -theoretical perspective_ that underlie the wh

    S P E E C H IN C O G N IT I V E A N D E X P R E S S IV E B E H A V IO R

    The role of speech in cognitive behavior is an old concern of anthropolrecent years discussion has most often had reference to Whorfs views. Tnot space here to evaluate the ideas and studies that are pertinent, anonly refer to two other papers (Hymes 1961a, b). It can be briefly sa

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    there is no question but that speech habits are among the determinants of non-linguistic behavior, and conversely. The question is that of the modes andamounts of reciprocal influence.

    If our concern is the role of phonological habits in the perception and interp retatio n of soun ds, th ere exists an abundance of th eory, te chniq ue, and experi mental work. If our concern is the role of semantic habits in perception andinterpretation of experience, there is no such abundance. Some experimentaltesting has been done (see comment in Hymes 1961b), but we cannot adequately investigate the role of semantic habits in ordinary behavior withoutknowledge of the semantic habits that are available to play a role, and suchknowledge can be gained only by description in relation to native contexts ofuse. In other words, we need a semantic analysis that is a part of ethnography.

    The need for such an ethnographic semantics has been pointed out before,and it is the theme of Malinowskis Coral Gardens and Their Magic Par t I I .How to implement an ethnographic semantics, however, how to devise itsmethodology, largely remains. Malinowski saw clearly the need to analyze mean

    ing in contexts of use, but his method amounted in practice to massive narrative.An ethnographic semantics may be bulky, but it need not be on principle interminable, nor endlessly ad hoc. It should be more than a narrative reflection ofreality. It should be a structural analysis, achieving the economies of the rulesof a grammar in relation to a series of analyses of texts.

    In the past generation Jakobson and his associates have done most to developsuch a structural semantics. In recent years a fresh wave of American interesthas appe ared in significant pap ers by linguists such as H au ge n (1957) and Joos(1958), and by ethnographers such as Conklin (1955, 1962), Goodenough

    (1956a, 1957), and Lounsbury (1956). Here as in other studies there are twogeneral approaches, as Jakobson has so brilliantly set forth; on the one hand totrace an item through all the various contexts in which it can occur, characterizing it in terms of its ability to co-occur with other items, and on the other to

    pla ce an item w ithin a se t which can occur in partic u lar co ntexts , characte rizin git in terms of its substitutability for other items of that set. Th_t\ro_apj2aclieshave various names, such as the syntngmatie nr.d paradigmatic axes {segJ a t ebs 0rr'a"nd'H al leT 956 7. T h e first appro ach is essentially tha t of a con cordance; the second approach can be termed that of a contrast within a frame, or

    better, contrast w ithin a rele vant (o r valid) fram e. H ere I w ant to side w iththose who consider the la tter the m ore fun dam ental of the two, since it validatesthe structural relevance of the items whose distribution is studied by the firstapproach, and adds information of its own; and assertjLa^a-JiLhisJ:unda-me ntal contrast within a fram e a pp roach jm uslie ad l inguistics into ethnaexag

    phy ., and eth nogra phy in to analys is of p a ttern s of speaking..Here I can only outl ine the argument. The paradigmatic approach requires

    discovering a relevant frame or context, identifying the items which contrastwithin it, and determining the dimensions of contrast for the items within theset so defined The approach has been successful for phonology and grammar

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    bu t on ly part ly so fo r lexicon. In deed, i t is m uch dis pute d th a t a str uc tu rapro ach ca n be appli ed to th e who le of a la nguage, w hen th e who le of voca bis considered. Yet it would be remarkable, and should be a source of embarment, if the paradigmatic principle fundamental to the core of language shfail us here. Recognizing this, linguists associated with the glossematic shave proposed modes of analysis of content-structure and defended the pbi li ty of ex te ndin g th em to al l of lexico n on princip le . These mod es may pfruitful, despite theoretical criticisms, although some seem to smack too mu

    the ad hoc and arbitrary at present. In any case these approaches tend towithin received bodies of l inguistic data rather than to move outward intexploration of speech behavior and use. Such exploration is essential, whone is concerned with semantics delimited as dealing with designation and ision, or whether one is concerned also with what one might then term pmatic meaning, as the ethnography of speaking must be. (Gf. Firths incluin his conception of semantics of this pragmatic dimension of meaning, whe places beyond lexicography in the province of sociological linguis[1935:27].)

    T he need for such explo ration is easy to see. On e source of the p resent impin structural analysis of content is precisely the limitations of the contexts a

    able in the usual linguistic materials. The usual corpus provides sufficienttexts for phonological and grammatical analysis, but for semantic analysonly a few limited sets of frequen tly recu rring elements, such as case-endings

    prepo si tion s. T h a t is on e re as on Wells writes, re gard in g th e po ssib ility of stural analysis of items such as the Latin stem tabul-, the only reliable menow available depends upon treating it as a member of some Cfont

    para dig m . This we do not see how to do (W ell s 19 57 ).Scholars sometimes have been willing also to posit dimensions of contras

    a few other domains, apparently universal or given, such as kinship tenumerals, pronouns. But in fact even the seemingly most obvious domainsnot be taken for granted. It may sometimes be assumed that, although langu

    segment experience differently, what they segment is the same, as if it wematter of different jigsaw puzzles fashioned from the same painting. But rework shows that structural analysis of meaning must first demonstrate thdomain is a dom ain for speakers of the language in question. W hat the domincludes, what it excludes, what features define it and its elements, cannopre sc ribed in advance , even fo r kinsh ip (cf. C onant 1961) or co lo r te rm s (Cklin 1955). (The principle is generally true for cultural phenomena; cfresidence rules, Goodenough [19566], and on the structure of the family, Ad[I960].)

    The exploration of native contexts of use to validate domains is the basthe success of Conklin and Frake, and it points the way for the struct

    analysis of all of speech. All utterances occur contrastively in contexts, bumuch of lexicon and most larger units of speech, the contextual frames mbe so ught not in th e usu al lingu isti c co rpus , bu t in behavio ra l si tuat ions.

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    must reciprocally establish the modes and settings of behavior relevant to speech,and the sets of verbal items that occur within them; dimensions of contrastand rules of use, whether purely semantic (designative) or concerned withother imports and functions, can then be found. (The sets would often not be

    perceiv ed from a form al linguis ti c point of view, bein g fo rm ally diverse, e.g., aset of greetings may range from Hi to its a damned good thing you got here

    when you did, Jack.)The approach of course requires the structural analysis of the community in

    relation to speech that would constitute an ethnography of speaking. This approach is an answ er to the pro ble m posed by Hje lm slev (1 957:2 83) : U nedescription structurale ne pourra seffectuer qua condition de pouvoir reduireles classes ouvertes a des classes fermees.

    For understanding and predicting behavior, contexts have a cognitive significance that can be summarized in this way. The use of a linguistic form identifiesa range of meanings. A context can support a range of meanings. When a form

    is used in a context, it eliminates the meanings possible to that context otherthan those that form can signal; the context eliminates from consideration the-meanings possible to the form other than those that context can support. Theeffective mea ning dep ends up on the interaction of the two. (Recently stated byJoos [1958], this principle has also been formulated by Buhler [1934:183] andFirth [1935:32].)

    Important also is the point that the cognitive role of speech is no all-or-nothing, but a matter of what, where, and when. Speech is cognitively moreimportant in some activities than others, some times more than others, for some

    persons more than others , for some societies m ore than others . T he am ount andkind of influence may change as between the child and'the adult, and there arethe obvious problems of the relative importance of their languages for multi-linguals.

    Such concern with speech in contexts of behavior leads toward analysis ofindividual patterns in particular native situations. If, from a grammar, we canno t read off the role th at speech habits play in present-day behav ior, neither canwe do so from an experimental situation novel to the culture. Nor can theassessment be made from compartmentalized accounts of speech habits and ofother habits, compared point-for-point in some millennial future. The analysismust be made on the ground. We must know what patterns are available inw hat contexts, and how, where, and w hen they come into play. The maxim tha tmeaning is use has new force when we seriously study the role of semantichabits in behavior.

    In^sum, description of semantic habits depends upon contexts of use tt^ckfing,,relevant frames, sets of items, and dimensions of contrast. Moreover, persons^an d groups may differ m the b ehavior .that is med iated by speech. Th us analysis

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    the rej s a cognitive aspect to expressive beha vior, insofar as it presupposessharing of a code, so that semantic habits do not exhaust the cogmtive_rqlspeechjJEikewise, there is an expressive aspect to the cognitive style of an ividual or group, and in general, all speech phenomena can be interpreted bhea rer as expressive of a speaker. B ut expressive studies tend to emp hasize spas an aspect of personality, and to throw into prominence features of spesuch as tone of voice and hesitation pauses, that lie outside lexicon and gram

    phenom ena w hic h have recently been system atized in a pre lim in ary

    un der the heading of paralinguistics. (For a general survey of both cognand expressive aspects of personality, linguistically viewed, see Hymes [1961&The principal study to result so far from the work in paralinguistics, thaPittenger, Hockett and Ranehy (1960) is based on the heuristic, if somewintuitive, use of the principle of contrast within a frame, applied to the unfing of a psychiatric interview. Indeed, the main task confronting paralinguisis to determine the import of the phenomena it has isolated by further studtheir contrastive use in situations. In general, advances in analysis of the

    press ive ro le of sp eech also le ad in to analysis of th e eth nogra phic co nte xt.Among other anthropological concerns which lead into such analysis, th

    is the aspect of culture change involving programs of fundamental educat

    concerned with literacy and multilingualism. In introducing new uses indigenous forms of speech, and in extending foreign forms of speech into lcontexts, the patterns and functions of speaking on both sides need toanalyzed, so as to anticipate points of congruence and conflict (cf. Weinre1953 and Hymes 1961c).

    N ow it is time to co nsider how th e analys is of the eth nogra ph ic conte xspeech may be carried out. T here are a n um ber of lines of research whose goverlap those of an ethnography of speaking, and whose results and methmust contribute. Since these lines of research have so far not fused or hadp art ic u la r focus and scope th a t is of conce rn her e, it is w orthw hile, perhnecessary, to take this opportunity to broach the descriptive problem, and

    outline a method of approach. My way of getting at it is of course with

    2 M ah] (1959) has discussed an instrum ental aspec t of langu age as constitugap in psychology. He argues that The instrumental model is the more general valid one for purposes of inferring emotional states from language behavior (p.40)that the instrumental model is more closely linked to behavior than the representati(cognit ive, or lexicon-and-grammar focused) model . But a cognit ive approach may

    concerned with the effect of a speech-derived symbolic map on problem-solving, plannand the like, and hence can also be called instrumental, since it also deals speech as tool-using behavior. In exploring the signalling of emotional states, Mahl dwith what will here be termed expressive function, and in pointing to the effect of signalling of the behavior of others, he deals with what will here be termed direcfunction. His use of instrumental subsumes the two. I particularly value Mahls an

    sis because he insists on including the situational and/or the nonlexical contextmessages (p. 105) and in effect demands the equivalent of an ethnography of speain relation to the analysis of speech events for certain psychological purposes.

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    pre jud ic e to ways th a t pro ve rew arding to others. A pproaches to ethnographicanalysis devised under linguistic influence, although they may diverge, are likelyto show strong resemblance at many points.3

    D E S C R I P T IV E A N A L Y S IS O F S P E A K I N G

    The descriptive focus is the speech economy of a community. The scope is allbehavio r relevant to a str uctu ra l ( emic , in Pik es te rm in olo gy) analysis of this.The approach is not to consider behavioral reality a pie and the speech economya unique slice. It is a question of an organizing perspective on a social realitythat is the same for djffering analytical frameworks. I believe that structuralanalysis in this particular framework willrbe of^value inJts,own-righ-t,.arLd,wi.lifeed back into analyses from other perspectives.

    By structural analysis is meant more than the placing of data in an articu

    lated set of categories. Such placing is a necessary starting point, and also adesired outcome, when systems that have been individually analyzed are studiedcomparatively. But for the individual system, structural analysis means a scientific and moral commitment to the inductive discovery of units, criteria, and

    patte rnings th a t are valid in terrris of th e system itself. An il lu stration is theinterrelation between phonetics as a starting point, the phonemic analysis of agiven language, and the use of the results of that analysis in general linguistics,e.g., in phonemic typology; or, ethnological categories as a starting point, theethnographic analysis of, say, the residence rules of a community, and the use

    of the results of that analysis in a comparative study. The categories presentedh prf> for a.n_ethnography of speaking, m ust be tak en as ways of ge ttin g,a L ipd i-vidu al systems, as ana logous to a phonetics _and perh aps p a rt of a pra ctical

    phonem ic s. T h e in ten t is heuristic, not a priori.The point seems obvious, but experience shows it to be easily mistaken. Let

    m e put it ano ther way. W hat would be an ap prop riate improvem ent, or correction, of what follows? Not an argument that there really are 3, or 8, or 76,factors or functions of speechin general. That would be equivalent to arguinghow many phonemes there really are in genera l. T h e pro ble m , of co urse, ishow many phonemes, or factors and functions, there are in some one determi-

    3 E. T . H all, The S i l en t Language , is especially worthwhile. Details apart, my onlyreservation is that the 10 primary message systems, the 3 levels of culture, the 3 components of messages, the 3 principal types of patterns, and the 100-category map of cultureshould be taken more frankly as heuristic devices. In particular the 10 primary messagesystems seem but one convenient breakdown, rather than rooted in biology, and thecomponents (set, isolate, pattern) and pattern types (order, selection, congruence) seema valid but partial extrapolation of a linguistic model. Several such extrapolations,

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    nate system. What the range in number of factors and functions may be,invariants of universal scope there may beanswers to these questions

    perh aps be gl im ps ed now, b u t m ust w ait fo r dem onstr ation on the str uanalyses of many systems. An appropriate improvement or correction, thone that contributes to that job, that makes of this paper a better pra

    phonetics and ph on emics.It can be asked: to what extent is analysis from the perspective of spe

    itself valid structurally to a given case? Activity defined as speaking bgroup may be defined as something else by another. But differences of thiare themselves of interest. Some behavior will be organized and defined in of speaking in every group, and the import of this behavior may be misnot investigated as such. Only a focus on speaking answers the structural tion, and provides data for comparative study of the differential involvof speaking in the structure of behavior in different groups. In one sense, a

    parative eth nogra phy of sp eakin g is bu t on e kin d of com para tive study outilization of cultural resources.

    N ote tha t th e delim it ati on of the spe ec h ec on omy of a gro up is in re la ta population or community, however defined, and not in relation to the h

    geneity or boundaries of a linguistic code. If several dialects or languagein use, all are considered together as part of the speech activity of the gThis approach breaks at the outset with a one language-one culture imIndeed, for much of the world the primary object of attention will not coiwith the units defined as individual languages. The patterning of a lingcode will count as one among several analytical abstractions from verbahavior. In cultural terms, it will count as one among several sets of shabits. The specialization of particular languages or varieties to partsituations or functions, and the implications of each for personality, statusthinking, will be a normal part of a description. Standard analysis of each

    will of course be necessary, but the broader framework seems more natindeed, more properly anthropological. The structure of this argumentapplies if the focus of attention is not a population but an individualsonality.4

    A necessary step is to place speaking within a hierarchy of inclusivenesall behavior is communicative, from the viewpoint of the participants; ncommunication is linguistic; and linguistic means include more than spOne can ask of an activity or situation: is there a communicative act (toself or another) or not? If there is, is the means linguistic or non-ling(gesture, body-movement) or both? In a given case, one of the alternative

    be nece ssary, or optional, or pro scr ib ed. T h e allocation of com m unic

    4 Aberle (1960 ) argues tha t language has been an inade qua te model for cultpers ona li ty stud ies, havin g only two te rm s, th e in d iv id ual and th e sa cre d cu lt u ra l pwhereas a third term, the cultural system in which persons participate but do not is necessary. In Aberles terms, I am saying here that the two-term model is inadfor linguistics studies as well. Ethnography of speaking involves a speech equivalcul tural system .

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    among behavior settings differs from group to group: what, for example, is thedistribution of required silence in a societyas opposed to occasions in whichsilence, being optional, can serve as a message? (To say that everything is communication is to make the term a metaphor of no use. If necessary, the wordingcould be chang ed t o : n ot all beh avio r is me ssage -send ing. . . no t all message-sending is linguistic. . .etc.) The allocation of communicative means may alsodiffer. For any group, some situations must be speech situations, some may be,

    some cannot be. Which situations require writing, derivative codes of singing,whistling, drumming, non-linguistic uses of the voice or instruments, or gesture?Are certain messages specialized to each means?

    The distribution of acts and means of communication in the round of behavior is one level of description. Patterns of occurrence and frequency are onekind of comparison between groups. Much more complex is the analysis of thecom m unica tive event itself. (I n discussing it, I shall refe r to speech an d speaking, but these terms are surrogates for all modes of communication, and adescriptive accoun t should be generalized to com prise all.) Le t me em phasizeagain t ha t w hat I p resent is no t a system to be imposed, but a series of questionsto be asked. Hopefully, the questions will get at the ingredients, and from theingredients to the structure of speaking in a group.

    There seem to be three aspects of speech economy which it is useful to considerseparately: speech eve nts , as such; the constituent factors of speech events; and^th e fu n c tio n s^ -s .p eecKT"\N^ci eadi a^Sect it is a.qMasfion,^fJ:QCus. and, a full.description of one is partly in terms of the rest.

    FoF'e'ffch~aspecf7three kinds of questions are useful. Taking first the speechevents w ithin a group , w ha t are instances of speech events? W ha t classes ofspeech events are recognized or can be inferred? W ha t are the dimensions ofcontrast, the distinctive features, which differentiate them? (This will includereference to how factors are represented and functions served.) W hat is their

    pa tte rn of occurrence, th eir dis tr ib ution vis-a-vis ea ch oth er, and ex tern ally (interms of total behavior or some selected aspect) ?

    One good ethnographic technique for getting at speech events, as at othercategories, is through words which name them. Some classes of speech events in _our culture are well known: Sunday morning sermon__inauguraJaddress^

    pledge of allegiance . O ther classes are suggested by colloquia l expressions suchas: heart-to-heart-talk, salestalk, talk man-to-man, womans talk, bull session,chat, polite conversation, chatter (of a team), chew him out, give him thelowdown, get it off his chest, griping, etc. I know no structural analysis. Clearlythe material cannot be culled from a dictionary alone: instances and classes ofspeech events may be labelled by quite diverse means, not only by nouns, butalso by verbs, phrases, and sentences. In response to the question, Nice talk?,a situation may be titled by the response Couldnt get a word in edgewise.

    Insofar as participants in a society conceive their verbal interaction in terms

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    of such categories, the critical attributes and the distribution of these are wodiscovering.

    Take cussing out, a Wishram Chinooks English label for a class aboriginal speech events. A set of verb stem s differentiates varieties of cussou t. W ha t alternative events (linguistic or non-linguistic) are possible in same situation, such as dismissal or beating? With regard to factors, who cusout whom, when and where, in what style or code, about what? With regardfunction, is there an aesthetic element, are speakers rated as to ability, w

    does cussing out do for speakers, what effect is expected or follows hearers? W ha t is the role of cussing ou t in main tenan ce of social systecultural values, personality systems? (The analysis of Hausa roka (prasinging) by Smith [1957] is an interesting work along these lines, as is Conk[1959].)

    An interesting question about speech events concerns what can serve to clothem, or to close a sequence within one.

    f a c t o r s i n S p e e c h E v e n t s

    Any speechTevent can be seen as comprising several com ponents, and the analyof these is a major aspect of an ethnography of speaking. Seven types of coponent or facto r can be disce rn ed . Ever y sp eech ev en t involves 1. a Send(Addresser) ; 2. a Receiver (Addressee); 3. a Message Form; 4. a Chann5. a Code; 6. a Topic; and 7. Setting (Scene, Situation).5J T h e se t o f seven type s o f fa cto r is an in it ia l (etic) fr amew ork. For a

    group, the indigenous categories will vary in number and kind, and their stances and classes must be empirically identified. For example, Sender aAddresser, or Receiver and Addressee, need not be the same. Among the easteChinookan groups, a formal occasion is partly defined by the fact that the worof a chief or sponsor of a ceremony are repeated by a special functionary to t

    assembled people. In general, the categories of these two factors must be inves1 gated in terms of the role system of the group studied. Moreover, dependii upon beliefs and practices, the categories of Senders and Receivers variou>overlap the membership of the human group. The coming of a flock of ravebro ught w arn in g fo r th e K w akiu tl , and, in deed , th ere was a corres pondicategory of Receiver: an individual whose afterbirth had been eaten by ravecould, as an adult, perceive raven cries as one or another of a limited set Kwakiutl utterances. A stone is one type of potential Sender among the FoInfants may or may not be counted as a class of potential Addressees and talkto; they were so counted among.the Mohave and TIingit, who thought infa

    5 In what follows I am most immediately indebted to Roman Jakobsons presentatiof factors and functions in his concluding remarks to the Conference on Style heldIndiana University, April 1958, sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. T

    publi sh ed st a te m en t id en ti fies six fa cto rs a n d co rr esp ondin g fu ncti ons (J akobson 196Jakobsons rich discussion should be carefully read. I have also pervasive debts to Kneth Burke, Kenneth L. P ike, S inclair (1951) and Barker and Wright (1955) .

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    capable of understanding speech. (The practice with infants and pets varies inour own society.) The form of a Message, or the typical form of a class ofMessages, is a descriptive fact that becomes significant especially as an aestheticand stylistic matter, whether in relation to the resources of a code (Newman[1940] has shown tha t Yokuts an d English stand in sharp co ntr as t), to a particular context (Riffaterre [1959] takes this relation as fundamental to analysis ofstyle), or to a particular referential content (as when some linguists find that the

    modifier Trager-Smith fits their sentence rhythms better as Smith-Trager).Cross-cultural differences in Channels are well known, not only the presence

    of writing, but also the elaboration of instrumental channels among WestAfrican peoples such as the Jabo, the whistling of tones among some of theMazatecs of Mexico, etc.

    It has already been noted that the Code factor is a variable, given a focus onthe speech habits of a popu lation. T he range is from comm unities w ith differentlevels of a single dialect to communities in which many individuals commandseveral different languages. The presence of argots, jargons, forms of speechdisguise, and the like enters here. Terms such as dialect, variety, vernacular, level, are much in discussion now (see Ferguson and Gumperz 1960,Hill 1958, Kenyon 1948). It is clear the status of a form of speech as a dialect,or language, or level, cannot be determined from linguistic features alone, norcan the categories be so defined. There is a sociocultural dimension (see Wolff1959, on the non-coincidence of objective linguistic difference and communicative boundary), and the indigenous categories must be discovered, together withtheir defining attributes and the import of using one or another in a situation.D epen ding on attitude, the presence of a very few features can stamp a form ofspeech as a different style or dialect.6

    The Topic factor points to study of the lexical hierarchy of the languagesspoken by a group, including idioms and the content of any conventionalizedutterances, for evidence and knowledge of what can be said. To a large extentthis means simply that semantic study is necessary to any study of speaking. Anethnography of speaking does also call special attention to indigenous categoriesfor topics. One needs to know the categories in terms of which people willansw er the question, W7h at are they talking ab ou t?, an d th e attribute s and

    6 T he phenom ena wh ich Voegelin treats as casual vs. nonc asual belong here.Voegelin (1960) sees the need for an empirical, general approach to all forms of speech

    in a community, discussing their variation in number and kind between communities,and the situational restrictions on their use. His discussion takes casual as a residual,unmarked category, whereas the need is to assume that all speech manifests some positively marked level or style, and to discover the identifying traits. He generalizes thatneither formal training nor specialized interest contributes to proficiency in casualspeech, and that judgments of proficiency are not made, but evaluations of proficiencyamong the Menominee (Bloomfield 1927) and the Crow (Lowie 1935) show that hisimplication of casual is misleading. Indeed, for some groups, most utterances mighthave to be classed in Voegelins terms as noncasual, for training in proper speaking isintensive and proficiency stressed (e.g., the Ngoni of Nyasaland and many groups inG h a n a ) .

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    pa tt erns of occurr ence fo r th es e ca tegories . T h e old rh eto ri cal ca tego ry of tmight go here as well.

    The Setting factor is fundamental and difficult. It underlies much of the and yet its constituency is not easily determined. We accept as meaningful terms as context of situation and definition of the situation but seldomethnographically what the criteria for being a situation might be, what kof situations there are, how many, an d the like. Na tive terms are one guidis the work of Barker and "Wright (1955) to determine behavior settings an

    segment the continuum of behavior.7Some of the import of these types of factors will be brought out with reto the functions of speech. With regard to the factors themselves, let us again that native lexical categories are an important lead, and that conwithin a frame is a basic technique for identifying both instances and claand for discovering their dimensions of contrast.

    Given the relevant instances and classes for a group, the patterning of distribution can be studied. One way is to focus on a single instance or chold it constant, and vary the other components. As a sort of concordtechnique, this results in an inventory, a description of an element in termthe combinability of other elements with it. As a general distributional

    nique, this can discover the relations which obtain among various elemewhether co-occurrence is obligatory, or optional, or structurally excluded. Sotimes the relation will hold for only two elements (as when a certain cateof Receiver may be addressed only by a certain category of Sender), sometfor several. The relation may characterize a class of speech events.

    7 Jakobson treats the last two factors (his Co ntex t and Re fere nt), togeth er factor. To stress my descriptive concern with factors, I eschew the theoretically term Context for a factor here, retaining Sett ing (cf . Barker and Wright 1955) Scene (Burke 1945) and Situation (Fir th 1935, fol lowing Malinowski) as natives. As factors, I distinguish Setting and Topic because the same statement may quite different import, as between, say, a rehearsal and a performance. In one senis simply a question of what one has to inventory in describing the speech economa group. Settings and Topics seem to me to involve two obviously different lists,lists on the same level as Addressers, Addressees, Channels, etc. Put otherwise, said it? W hod he say i t to? W ha t words did he use? D id he phon e or wri te? W asEnglish? W ha td he talk abou t? W here d he say it? seem to me all questions osame order . With functions I cannot avoid using Context . I agree with Jakobsonreferential function involves context (as an earlier section makes plain), but find thdifficulty if a function may be defined in relation to more than one factor. I also with Jakobson that all aspects of a speech event are aspects of context from one of view, but I have argued that all aspects may be viewed in terms of any one faand the level at which all are aspects of context merges all, not just context and ence, while the level at which the others are distinct seems to me to distinguish contexreference as well, as I hope the illustrations, especially the literary ones, show. Certain

    reference is less than the total import of a sentence, then shifting the line And seahushed casket of my soul from early in the sonnet To Sleep to its close (as mscripts show Keats did), enhanced the effect of the line and its contribution to the pwithout changing its reference.

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    In this way we can discover the rules of appropriateness for a person or group.(And indications that such rules have been violated are of special help in discovering them .) From a linguistic (Code ) po int of view, such rules may accoun tfor variance in the speech material on which a description is based, explainingwhy some grammatically possible utterances do not occur (e.g., to illustrate eachtype of factor: because the informant is not an appropriate Sender, the linguist

    not an appropriate Receiver, a different choice of words or order is preferred,the sequence is sung, and cannot be dictated apart from that mode of channel,the sequence indicates a speech variety or level which the informant avoids ormust not use, the topic is tabued, the situation which would elicit the utterancehas never occurred or been imagined, such a thing is said only in a context towhich the linguist has no access). From an ethnographic point of view, thediscovery of such rules of appropriateness is of practical importance for participant observation, and it is central to the conception of speaking as a system.One way that patterns of speaking constitute a system is in virtue of restrictionson the co-occurrence of elements.

    Relevant data have been noted by ethnographers, especially as incident tolexical items of interest, such as kin terms. Linguists have taken account of suchdata when intrusive into the formal code, as when different morphemic shapesor different paradigms are used according to the sex of the speaker and hearer.(Haas 1944 is the best treatment.) The participants in speech may then beadmitted as environments for use of the principle of complementary distribution, and the different forms treated as lexically or grammatically equivalent;

    bu t such da ta are likely to be regard ed as a frayed edge of g ram m ar ra ther thanas an opening into the broader system of speaking. (Such facts have sometimesserved as casements for vision of different mens and womens languages, butserious characterization of speech differences between men and women in asociety hardly exists.)

    A descriptive analysis of patterns of speaking in terms of indigenous instancesof the constructive factors of speech events is worthwhile in its own right, andit feeds back into prediction a nd inference abou t behavior. G iven a speech eventin the limited sense of a concrete message, frequently the main interest is in what

    can be told about one or more of its constituent elements. What can be toldabou t the Sender, either as to identity (age, sex, social class, and the like) or astoTHofive. attitude...personality?, what can.-be. told aboutShe-.llecfiiyex^jnclud-ing his or he r likely response?; abo ut the C ontex t (includin g antece dent circum-stances7 verbal or non-verbal)?: and so on. (For the fieldworker or learningchild, the question-jnayJae wjmt_can be told about the Code; for the communications engineakjafoat,canJ3etold about the-ChanndL) We may considerrelations between elements, or consider all as evidence about a certain one.

    Th li f thi f i f th t it i h t ft h t k

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    behin d th e te xt or message, and can to some exte nt ask ou rse lves, w hat wbe diffe re nt if th e Sender were dif fe re nt? ; if th e Senders motiv es were dient?; and so on. In ano ther society this contrast-within-a-frame technique mappeal to an explicit analysisTjf'patterns of speaking.

    \F u n o tio n s in S p e e c h E v en ts/ 7

    The third aspect of speech events is that of function. Within anthropology

    functions of speech (or language) have usually been discussed in terms of versal functions. While it is important to know the ways in which the functof speaking are the same in every group and for every personality, our conchere is with the ways in which they differ. One way to approach this is to revthe usual question, what does a language contribute to the maintenanc

    personal ity, socie ty, and cu ltu re ? and to ask inst ead, w hat does a per so nasociety, or culture contribute to the maintenance of a language? Especiallwe ask the question in situations of culture change, we can see the various futional involvements of speech and of given languages.

    Some students of standard languages have defined for them functions correlative attitudes. These in fact apply to all languages, and serve to cont

    their roles. To illustrate: among the Hopi-Tewa the language serves prestunifying, and separatist functions, and there is great language pride as wellanguage loyalty. Among the Eastern Cherokee the hierarchy of functions seju st th e reverse ; th e re te ntion of th e la nguage serves main ly a separa tist fution, and there is an attitude of loyalty, but hardly of pride. Perhaps we thtoo much in terms of nineteenth-century European linguistic nationalismnotice that some languages do not enjoy the status of a symbol crucial to gridentity. The Fulnio of Brazil have preserved group identity over three centu

    by giving up th eir te rr itory to m a in ta in th eir la nguage and m ajo r ce remony , the Guayqueries of Venezuela have preserved group identity by maintaininset of property relations. Of indigenous language and religion there has been

    trace for generations. On e suspects th at the Gu ayque ries involvem ent with tlanguage differed from that of the Fulnio.

    When only a few speakers of a language are left in a community, the survof the language becomes almost entirely dependent on its manifest and lafunctions for the personalities concerned. Thus Swanton rescued an imporand independent Siouan language, Ofo, partly by luck; he happened to bethe unsuspected presence of the last speaker, and followed up a chance remBut it was partly due to the personality of the woman, who could be an inmant because she had practiced the language frequently to herself in the yesince all other speakers had died.

    These examples of the broad functional involvements of speech, and of guages, raise questions that can be answered only within general ethnograor social anthropology. While the same holds for an ethnography of speakinother points, insofar as it is a special focus and not a separate subject-mattelooms large here because the necessary conceptual framework exists alm

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    entirely outside linguistics. There are still points and progress to be made, however, by concentrating on the linguistic discussions of the function of speech interms of the constructive factors of the speech event.

    Within the tradition of linguistics, functions of speech have commonly beenan interpretation of factors of the speech event in terms of motive or purpose,obtaining a set of functions one for each factor discriminated. Sometimes a

    p a rticu la r featu re, a linguis tic ca tegory , or literary genre is asso ciated w ith afunction. For example, the 1st person pronoun, interjections, and the lyric poemhave been associated with expressive function (focus on the Sender within thespeech event); the 2nd person pronoun, imperatives, and rhetoric or dramaticpoetry w ith th e directive fu n c tio n ; and th e 3rd pers on pronoun, and ep ic poetry,with the referential function.8

    Some conception of speech functions must figure in any theory of behavior,if it is to give any account of speaking. The same holds for an account of language in a theory of culture. Indeed, rival views on many issues involving

    speech can best be interpreted as involving differing assumptions about theimportance or existence of various functions. For an ethnography of speaking,then, the question is not, should it have a conception of speech functions, but,what should that conception be?

    There can be only a preliminary outline at present, and, as a guide for fieldwork, its concern should be for scope and flexibility. It should not conceive thefunctions of speech too narrowly, as to number or domain, and it should notimpose a fixed set of functions. While some general classes of function are.undoubtedly universal, one should seek to establish the particulars of the given

    case, and should be prepared to discover that a function identifiable in onegroup is absent in another.One can point to seven broad types of function, corresponding to the seven

    types of factor already enumerated. (Each type can be variously named, andthe most appropriate name may vary with circumstances; alternatives are givenin parentheses.) The seven are: 1. Expressive (Emotive); 2. Directive (Conative, Pragmatic, Rhetorical, Persuasive) ; 3. Poetic; 4. Contact; 5. Metalinguistic; 6. Referential; 7. Contextual (Situational).

    In the simplest case, each of the types of function can be taken as focusing

    upon a corresponding type of factor, and one can single out questions and comments, and units as well, that primarily are associated with each.You say it with such feeling points to expressive function, and a language

    may have units which are conventionally expressive, such as French [h] (Je te

    8 Snell (195 2) a ttem pts to subsume all linguistic features, includ ing parts of speech andgrammatical categories, under Buhlers classification of three types of linguistic function(Auslosung, Kundgabe, Darstel lung, equivalent to Snells Wirkungs-, Ausdrucks-und Darstel lungsfunktion, and corresponding to directive, expressive, and referentia lf nction here) This might be al able to the coding of personali t e pression in speech

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    H aime ) and En glish vowel length (W hat a fiiiiiiine boy) , used tostrong feeling. (A feature can be conventionally an expressive device onlit is not referential, i.e., for phonic features, not functioning phonemicallferen tiate lexical items.) Do as I say, not do as I d o points to directition, and im peratives have been cited as primarily directive units. W hatthought, but neer so well expressed points to poetic function, focmessage form, as does The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Feeand metrical units generally are primarily poetic in function. If only

    talk it instead of having to write it and Gan you hear me? point tofunction; breath groups may be channel units, in the case of speaking

    pa ges in th e case of p rin t. Go look it up in th e dic tionary poin ts tlinguistic function, to concern with the code underlying communicationsuch as word, and technical linguistic terms, which make talk about t

    po ssible, serve pri m ari ly m eta linguis tic fu nction. Q uota ti on mark s hav[ linguistic fu n ct io n w h en ...they signal_th at a form is being...cited or-glos| channel function when enclosing quoted or imagined speech. What i going to talk abo ut? , W hat did h e have to say? focus on topic and 'referential function. Most lexical and grammatical units are primaril

    ential, and are analyzed by descriptive linguistics in terms of that f(When will you tell him?, As mentioned above, You cant talk ly h er e! !, If youre going to use th at scene at all, youll have to pu t it

    the play, are primarily contextual in function as are a sign flashing Air an d the statem ent of scene at the beginning of an a ct of a play (EA platform before the castle).

    All features of the speech event, including all features of the linguistmay pa rticipate in all of the functions. This p oint m ust be mad e, becausefeatures are often treated exclusively in terms of a single function. Kenneth Burke has pointed out, any utterance, for example, even a

    je ction, may seco ndar ily serve as a ti tl e for co ntext s to w hic h it is appr

    and hence have a referential aspect. Some interpret the linguistic coseries of levels entirely in terms of referential function, and see other fusuch as the expressive, as pertaining only to the level of the entire utterabe yond . O f co urse all fu nctions (in clu din g th e refe re nti al) co me ii ito pat the level of the entire utterance; no utterance, no functions. Buanalytical matters are in question, all functions have to be discussed withto all levels. N o t only are there conventional expressive units corresponeach level of the code, but a wide range of functions can be illustratregard to a unit such as the phoneme. Although the initial task of desanalysis is to treat phonemes in the ir contribution to referential function fying and differentiating utterances), this does not exhaust their fuinvolvement. To take / p j as an example: expressively, Burke has notkinds of p, the heavily aspirated one conveying distaste and rejection (12ff.). Patterning of /p/s can participate in poetic function, organizmiddle line of a stanza by Wallace Stevens, The romantic intoning, claimed clairvoyance / Are parts of apotheosis, appropriate / And of its

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    the idiom thereof! T he fun ctional load of /p / in a comm unity cannot beanalyzed apart from the nature and use of various channels, as when amongthe Pim a the functional load of / p / differs between singing and recitation, oras when am ong the Jab o of Liberia a drum does not differentiate / p / from othercon sonants, bu t signals only the occurrence of the type. Con ventional nam es forphonem es, perm it tin g th em to be discussed in th e abstr act, have to do w ithmetalinguistic function, and even a quite simple society may have a term that

    names a distinctive feature such as nasalization (Halkomelem Salish samqs n(-qs n nose ) ; see description of the circumstances in E lm end orf a nd Suttles(1960), p.7). As abbreviation, P may mediate reference, as when on an athletic uniform it signifies the school, or when large vs. small p distinguishes thewinner of letters in major vs. minor sports. If uniforms worn in games bear theletter, and practice jerseys do not, the element (such as P) has contextualfunction. In such cases the phonological structure of the language conditionswhat occurs.

    These illustrations are minor, but if features conceived as most internal to the

    code, most removed from external involvement, participate in a variety offunctions, the argument serves for features generally. To restrict linguisticdescription or psychological study to speech habits conceived only in terms ofreferential function is to restrict understanding, especially of aspects of speechimportant to behavior and the formation of personality. If the meaning of alinguistic form is defined as the total disposition to use it, then several functions

    pla y a p a rt in m eanin g, since all contr ib ute to the to ta l dispos ition. Analysis interms of referential function comes first, so that other functions may be setaside for an interval; but this can not be a permanent strategy.

    These illustrations are simply pointers to broad areas. In a given case andwith regard to, say, expressive function, one would want to discover the inventory of units which could conventionally serve expressive function, as well asthe kinds of inference a bo ut expressiveness made by particip an ts in speech eventsin the group, and the evidence underlying such inferences. One would expectgroups to differ in number of conventional expressive units and in the frequencyof their use, as well as in kinds of inference made as to expressiveness, and thefeatures (of whatever sort) used as evidence. One would seek to identify thekinds of expressive function recognized or implicit in the behavior of the group.A Sender can not help but express attitudes towards each of the other factors in

    a speech event, his audience, the style of his message, the code he is using, thechannel he is using, his topic, the scene of his communication. An externalobserver can of course interpret a speech event as expressive in terms of all ofthese, by attending to each in turn. But the primary ethnographic problem is todetermine which kinds of expressive function, any or all, are present as intendedor perceived by the participants of the speech event. Which are, so to speak,

    bein g encoded and decoded ? Sim ila rly, one co uld in vestigate a sp eech evententirely with regard to directive function, or, with regard to metalinguisticfunction, one could attend exclusively to evidence of shared signal systems, not

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    only to the grammar and dictionary which serve referential function, budegree to which there are codes for expressive and other functions.

    ~On would seek, as with other .;isprcts of speech events^to-d.isco.ver the disions of contrast am ong fun ctions 1jirid~the-p.attfem s_aL ibir,pccurren ce in

    behavio r of the gro up. '

    To study the: distribution of speech functions in the round of behavior rseveral difficult problems. The first problem is that of the relation of partifunctions to particular instances or classes of speech event. The same sp

    event can be viewed in terms of all seven types of function, and variously(A given utterance of Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once mmight be taken as expressive of Shakespeare, Henry V, or Laurence Oliviedirective and determinant of the subsequent action of soldiers or actorexemplifying iambic pentameter blank verse and as worse or better thaalternative such as Once more, once more into the breach, dear friendsm ore effective when he ard tha n w hen re ad ; as evidence for the phonem ic sof author or actor; as telling something about the progress of the siegHarfleur; as signalling, should someone enter at that point, that it is Sh

    p eares pla y a n d /o r ju st past th e pro logue of Act I I I . ) Even narrow in gper sp ect iv e to th a t of a sin gle parti c ip an t in th e situation, m ore th an one tion is usually present in a given speech event. Jakobsons way of handlingis to consider that all types of functions are always compresent, and to sgiven speech event as characterized by a particula r hierarchy of functions. Tare clear cases of the validity of this approach, as when expressive fun(signalled perhaps by intonation) dominates referential function, and therinteresting cases of its manipulation, as when a teen-age daughter protests, all I said was. . editing out the inton ation tha t ha d been perceived as iShe is claiming the privileged status generally ascribed to the referential funin our culture. Our cultural view is the opposite of the fact, however, iDutch linguist de Groot (1949) is right in his Law of the Two Strata, w

    asserts that whenever the referential and expressive import of a message flict, the expressive import is overriding. Such conflict had been noted by (1931), and it underlies Batesons concept of the double bind of many dren who become schizophrenic. Conflict, however, raises doubt that all sages can be analyzed in terms of a hierarchy of functions such that one funis dominant. The defining characteristic of some speech events may be a balharmonious or conflicting, between more than one function. If so, the intetatio n of a speech eve nt is far from a m atte r of assign ing it to one of seveTFof function. '

    This brings us to a second problem, th at of the relation of pa rticular functcTtEFconsUtuent factors of speech events. A lthough types of functio n hav

    pre se nte d I n a 'p re lim in ary way as corre lates_of_tyes ofT aetor' ,- th 'e 'fela tionBe twee n'the two are more com plex. Indeed, it would be a great mistaEanalyze an actual situation as if each type of factor simply determined a stype of function.

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    Here is where an ethnographic approach diverges perhaps from that sketchedby Jakobson. Jakobsons work repre se nts a decisive advance or anth ro polo gyand linguistics. It inspires concern with speech functions, which have had onlysporadic attention in recent years; it breaks with the confinement of mostschemes to two or three functions (referential: expressive: conative),9 and itrecognizes that all features of a message may participate in all functions. Butregarding the relation of functions to factors, Jakobson states:

    Each of these six factors determines a different function of language. Although we distinguish six basic aspects of language, we could, however, hardlyfind verbal messages that would fulfill only one function. The diversity lies notin monopoly of some one of these several functions, but in a different hierarchical order of functions. Th e v erbal structure of a message depends prima rilyon the predominant function. (Jakobson 1960:353).

    The divergence may be only verbal, however, since Jakobson has subsequentlysaid that determine is not the right word, and that rather each type of function is focused upon , centered up on a given factor. Such a view does not exclude

    partic ipatio n of m ore than one. Certa in ly it is doubtful th a t partic u lar functionsof a concrete case can ever be defined in terms of factors singly. The definitionseems always to involve two or m ore factors (or instances o r classes w ithin a typeof f ac to r ) .

    Thus, the expressive function of features must be defined in relation to referential function. The function which Malinowski called phatic communioncan be taken as a kind of alternating or reciprocal expressive function of speech,as when housewives exchange stories about their children or anthropologistsabout their f ield work. Now, having designated a factor of CONTACT, a

    physical channel and psy chological connection betw een the address er and th eaddressee, enabling both of them to enter and stay in com m un ication (p. 35 3),Jakobson correlates with it messages primarily serving to establish, to prolong,or to discontinue communication to check whether the channel works (Hello,do you he ar me? ), to attrac t the attention of the interlocu tor or to confirm hiscontinued attention and places phatic communion here (This set for CONTACT, or in Malinowskis terms PHATIC function [p. 355].) The psychological connection between participants in communication seems to mesignificantly independent of the nature and state of the channel, and referrable

    prim aril y to them ra th er than to it. Messages to establish , prolo ng or discontinuecommunication may neither intend nor evoke a sense of communion; there maybe a cle ar channel and no rapport. T he reso lu tion is probably to ta ke th e refe rence to a physical channel and psychological connection as indicating twomain subtypes of contact function. (Thomas Sebeok has pointed out the im

    9 W hen earlier work distinguishes more than two or three functions, it usually iselaborating within one of these. Ogden and Richards list five functions in The Meaningof Meaning, but their focus is on the Senders intention, and the elaboration falls within

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    porta nce of th e fa cto r of no ise also in re la tion to analysis of channel and tact.) In any case, if phatic communion is a function of speech in the behaof a group, it must be identified empirically and particulars given as to ticipants and situations. Even if universal, phatic communion differs greatlits occasions and importance from group to group, and ethnographically canbe re ad off as the equiv ale nt of on e fa ctor.

    More striking is the case of the factor of Message Form. This cannotassociated directly o r uni vocally w ith Poetic function. Th e relation betwee

    p rin te d message and a Receiv er (no t Addressee) acting as pro of- reader is a pand obvious case of a function associated with message-form. And the more

    proof-re ader can div orc e his resp on se to th e messag e- form fro m concern wany other aspect, especially reference, the better. Moreover, any sustained ccern with the poetic aspect of message-form must take it in relation with ofactors. Use of phonic substance is interpretable only in relation to referenthe phonemes in The murmuring of innumerable bees suggest bee-sound oin connection with the topic announced by the meaning of the words. (Po

    pa ssag e on T h e so und m ust seem an echo to th e sense il lu strate s th is .) Rework on criteria for stylistic analysis has taken as fundamental that the stylivalue of a feature depends upon its perception in relation to a delimited vecontext (Riffaterre 1959). (Jackobson has subsequently explained that the lpoetic should not be misleading; in his view poetic function need not ccern poetry, but concerns any case of einstellung on the message, so that message becomes from a certain point of view self-sufficient. Poetry as swould thus be but a principal subtype, proof-reading perhaps a m inor o ne.)

    In general, a message or feature has a particular function in behavior ofor specified classes of participants in the speech event. An act of speech mhave directive, yet no referential value, for someone who knows nothing oflanguage involved. Many misunderstandings arise from situations in which referential value of a message is understood, but not the expressive or direc

    import, because the Receiver does not share the Senders conventional unstandings, or code, for these. In short, speech functions must be definedcontexts of use.

    The distribution of speech functions brings out one of the ways in whspeaking constitutes a system. If the speech economy of a group is statedterms of the interdependence of various factors, this constitutes a simple systThe statement that combinations of factors are not at all possible, are chance, but governed by rules, is an example. To constitute a functional systthe speech economy would have to be not only analyzable into struc ture of pa

    b u t also be su ch th a t th e condit io n of some of th es e p arts dete rm in es w 'hea certain property G will occur in the system; the parts are subject to variatsuch that if nothing compensates for the variation, G will no longer occurone (or some) of these parts vary within certain limits, the other of these pawill vary so as to compensate for the initial variation and G will be mataine d; if one (or some) of these parts vary beyond certain limits, comp ensa

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    will be impossible and G will no longer occur. When these conditions are met,the parts of the system can be called functional with respect to G. (Nagel1953, 1956. I am indebted to Francesca Wendel Cancian at this point.)

    It is easy to see how phonemes constitute a functional system, as when variation in one is compensated for by variation in another to maintain phonemicdistinction. Such interpretation is well known in linguistics, and indeed, phonemic theory such as that of Andre Martinet (1955) should be better known as

    an example of a structural-functional theory of change. Interpretation of speaking in such terms is a challenge that has not generally been met. For any onespeech function in the behavior of a group, the various factors (Sender, Receiver, etc.) can be taken as state-coordinates whose values vary within certainlimits to maintain it. Communication can be taken as a cover-term for most ofthe specific functions, or as a very general function in its own right. If it is takenas a property being maintained, we can see that it in fact may depend upon thevalues of other functions. This might be in terms of a whole community, as inthe analysis of the maintenance or loss of intelligibility between dialects. Let us

    consider single speech events. The members of a group have conceptions andexpectations as to the distribution of speech functions among situations, andinsofar as several functions are compresent, it is a matter of expectations as tothe distribution of speech functions among situations, and insofar as severalfunctions are compresent, it is a matter of expectations as to relative hierarchy.These expectations may be anything from formal cultural norms to the projection of individual needs. If two persons meet, and perceive the situation in termsof conflicting hierarchies of speech function, communication will be broken offor the other person silently judged unfavorable, unless adjustment is made.

    Let us take the relation of expressive and referential functions, broadly con

    ceived. A group of wives may be chatting about personal experiences withchildren. If another woman insists on exact information, she is failing to perceive dominance of expressive or phatic function in the situation. Polite inquiryis appropriate, but not persistent challenge as to fact. Or a group of wives maybe discussing childre n in behavio ra l sc ience term s. If ano th er wom an interposespure ly asso ciat ive and bio gra phic al comm en ts about her own children, she isfailing to perceive the dominance of a referential function. Evidence is appro-

    p ri ate , bu t not anecdotes ir re le van t to th e views and th eory bein g exchan ged. Ineither case, the offender may be excluded from communication, or avoided,

    under similar circumstances later. A good deal of interpersonal behavior can beexam ined in'si m iia r 'ter m sr 'In general, instances of the breaking off of communication, or uneasiness in it, are good evidence of the presence of a rule orexpectation about speaking, including differences anT-uixctional hieraScliy- .,

    T h ree aspects of, speech econ omy h ave bee n ou tlined now, tl e speech events,"the(ir constitutive factors, and various types of functions. Each is one-perspectiveon the whole of verbal behavior, and full description of each must be partly interms of the others. An approach in these terms should be useful whether onesinterest is a comparative study of human behavior, or the behavior typical of a

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    SPEECH IN SOCIALIZATION

    I novTWanFTmiurvey tKe 'role of speaking in socialization. In one sense this rolis one part of the kind of descriptive analysis that has been proposed. In anothesense, it is a question of the induction of new recruits into the ongoing adusystem. Whichever perspective is chosen, and we often shift back and forth iordinary thinking, it is worthwhile to single out speech in socialization becausefrom a comparative viewpoint, it has been entirely neglected; there is far to

    li t tle attention to i t in the study of individual groups ; and it presumably u ndelies much of the variation in individual adult behavior.

    Studies of the childs acquisition of speech have concentrated on mastery othe code for referential function. Far too few such studies have been informed

    by m odern lin gu istics as to th e str uc tu ra l na tu re of w hat it is th e ch ild learnbu t th e num ber is in crea sing . A dequate stud ies of th e ch ilds ac quis it io n of thother functions of speech have been more or less unknown to American linguistics and anthropology, but recently the work of Russian psychologists on thdirective function has gained recognition (Luria 1959; Luria and Yurovic1959). The Russian scholars consider the childs acquisition of speech (thsecondary signalling system) in interaction with adults as fundamental to th

    childs development of control over its own behavior and of its picture of thworld. Their experimental work has shown that the development of capacity tunderstand an utterance (referential function) does not have as automaticonsequence the capacity to respond adequately, to have behavior directed bit. The capacity for the directive functioning of speech develops independentland by stages in the first years of life. Thus before the age ofH years a child

    "responds to a verbal request for a toy fish by getting and handing the object, buis not able to do so if another toy (say a cat) is closer, and between it and thfish. I t will orient toward the object named, but m aintain the directive functioof the word only until the external situation (the toy cat) conflicts, then grasand offer the intervening toy. At 3 to 3% years, if a child is to perform a certain

    task of pressing a ball, it will not achieve the necessary control over its responseif simply given preliminary verbal instructions, but if it gives itself the approp ri ate ver bal co m m an ds, it will succeed. At th is age, how ever , th e success only for positive commands. If the child gives itself the command Dont press,it not only fails to stop pressing, but presses even harder. Only at the age of 4to 4J years does the verbal command Dont press actually acquire inhibitoryeffect, according to these studies.

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    It also appears that mastery of these functions varies in education and adultlife. The basic patterns of the referential function, of grammar and lexicon, areshared as prerequisites to the maintenance of communication at all. There areof course differences at some levels of control of resources for reference. Andthere seems to be a quite looser rein as to the other functions and greaterindividual variability. Individuals differ greatly, for example, in control ofintonation patterns in our society; some never learn the right intonation for

    announcing a joke, and some, having learned a certain intonation as students,as pa rt of a pa ttern of quick repa rtee, carry it in later life into situations in whichit acts to cut off every conversational sequence. And if we extend our horizonfrom the usual scope of linguistic descriptions to the full repertoire of conventional linguistic habits, to the recurrent linguistic routines and situational idiomsof daily verbal behavior, variation in individual mastery is even more apparent.The consequences range from social discomfort to exclusion from or failure insignificant areas of activity, because ignorant or maladroit; or, on the otherhand, recruitment for and success in certain areas, because adept. There may

    be a co nse quence fo r th e possibility of psy choth erapy. Such differen ces maycharac terize whole subcultures th a t in basic pa tterns share the same lan gua ge.10

    Concern with differences in individual verbal behavior leads to concern withdifferences in the role of speech in socialization, and through that, to differenceswhich obtain between groups, whether subcultures or whole societies. Russian

    psycholog ists em phasize th a t th e v ital fu nctions of sp eech are acquired in in teraction with adults, but seem not to consider the consequences for their experimental norms of different cultural patterns of interaction. This lack they sharewith most writers, who, if they point out the socialization importance of lan

    guag e, do so in a gene ric w ay.11The role of speech in socialization, the context of its acquisition, may vary in

    every aspect of the patterning of speech events, factors, and functions. Somekinds of variation can be highlighted in a notes-and-queries way with respect to Ithe speech m aterials an d resources available, the processes often st 2essed in study,!of personality formation, social structure and organization, and cultural values!

    and beliefs. "W ha t are the cogn itive and expressive resources of the lingu istic codes of the

    10 Cf. the work now being done by Basil Bernstein (1958, 1959, 1960a, 19606, 1961).He contrasts two modes of speech, fo rm al and pu bl ic , associated with the English middle-class and lower-class, respectively. Bernstein finds that the two modes arise because twosocial strata place different emphases on language potential, that once this emphasis is

    pla ced, th e resu lt in g modes of spee ch progressively orient speake rs to dif fe re nt types ofrelationships to objects and persons, and that this is reflected in differences of verbalintelligence test scores, of verbal elaboration of subjective intent, and otherwise.

    11 George Herbert Mead is one example. Another is A. Irving Hallowell, whoseinventory article on Cu lture, Persona lity, and Society states: A necessary conditionfor socialization in man is the learning and use of a language. But different languages

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    com munity? W hat portion of these are available to children, to wh at exand in what sequence? Among the Nupe there are few terms of sexual matand most knowledge about them is acquired by observation and experiencethere is mo re tha n one linguistic code, wh ich is learned first, if either is? (Amthe Chontal of Oaxaca, children learn a second language, Spanish, firstthe home, and Chontal and some other aspects of native culture only in adocence.) Is there a specialized baby-talk? I f so, w ha t is its con tent (referenexpressive, directive) ? Are there verba l games, perha ps me talinguistic in

    they draw attention to features of the code as such? (Since much significahas been attached to the childs acquisition of personal pronouns, and meanself-reference, these should be singled out.) What are the linguistic routwhich the child is taught or can acquire?

    A linguistic routine is a recurrent sequence of verbal behavior, whether cventional or idiosyncratic. Its pattern may be obvious and concrete, assingle sequences such as the numerals 1 to 10, the days of the week, the ABor as in antiphonal sequences such as in many childrens games, as well asgames and ceremonies. Or the pattern may not be obvious because it is-concrete, but consists of some regular sequence of emotion or topic. Instructmay be couched as Th en he says. . .an d then you say. . bu t often it is a matter of the exact words. (In magic and instruction from supernathelpers, of course often it is.) O r it may be a form al pa ttern such as a limerFeedback may be involved, and the patterning of the routine resemble a braning tree diagram. (A good line or salesmans pitch has alternative waysreac hing the same goal.) A vast po rtion of verbal behavior in fac t consistrecurrent patterns, of linguistic routines. Description has tended to be limitedthose with a manifest structure, and has not often probed for those withimplicit pattern. Analysis of routines includes identification of idiomatic unnot only greeting formulas and the like, but the full range of utterances whacquire conventional significance, for an individual, group, or whole cultu

    t. De scription is usually limited to idioms of phra se length w hich, because t\ reference is not predic table from the ir parts, must be indep end ently listed I dictiona ry as lexical units (e.g., kick the buck et ). Even fo r clear referen

    categories such as those of place and personal names, a carefully considered scription of the status and formation of idioms is rare (see Hoijer 1948, pp. 1

    ' 3 for a fine example), and conventionalization in terms of other functionimportant in behavior and personality formation. There are utterances convtionalized in metalinguistic and contextual function, but especially interesthere are those with directive or expressive function. A childs play in imitatof adult roles, as a girl with her dolls, may reveal many of the conventionali

    sequences of her familysequences which have recurred in situations untilsome sense they name, stand for the situation and carry a significance, pressive or di rect ive, not pre dic ta ble from th eir consti tu ent par ts . A m oth er mfind herself using expressions to her child that her own mother had used to hand with horror, having sworn as a child never to do so.

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    The number and range of such idioms varies between individuals, families,groups. These and linguistic routines play a great part in the verbal aspect ofwhat Lantis (1960) points to as vernacular culture, the handling of day-to-day situations, and they are essential in verbal art, in the oral performance ofmyths, sung epics, many speeches and lectures. The text of these is not identicalfrom one performance to the next, but the general sequence is more or lessconstant, and most of the verbal content is drawn from a standard repertoire.T he y fill the slots of a speech, as words fill the slots of a sentence. (T he ir

    pre se nce can somet imes be dete cte d when a perf orm er finds him se lf not commun icating. Sequences which he ha d draw n on as ready coin may prove to haveno conventional value for a new audience, which struggles for an interpretationof something intended merely as formulas or labels). The acquisition of conventional sequences, both idioms and routines, is a continuous process in life,and herein resides some of the theoretical interest, for to a great extent thesesequences exist in the cambium between idiosyncrasy and culture. They exhibitpers is ting effort to w ard th e p atte rning and pre dic ta bil ity of behavio r. Somesequences become idiomatic for a person or group because of a memorable

    novelty (see Hockett 1958, 304ff.), but more because sensed as appropriate oras needed. Most do not achieve generality or persistence, but some would losevalue if they did, being intended or enjoyed as distinctive, or private to a few.

    Turning to the formation of personality, how does speaking figure in theeconomy of punishment and reward, as alternative to physical acts (spanking,hugging) and to deprivation or giving of things such as candy? At what stagein psycho-sexual development is pressure about speech applied, if any is? Howintensive is it? Autobiographical materials from Ghanaian students reveal greatchildhood anxiety about speech. When is socialization pressure about weaning,toilet-training, self-feeding and the like applied in relation to the childs verbal

    development? In some groups it is after the demands can be verbally explained,in some not. W ha t is the inciden ce of stuttering an d o ther speech defects, if any?There is evidence that this depends upon socialization pressures, being absentin some groups, and perhaps among the Pilaga characteristic of girls ratherthan, as among us, of boys. If there is bilingualism, do speech defects appear in

    bo th or bu t one la nguage? How m uch does spee ch figure in the transm issionof skills and roles? Among some groups, such as the Kaska (Canada) it figuresvery little. Does a baby talk facilitate or retard acquisition of adult speechpatt ern s? Is speaking a so urce of ple asu re , or ora l, perhaps ero tic gra tification?That some languages are extremely rich in vocabulary showing sound symbolism,some quite poor, suggests differential enjoyment of the phonic substance oflanguage.

    From the viewpoint of the social system of the group, how does speaking enterinto definition of the roles acquired or observed by children? In what way doesthis determine or reflect how speaking is acquired? How relatively significant isspeaking in aggressive roles, such as that of warrior? of shaman or priest?(Perhaps the role of speaking in interaction with parents will correspond to the

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    role of speaking in interaction w ith enemies or the superna tural.) How dresidence rules, marriage rules, and the like affect the composition of the houshold in which the child learns to speak? In affecting the number and relativages of children, these things affect the rate of mastery of adult patterns; theris evidence that singletons master speech more rapidly, children near the samage less rapidly, twins most slowly. Twins and children near the same age madevelop and rely on their own verbal code vis-a-vis each other. If there multilingualism, are the roles and settings of the languages kept distinct? If s

    the child probably will acquire the languages withou t confusion, but if not, thermay be personality difficulties. Are there situations and roles in which it necessary to translate between two languages? If not, the child may very wemaster each without acquiring ability to do so. Such external factors have mucto do with the effect of multilingualism on personality, including cognitivstructure. In what settings are children required to speak, forbidden, permitted

    ,i What proportion of total behavior settings for the group permit the presencland speaking of children? A Russian visitor to France was astonished when thchildren of his host kept silent