Alessandro Duranti is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS1IntroductionThe Place of GrammarThe Political and Moral Dimensions of Grammatical ChoicesGetting to the "Facts"Intertextuality and HeteroglossiaRepresentations of the Social Order ChangeTalk and Conflict: The Relevance of Genre DistinctionsWhat Kind of Pragmatics Is This?A Speech Event Approach2Methods as Forms of LifeField LinguisticsEthnographic LinguisticsIn Search of a MethodThe NSF ProjectResearch Agendas and Acquired Social IdentitiesInterviews, Metalinguistic Awareness, and Native TaxonomiesDiscovering the FonoInterpreting the TextsThe Fa)alupega or Ceremonial Address of FalefaWhat's in a Transcript?Writing Interaction3Hierarchies in the Making: Space, Time, and Speaking in a FonoA Love for Order and Its PermutationsSpaceTemporal BoundariesSpeakingConclusions4Politics and Verbal Art: Heteroglossia in the FonoVariations across ContextsThe Lauga PlanThe Lauga as an Epic GenreFormalized Language and PowerVariations within the FonoConclusions5The Grammar of Agency in Political DiscourseThe Content of Political SpeechmakingGrammatical Structures as Framing DevicesThe Expression of Agency in Samoan GrammarErgative Agents in Fono Discourse: Claims of AccountabilityHuman Agents in the Fono DiscussionMitigated AgencyAgency and PowerConclusions6From Political Arenas to Everyday Settings: The Grammar of Agency across ContextsThe Expression of Agency across Social SituationsIn Search of Fully Expressed AgentsThe Politics of Everyday Interaction I: BlamingThe Politics of Everyday Interaction II: Giving CreditIllocutionary Force of Transitive Clauses with AgentsConclusions7ConclusionsEthnographic LinguisticsConflict and GrammarThe Grammar of Human Agency: From Information Flow to Moral FlowNarrative AccountsSamoan PoliticsAPPENDIX: ABBREVIATIONS IN INTERLINEAR GLOSSESNOTESREFERENCESINDEX