The Ethnography of Communication presents the terms and concepts which are essential for discussing how and why language is used and how its use varies in different cultures.

• Presents the essential terms and concepts introduced and developed by Dell Hymes and others and surveys the most important findings and applications of their work.
• Draws on insights from social anthropology and psycholinguistics in investigating the patterning of communicative behavior in specific cultural settings.
• Includes two completely new chapters on contrasts in patterns of communication and on politeness, power, and politics.
• Incorporates a broad range of examples and illustrations from many languages and cultures for analyzing patterns of communicative phenomena.

Muriel Saville-Troike is Professor in the Department of English at the University of Arizona. She is author of Bilingual Children (1975), Foundations for Teaching English as a Second Language (1976), A Guide to Culture in the Classroom (1978), and co-editor of Perspectives on Silence (with Deborah Tannen, 1985).