Examines the problem posed to ethnographic research on speech communication by the traditional distinction between text and context as figure versus ground, or as hierarchical organization of focal events, or as phenomena within which those events are embedded. An ethnographic perspective on discourse within which text and context form an…

Discusses resonances and basic issues of the four language and social interaction divisions of the National Communication Association and the International Communication Association: Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis, Microanalysis, and the Ethnography of Speaking (EM-CA-MA-ES). (Author/VWL)

Provides examples illustrating that the study of technologically-mediated communication, if approached from an ethnographic perspective, draws attention to old questions of interactional patterning in what may be radically new contexts of communication. Notes a central issue to be explored, that of the implications of formulating the notion of…

Describes a partially ethnographic study of written discourse based on texts produced on three floors of an academic building, each containing a different academic community. It is proposed that such an approach can be used to study text-community associations, explore inhabitants' textual careers, piece together group-specific sets and systems of…

Selected results from an ethnographic study of communication in an American Pacific Northwest church community are presented. The case illustrates patterns in the selection of linguistic options of personal address and that personal address choice is influenced by such factors as context, public/private meanings, and interlocutor beliefs.…