GURT is nationally and internationally recognized as one of the world's star gatherings for scholars in the fields of language and linguistics. In 2001, the best from around the world in the disciplines of anthropological linguistics and discourse analysis meet to present and share the latest research on linguistic analysis and to address real-world contexts in private and public domains. The result is this newest, invaluable 2001 edition of the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics. This volume brings together the plenary speakers only, all leaders in their fields, showcasing discourse contexts that range from medical interactions to political campaigns, from classroom discourse and educational policy to current affairs, and to the importance of everyday family conversations. The contributors expand the boundaries of discourse to include narrative theory, music and language, laughter in conversation, and the ventriloquizing of voices in dialogue.

Frederick Erickson explores the musical basis of language in an elementary school classroom; Wallace Chafe analyzes laughter in conversation. William Labov examines narratives told to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, while Deborah Schiffrin compares multiple accounts of Holocaust narratives, and Alessandro Duranti considers competing speaker and audience interpretations during a political candidate's campaign tour. Robin Lakoff uncovers contrasting narratives shared by different cultural groups with respect to such current events as the O.J. Simpson trial. Deborah Tannen examines the integration of power and connection in family relationships, while Heidi Hamilton considers accounts that diabetic patients give their doctors. Shirley Brice Heath looks at discourse strategies used by policymakers to deny research findings, and G. Richard Tucker and Richard Donato report on a successful bilingual program.

Winner, A Choice Outstanding Academic Book

When the Oakland, California, school board called African American English "Ebonics" and claimed that it "is not a black dialect or any dialect of English," they reignited a debate over language, race, and culture that reaches back to the era of slavery in the United States. In this book, John Baugh, an authority on African American English, sets new parameters for the debate by dissecting and challenging many of the prevailing myths about African American language and its place in American society.

Baugh's inquiry ranges from the origins of African American English among slaves and their descendants to its recent adoption by standard English speakers of various races. Some of the topics he considers include practices and malpractices for educating language minority students, linguistic discrimination in the administration of justice, cross-cultural communication between Blacks and whites, and specific linguistic aspects of African American English. This detailed overview of the main points of debate about African American language will be important reading for both scholars and the concerned public.

In the last three decades the field of endangered and minority languages has evolved rapidly, moving from the initial dire warnings of linguists to a swift increase in the number of organizations, funding programs, and community-based efforts dedicated to documentation, maintenance, and revitalization. Sustaining Linguistic Diversity brings together cutting-edge theoretical and empirical work from leading researchers and practitioners in the field. Together, these contributions provide a state-of-the-art overview of current work in defining, documenting, and developing the world's smaller languages and language varieties.

The book begins by grappling with how we define endangerment—how languages and language varieties are best classified, what the implications of such classifications are, and who should have the final say in making them. The contributors then turn to the documentation and description of endangered languages and focus on best practices, methods and goals in documentation, and on current field reports from around the globe. The latter part of the book analyzes current practices in developing endangered languages and dialects and particular language revitalization efforts and outcomes in specific locations. Concluding with critical calls from leading researchers in the field to consider the human lives at stake, Sustaining Linguistic Diversity reminds scholars, researchers, practitioners, and educators that linguistic diversity can only be sustained in a world where diversity in all its forms is valued.

Narratives are fundamental to our lives: we dream, plan, complain, endorse, entertain, teach, learn, and reminisce through telling stories. They provide hopes, enhance or mitigate disappointments, challenge or support moral order and test out theories of the world at both personal and communal levels. It is because of this deep embedding of narrative in everyday life that its study has become a wide research field including disciplines as diverse as linguistics, literary theory, folklore, clinical psychology, cognitive and developmental psychology, anthropology, sociology, and history.

In Telling Stories leading scholars illustrate how narratives build bridges among language, identity, interaction, society, and culture; and they investigate various settings such as therapeutic and medical encounters, educational environments, politics, media, marketing, and public relations. They analyze a variety of topics from the narrative construction of self and identity to the telling of stories in different media and the roles that small and big life stories play in everyday social interactions and institutions. These new reflections on the theory and analysis of narrative offer the latest tools to researchers in the fields of discourse analysis and sociolinguistics.