Alessandro Duranti, Linguistic anthropology. (Cambridge textbooks in linguistics.) Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xxi, 398. Hb $59.95, pb $19.95.

Abstract

This new textbook has upper-level undergraduate and graduate students for a focal audience. But as Duranti makes clear in his preface and first chapter, he aims neither at a synoptic presentation of the field's major paradigms, nor at a comprehensive review of its interdisciplinary significances. Duranti's selective foregrounding of topics and linkages makes for only a partial fit between this book's substance and the expectation of a “textbook treatment” which its title might raise. His purpose is instead to present the first accessible, generalized treatment of (culturally contextualized) conversation analysis at the juncture of ethnography and formal language description. As such, it is a welcome addition to the pedagogic literature.