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Hymes is one of the founding sociolinguists like Erving Goffman, John Gumperz and Susan Ervin-Tripp, who grounded their work in the Sapirian tradition, but expanded their concerns with language beyond description. The generational shift from descriptive linguistics into sociolinguistics was contemporaneous with the Chomskyan shift to Transformational-generative Grammar. The sociolinguistics movement expressed continuity with prior generations of scholars, in contrast to the acrimony surrounding transformational grammarians’ split with structural linguistics. Hymes was particularly critical of Chomsky’s idea of linguistic competence and his failure to account for linguistic variation. According to Hymes (1972), we do more than construct grammatically possible linguistic utterances, and, ungrammatical utterances may be socially appropriate, just as grammatical utterances can be socially inappropriate.

The Ethnography of Communication

Hymes is best known for his founding role in the ethnography of communication. He proposed the term ‘ethnography of speaking’. But later he amended it to ‘ethnography of communication’. It was a new approach to understanding language in use (Hymes, 1962, 1964). Ethnographies of communication must ‘discover and explicate the competence that enables members of a community to conduct and interpret speech’ (Hymes, 1972). The exploration and documentation of communicative competence within a speech community is the essence of the ethnography of communication. As a means to this end, Hymes defines the social units and units of analysis for ethnographies of communication.

We need to understand means of human communication. These means involve movement of the hands, body, and facial muscles. Ways of communicating include but are not limited to: talking, signing, writing, gesturing, using facial expressions, drawing pictures, proximity, wearing perfume, assuming certain postures, and many other ways.

Nonlinguistic communication may be conventional orspontaneous. Conventional nonlinguistic means =G estures incomprehensible to the unlimited, usually stipulated beforehand and sometimes codified into rules of usage.

Spontaneous gestures are divided into four groups:

1. pointing gestures,
2. gestures that convey or reveal emotions
3. emphatic gestures,
4. rhythmical gestures

Gestures are not universal and are unique to a given language group. For example, sticking out tongue stands for teasing by Europeans, a threat among the Chinese, anger in India and wisdom in Ancient Maya. Nonlinguistic means of communication may accompany ordinary speech.

Paralinguistic communication is the study of voice and how words are said. Paralinguistic signals and cues refer to every element and nuance of your speech. It is the study of vocal and sometimes non-vocal signals beyond the basic verbal message or speech. It also known as vocalics. Paralinguistics sets great store on how something is said, not on what is said. It includes speech characteristics falling outside of the spoken word. It can modify the meaning behind words. It includes:

• accent • pitch • volume • speech rate, • modulation • fluency

Hymes is a major figure in ethnography of speaking. He expanded concerns about language study beyond description. According to him it is the analysis of communication within the wider context of the social and cultural practices and beliefs of the members of a particular culture or speech community. A church sermon is an example

of a complete social event which involves the following:

• Speaker • Listener • Message • Channel • Register • Underlined complex set of socially recognized rules • Breaches if normal conditions of sermon

Brown and Levinson outline four main types of politeness strategies: bald on-record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record (indirect) as well as simply not using the face-threatening act. Politeness strategies help in effective social interaction.

Politeness strategy: Bald on-record

Does nothing to reduce the threat to the hearer's face and is therefore used in close relationships or when information needs to be shared quickly.

• Urgency or desperation • When efficiency is necessary • Task-oriented • Little or no desire to maintain someone's face • Doing the face-threatening act is in the interest of the hearer • Situations where the threat is minimized implicitly • Welcomes • Offers
•  Use examples
• Watch out! • Don't forget to clean the blinds! • Your headlights are on! • Come in • Leave it, I'll clean it up later. • Eat!

Politeness strategy: Positive politeness

To make the hearer feel a sense of closeness and belonging

• Attend to the hearer's interests, needs, wants • Use solidarity in-group identity markers • Be optimistic • Include both speaker (S) and hearer (H) in activity • Offer or promise • Exaggerate interest in H and his interests • Avoid Disagreement • Joke
•  Use examples
• You look sad. Can I do anything? • Heh, mate, can you lend me a dollar? • I'll just come along, if you don't mind. • If we help each other, I guess, we'll both sink or swim. • If you wash the dishes, I'll vacuum the floor. • That's a nice haircut you got; where did you get it? • Yes, it's rather long; not short certainly.

Politeness strategy: Negative politeness

•  Explanation: Is used as a way to interact with the hearer in a non-imposing way.
• Be indirect • Use hedges or questions • Be pessimistic • Minimize the imposition • Apologetic • Use plural pronouns
•  Use examples
• Would you know where Oxford Street is? • Perhaps, he might have taken it, maybe. • Could you please pass the rice? • So I suppose some help is out of the question, then? • It's not too much out of your way, just a couple of blocks. • I hope offense will not be taken. • Visitors sign the ledger. • Spitting will not be tolerated. • We regret to inform you.

Politeness strategy: Off-record (indirect)

Is used to completely remove the speaker from any potential to impose on the hearer and only alludes to the speaker's idea or specific request.

•  Situation of use • Relies on implication
•  Use examples • Wow, it's getting cold in here.