Last update:
9 February 2010
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Language and InteractionDiscussions with John J. Gumperz
2003. xii, 171 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Hardbound
– In stock
978 90 272 2594 8 / EUR 80.00 978 1 58811 304 7 / USD 120.00
e-Book
– Available from e-book platforms
This book features a fascinating and extended focal interview with Professor John J. Gumperz, who ranges over his long career trajectory and reflects on his scientific achievements and how they relate to the contemporary linguistic scene. In this way, the reader is presented with a snapshot introduction to Gumperz's work in a contemporary context.
A number of commentaries provide a stimulating and illuminating series of theoretical and applied encounters with Gumperz's work from different perspectives. In so doing, they shed new light on Gumperz's seminal contribution to the study of language and interaction. In his Response Essay and in a final discussion, Gumperz clarifies his views on many of the topics discussed in the volume, as well as sharing with readers his views on some other approaches to language and interaction that are closely aligned to his own. Sociolinguistics, the ethnographic approach to language, language and social interaction, intercultural communication, communicative conventions, contextualization – these are some of the key terms which Professor John J. Gumperz discusses in this wide ranging and searching interview about his career as an anthropological linguist and sociolinguist interested in cultural diversity and intercultural communication. John J. Gumperz, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, is one of the founders of Sociolinguistics whose early work on speech communities and on the relationship of linguistic to social boundaries helped lay the basis for much current work in the field. Since the 1970s he has concentrated on a theory and methods of discourse analysis that can account for the intrinsic diversity of today’s communicative environments. His publications include: Language in Social Groups (1962); Ethnography of Communication (1964) and Directions in Sociolinguistics (1972/2002), both coedited with Dell Hymes; Discourse Strategies (1982); Language and Social Identity (1982); and Rethinking Linguistic Relativity (1996), coedited with Steven Levinson. He is currently working on a collection of studies New Ethnographies of Communication (coedited with Marco Jacquemet); and Language in Social Theory.
Table of contents
“The volume manages to overview in detail the trajectory and horizons of John J. Gumperz's research, diachronically and synchronically, within the framework of his fields of interest and focusing on some of his key issues. Interrelation and interaction thematically and structurally tie together the different contributions collected, with the protagonists repeatedly recalling and re-elaborating concepts, ideas, terms. Certainly it adds to the multifaceted, actual and productive applications and directions of Gumperz's approach and methods”
Giampaolo Poletto, University of Pécs, Hungary, on Linguist List Vol. 14-1634 (Juny 2003)
“This is the right book for anyone interested in Gumperz and his approach to language in interaction.”
“The interactive nature of the contributions to this book and its 'over time' perspective are its strengths. Both give readers insights into how and why the ideas have developed, and how issues can be addressed from different perspectives. In that sense, it is a very useful contribution to the literature on language and interaction, and particularly on IS.”
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Communication Studies