Overview

Over two decades, William Hanks explored the dynamics of verbal interaction, and how speakers and listeners make meaning through language. With equal commitment to theory and empirical description, Hanks's writings combine analyses of linguistic form, speech processes, and sociocultural context. This book brings together papers organized around three central themes that have emerged in Hanks's work: indexicality and referential practices; discourse genres and textuality; and the historical embeddedness of language. Together, they represent the main elements of a synthetic approach to language in context. The linguistic, ethnographic and historical material through which Hanks argues his approach comes from his field research among Maya speakers in Yucatan, Mexico, and from his archival work on the historical development of Maya discourse under Spanish colonial rule.

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9780847687404

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The book certainly deserves a wider circulation as its every chapter could evoke and provoke a vivid discussion. Anthropos

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William F. Hanks, Berkeley Distinguished Chair in Linguistic Anthropology and Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of Language and Communicative Practices and other noted works on language.

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