"Now I know only so far":Dell H. Hymes

nanwan

a well-known Linguistic Anthropologist,
the founder of Ethnography of Speaking,
the leading professor of Ethnopoetics,

Dell H. Hymes
1927 -

Dell Hymes was born in 1927 in Portland, Oregon. In 1950, he graduated from Reed College and earned his Ph.D. five years later from Indiana University. After obtaining his doctorate, he taught at Harvard University (1955-60) and the University of California at Berkeley (1960-65). He then joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1972 he joined the Department of Folklore and Folklife, and in 1975 became Dean of the Graduate School of Education. (Throughout this period he was a member of the Graduate Group in Linguistics). He then became Professor of Anthropology and English at the University of Virginia, teaching classes inlinguistic anthropology, Native American mythology, ethnopoetics, and Native American poetry.

As the author of several books related to anthropology, his most notable books include Language in Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology (1964) and Reinventing Anthropology (1972). The Language in Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology book was used at many universities in order to teach classes on linguistics and culture in anthropology. Unfortunately, it isn't used anymore because it is currently out of print. His book entitled Reinventing Anthropology, is an edited collection of essays. This book was basically used as a persuasive book to create a bond between anthropologists.

Dell Hymes developed a mnemonic device to describe the elements that make up any speech. He referred to this as the SPEAKING model and the parts are as follows:

S - Setting and Scene - The setting refers to the time and place while scene describes the environment of the situation.

P - Participants - This refers to who is involved in the speech including the speaker and the audience.

E - Ends - The purpose and goals of the speech along with any outcomes of the speech.

A - Act Sequence - The order of events that took place during the speech.

K - Key - The overall tone or manner of the speech.

I - Instrumentalities - The form and style of the speech being given.

N - Norms - Defines what is socially acceptable at the event.

G - Genre - The type of speech that is being given.

Each one of these can be applied to every speech. One may not focus on all of them in a written document but it provides some structure. Hymes uses his knowledge of anthropology, linguistics, and ethnography in working with verbal traditions and languages of Oregon and Washington. Dell H. Hymes is currently a commonwealth Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus at the University of Virginia.

Resources
Picture courtesy of Dell Hymes.

Correspondence with Dell Hymes.

"Dell H. Hymes." Department of Anthropology at the University of Virginia. http://www.virginia.edu/~anthro/dhymes.html. 27 Feb. 2001.

"Dell Hymes." Biography.com. http://www.biography.com/cgi-bin/biomain.cgi. 27 Feb. 2001.

"Dell Hymes' SPEAKING Mnemonic." Appalachian State University. http://www1.appstate.edu/~mcgowant/2100hymes.htm. 28 Feb. 2001.

"Reinventing Anthropology." Barnes and Noble. (27 Feb. 2001) http://www.bn.com. 27 Feb 2001.

Written by Greg Gaalswyk

http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/bio/fghij/hymes_dell.html

nanwan

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Dell H. Hymes
Commonwealth Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus
Ph.D. Indiana University 1955


from Prof. Hymes:

I never know what to say when someone asks what I have done and do. So much of it has depended and depends on circumstances. I have never done anything I would myself describe as theoretical or ethnographic (in a strict sense of either term), although I have often written about ideas, and spent a fair amount of time hanging around Indians. I am interested in what is done in the study of the use of language, oral narrative and poetry, the history of anthropology and linguistics, Native Americans, theology.

Increasingly I have been focussing on the analysis of oral narratives, bringing out what turns out to be organization in terms of lines and groups of lines, verses and stanzas, in effect, not paragraphs. The entry for 'Poetry' in the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9(1-2): 191-3 (2000) addresses this. Such interpretation has proven valuable to members of Native American communities from which such texts have come. But I have also provided a new introduction, somewhat autobiographical, for Reinventing Anthropology, recently reprinted.

What's interesting is real work. I am always interested in combating elitism and narrowness and the playing of 'Western mind games' (as one friend once put it) at the expense of the rest of the world. The justification for the existence of anthropology is to find out about the world, not produce third-rate philosophers. Two vital issues for the field are (a) to ensure that anthropologists are the knowledgeable peers of members of any other discipline concerned with peoples and topics anthropologists study and (b) to justify scholarship in its relation to the interests and abilities of others.

Specializations
I still know something about the history of anthropology and of linguistics, and ethnography of speaking, but am actively concerned mostly with verbal traditions and languages of Oregon and Washington. (Other cases come up, as recently Wintu (Loon Woman), Mohave (Kroeber's texts), Saami ('Lapp'), and characteristics of oral epic (because of gatherings at Turku)).

Courses
Before retirement, I taught Linguistic Anthropology, Native American Mythology, Ethno-poetics, Native American Poetry (in Anthropology/ English).

Selected Publications
2003 - Now I know only so far. Essays in Ethnopoetics. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press
1997 - Ethnography, Linguistics, Inequality: Essays in Education, 1978-1994. London: Taylor & Francis (now Routledge).
1984 - Vers la competence de communication. (Translated by France Mugler). Paris: Hatier-Credif.
1983 - Studies in the History of Linguistic Anthropology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
1981 - In Vain I Tried To Tell You. Essays in Native American Ethno-poetics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
1974 - Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
1972 - (founder) Language in Society. Cambridge University Press.
1972 - (editor). Reinventing Anthropology. New York: Pantheon.
1964 - Language in Culture and Society. New York: Harper and Row.
1964 - (with J. Gumperz, eds.). The Ethnography of Communication. American Anthropologist 66:6, Part 2.

http://www.virginia.edu/anthropology/dhymes.html

nanwan

Dell Hymes Model of Speaking

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Dell Hymes Model of Speaking is a linguistic model developed by Dell Hymes in which it is stated that in order to speak a language correctly, one does not only need to learn its vocabulary and grammar, but also the context in which words are used. In the speaking model the following aspects of the linguistic situation are considered:


Setting and Scene
"Setting refers to the time and place of a speech act and, in general, to the physical circumstances" (Hymes 55).The living room in the grandparents' home might be a setting for a family story. Scene is the "psychological setting" or "cultural definition" of a scene, including characteristics such as range of formality and sense of play or seriousness (Hymes 55-56). The family story may be told at a reunion celebrating the grandparents' anniversary. At times, the family would be festive and playful; at other times, serious and commemorative.


Participants
Speaker and audience. Linguists will make distinctions within these categories; for example, the audience can be distinguished as addressees and other hearers (Hymes 54 & 56). At the family reunion, an aunt might tell a story to the young female relatives, but males, although not addressed, might also hear the narrative.


Ends
Purposes, goals, and outcomes (Hymes 56-57). The aunt may tell a story about the grandmother to entertain the audience, teach the young women, and honor the grandmother.


Act Sequence
Form and order of the event. The aunt's story might begin as a response to a toast to the grandmother. The story's plot and development would have a sequence structured by the aunt. Possibly there would be a collaborative interruption during the telling. Finally, the group might applaud the tale and move onto another subject or activity.


Key
Cues that establish the "tone, manner, or spirit" of the speech act (Hymes 57). The aunt might imitate the grandmother's voice and gestures in a playful way, or she might address the group in a serious voice emphasing the sincerity and respect of the praise the story expresses.


Instrumentalities
Forms and styles of speech (Hymes 58-60). The aunt might speak in a casual register with many dialect features or might use a more formal register and careful grammatical "standard" forms.


Norms
Social rules governing the event and the participants' actions and reaction. In a playful story by the aunt, the norms might allow many audience interruptions and collaboration, or possibly those interruptions might be limited to participation by older females. A serious, formal story by the aunt might call for attention to her and no interruptions as norms.


Genre
The kind of speech act or event; for our course, the kind of story. The aunt might tell a character anecdote about the grandmother for entertainment, or an exemplum as moral instruction. Different disciplines develop terms for kinds of speech acts, and speech communities sometimes have their own terms for types.


Conclusion
These eight terms (which together spell SPEAKING) can be applied to many kinds of discourse. Sometimes in a written discussion using this modell, one might emphasize only two or three of the letters of the mnemonic. The model provides a structure for perceiving and addressing components.


Work Cited
Hymes, Dell. Foundations of Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1974.


http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Hymes_Model_of_Speaking