The Ethnography of Speaking

The ethnography of speaking has had a relatively brief history as a named field of inquiry, dating back only to 1962 and the appearance of Dell Hymes' seminal essay, The Ethnography of Speaking (66). As with any such field of inquiry, however, many precursors can be identified, together with much work that is complementary to or convergent with the ethnography of speaking itself. For the purposes of this review, we have construed the field as narrowly as possible , drawing upon related work where useful or necessary, but maintaining the distinctiveness of the ethnography of speaking as a field of research. We will first attempt to identify the nature and source of this distinctiveness, both by contrasting the approach of the ethnography of speaking to those of related lines of inquiry within linguistic anthropology and by specifying the particular underlying concerns of the ethnography of speaking itself. We will then proceed to a brief history of the field between 1962 and the present. The most extensive section of the review will attempt to delineate the specific range of problems that have developed as the principal concerns of the ethnography of speaking during the years since its inception. Finally, we will suggest what appear to be emerging as future directions for the field.