This book argues for an approach to linguistic ethnography which departs from the singular gaze of the academic researcher, to amplify instead the voices of participants, researchers and collaborators. The authors offer an account of writing ethnography polyphonically, incorporating the complexity of individual voices. In doing so they challenge the imperative to make meaning from, and explain the culture of, ‘the other’. Together, the essays open up the emic perspective by considering the experiential, aesthetic, emotional, moral and ethical value people bring to encounters with others. The book is an essential addition to research methods courses in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, and an invaluable contribution to knowledge about research-based drama, theatre and creative practice.

The collection demonstrates the ways in which established traditions and scholars have come together under the umbrella of linguistic ethnography to explore important questions about how language and communication are used in a range of settings and contexts, and with what effect.

Anthropology and linguistics, as historically developing disciplines, have had partly separate roots and traditions. In particular settings and in general, the two disciplines have partly shared, partly differed in the nature of their materials, their favorite types of problem the personalities of their dominant figures, their relations with other disciplines and intellectual current. The two disciplines have also varied in their interrelation with each other and the society about them. Institutional arrangements have reflected the varying degrees of kinship, kithship, and separation. Such relationships themselves form a topic that is central to a history of linguistic anthropology yet marginal to a self-contained history of linguistics or anthropology as either would be conceived by most authors. There exists not only a subject matter for a history of linguistic anthropology, but also a definite need.

Seven essays, collected here for the first time, define some of the central concerns of linguistic anthropology through the close study of Western Apache, a language of astonishing complexity. All of the essays have been revised for this anthology. Basso, a major authority in the field of linguistic anthropology, has drawn on fieldwork at the village of Cibecue, whose residents speak a dialect of Western Apache that is spoken nowhere else. He shows how intricacies of language—place names, metaphor, uses of silence—help a people define their very existence, so that, in the words of one Apache woman, "If we lose our language, we will lose our breath; then we will die and blow away like leaves." His essays amply demonstrate that, while Apache language and culture are changing in response to modernization, they remain intricate, vital and unique. These essays illustrate not only the complexity of a particular cultural world as it has emerged to one observer over a protracted period of intensive fieldwork, but also the natural movement from the study of grammatical categories to that of language use and on to the study of the conceptual system underlying it. Each essay addresses a significant theoretical problem; taken together they constitute a microcosm of the anthropological understanding of language. CONTENTS The Western Apache Classificatory Verb System: A Semantic Analysis Semantic Aspects of Linguistic Acculturation A Western Apache Writing System: The Symbols of Silas John "Wise Words" of the Western Apache: Metaphor and Semantic Theory "To Give Up on Words": Silence in Western Apache Culture "Stalking With Stories": Names, Places, and Moral Narratives among the Western Apache "Speaking with Names": Language and Landscapes among the Western Apache

Eight essays in ethnolinguistics were compiled for this monograph. "Functions of Speech: An Evolutionary Approach" represents an introduction to the application of linguistic knowledge to the historical and sociological study of peoples. "Speech and Language: On the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Speakers" expands on the theme of diversity, inequality, and evolution, with discussions of writing and of the views of Bernstein and Jurgen Habermas. "Qualitative/Quantitative Research Methodologies in Education: A Linguistic Perspective" addresses the development of linguistics. The three middle chapters, "What Is Ethnography?""Ethnographic Monitoring," and "Educational Ethnology," are concerned in complementary ways with what counts as legitimate knowledge and who is counted as entitled to know. The status of narrative as a form of knowledge is addressed in "Narrative Thinking and Story-Telling Rights: A Folklorist's Clue to a Critique of Education" (with Courtney Cazden). The final chapter, "Language in Education: Forward to Fundamentals" weaves together many of the themes of the book, expressing a concern that an ethnographic or ethnolinguistic perspective not be trivialized and vulgarized. (JB)

This collection of work addresses the contribution that ethnography and linguistics make to education, and the contribution that research in education makes to anthropology and linguistics.; The first section of the book pinpoints characteristics of anthropology that most make a difference to research in education. The second section describes the perspective that is needed if the study of language is to contribute adequately to problems of education and inequality. Finally, the third section takes up discoveries about narrative, which show that young people's narratives may have a depth of form and skill that has gone largely unrecognized.