John J. Gumpertz is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.Dell Hymes is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Classic and ground-breaking -- highly influential in the development of sociolinguistics." Peter Trudgill"It's hardly possible to claim to know anything about the field of sociolinguistics without having read the articles in that collection. A number of them are classics in the field, by any standards." Ralph W. Fasold

• Preface. Introduction: John J. Gumperz.Plan of the Book.Part I: Ethnographic Description and Explanation.1. Models of the Interaction of Language and Social Life: Dell Hymes.2. Culture Patterning of Speech Behavior in Burundi: Ethel M. Albert.3. “Struck by Speech”: The Yakan Concept of Litigation: Charles O. Frake.4. The Strategy of Turkish Boys' Verbal Dueling Rhymes, Alan Dundes, Jerry W. Leach, and Bora Özkök.5. Signifying and Marking: Two Afro-American Speech Acts: Claudia Mitchell-Kernan.6. Riddles: Expressive Models of Interrogation: John M. Roberts and Michael L. Forman.Part II: Discovering Structure in Speech.7. On Sociolinguistic Rules: Alternation and Co-occurrence: Susan Ervin-Tripp.8. Context and Alternation in Koya Kinship Terminology: Stephen A. Tyler.9. Social Context and Semantic Feature: The Russian Pronominal Usage: Paul Friedrich.10. Remarks on Ethnomethodology: Harold Garfinkel.11. On the Analyzability of Stories by Children: Harvey Sacks.12. Sequencing in Conversational Openings: Emanuel A. Schegloff.13. A Kinesic-Linguistic Exercise: The Cigarette Scene: Ray L. Birdwhistell.Part III: Genesis, Maintenance, and Change of Linguistic Codes.14. Social Meaning in Linguistic Structures: Code-Switching in Norway: Jan-Petter Blom and John J. Gumperz.15. Domains and the Relationship between Micro- and Macrosociolinguistics: Joshua A. Fishman.16. Ethnic Process on the Pathan-Baluch Boundary: Fredrik Barth.17. A Sociolinguistic Approach to Socialization; with Some Reference to Educability: Basil Bernstein.18. The Stylistic Significance of Consonaantal Sandhi in Trukese and Ponapean: John L. Fischer.19. On the Mechanism of Linguistic Change: William Labov.Appendix I: Background Reading.Appendix II: Outline Guide for the Ethnographic Study of Speech Use: Joel Sherzer and Regna Darnell.Bibliography.Index.