Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach by Dell Hymes Review by: John W. M. Verhaar Language in Society, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Dec.

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LANGUAGE IN SOCIETY DELL HYMES, Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974. PP. X+245.

This is not a linguistic book about language, but a language book about linguistics. Many will find it refreshing; this reviewer has found it so. Others may find it irrelevant. The book's reception may well lead one to distinguish two almost different 'cultures' in academe, depending upon what the reactions will be. The book is an appeal rather than a series of arguments (which is what it is also), and I will react to it in kind. The work is a collection of papers, a number of them revised to suit the book's unity, with cross references supplied. It may be called new in that very few of its readership will have read selectively enough before to have absorbed the basic unity that underlies it. There is plenty to absorb. The author's objective is no less than a review of the greater part of linguistics to comprise communicative dimensions. There is a great deal of material from a variety of languages to illustrate the need for such a new orientation. The new linguistics is called 'sociolinguistics', but that name has a temporary function only: 'The final goal of sociolinguistics, I think, must be to preside over its own liquidation' (p. 206). Eventually the name of the game is to be just 'linguistics'. But what passes for linguistics now is still a long way from attaining the end it is destined for. Rather than a 'structural' linguistics we want a 'functional' science of language, in which social dimensions figure fully. 'Sociolinguistics', therefore, is to Hymes as redundant a term as it has always been for (say) Labov. The 'functional' issue is not that of the language 'functions' of the beginning of this century (Wundt, Marty, Bolzano, Husserl, Paulhan, Horn) or of the (Karl) Buhler period (with Reichling, Dempe, Stern, Duyker, Langeveld, Kainz, Ipsen, Gardiner, Stutterheim and Verburg): all that was for the most part theory building, much of it philosophical, little of it inspired by experience in the field, even though much of it good. Hymes' functionalism is more of an effort to make linguistics relevant to present-day social problems, to get away from the multifarious ways of bias (of class and race especially), to contribute to a better human community, to end campus isolation from life in its numerous unacademic forms, to bring theory back to life. The book manifests great ethical concern, and links shortcomings of present-day 'structuralism' to many others that would not as easily occur to many other linguists and might surprise some: the book is not only an attempt at holistic views theoretically speaking but also an effort to link theory and praxis. Not surprisingly, the author's personal involvement is evident on almost every page, and his book is in part his scholarly autobiography questioning the state of the art, a point he himself acknowledges (p. ix). Hymes' book centers around three claims: language description should include 'the organization of communicative conduct in a community' (this roughly 352

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providesthe basis for that approachin sociolinguisticsthat Hymes calls 'ethnographic');the study of languagemust be interdisciplinary;and thus the foundations of linguisticsitself becomeclearer(pp. vii-viii). The firstleadsto the second, the second to the third claim. Each of them is more especially dealt with in one section (Chapters i and 2 for the first, 3 through 7 for the second, 8 through lO for the third). There is, however, considerable overlap, and Hymes wrestles with all three problems throughoutthe book. way alreadysuggested, and I want to makemy commentsin the 'participatory' focus attention on a few points which are perhaps of special interest. Hymes distinguishes between 'structural' (I) The problemof 'structuralism'. and 'functional'linguistics, between speech as 'form' and speech as 'function' or 'use'. But he has widened the term 'structural' to comprise also pOst-I957 linguistics (most of Hymes' references are to Chomsky) on the ground that Chomsky has not escaped from earlier pre-occupationwith form even though now 'structural' linguistics has become 'semanticized' and has developed priorityinterestsin languageuniversals(p. 79). The continuity between Bloomis indeed all too rarelynoted. I would agreethat fieldianismand Chomskyianism but has merely 'mentalized' Chomskyhas not really overcomeBloomfieldianism it. This is admittedly a noteworthy change but it is not as drastic as it is often stated. One might say (in the words of Dik (I969)) that Chomskyneeds a deep structure ultimately because his surface structure is still Bloomfieldian,except that surface structure has been promoted to become the object of native intuitive judgment as to wellformedness (this judgment, incidentally, becomes progressively affected academically in proportion as the native ascends the mentalistic ladder; 'you can say this' and 'you can't say that' increasinglylook like theoreticalexcuses for what should really read 'you can think this' and 'you cannot think this'). Surface structure is not the locus of any meaning unless derivatively from deep structure, which is itself abstract and inaccessible to experiential interpretation. Thus what is experiential becomes an arbitrary form, while what is supposed to be essential and meaningful language-particular in its own right cannot be interpretedon the basis of experience. All this has obviously a great deal to do with languageconsideredmerely as form. If mentalistic structuralism is not too far removed from its behavioristic analogue, then the inverse must be true also. Consider the following quote: 'A grammaticaldescription [...] sets forth principles by which one can generate any number of utterances in the language; in this sense, it is operationally comparableto the structure of that portion of a human being which enables him to produce utterancesin a language. [. . .] A grammaticaldescription is an operationalparallelto part of a speaker'sinternal apparatus.'Does not this look like the phrase of a beginning generativistwho has not yet gotten rid of some telltale terms of behaviorism?In fact here we have a behaviorist anticipating 353

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mentalistic structuralism:Hockett I954 (Joos I963: 390). I may add that the quote discusses IA vs. IP, even though IP is obviously closer to Chomskyian linguistics, but then we should recognize that generative practice to equate 'generates'with 'consists of' looks like IA ratherthan like IP. The development from behaviorismto mentalism may have to be drasticallyre-evaluated. This last theoretical slip of the tongue cannot, presumably,be held against Chomsky.But the issue raisedby Hymes is wider than Chomsky'sposition. The number of generativists capable of theoretical argumentationof the level of Chomskyis so small that it may almost be called negligible. A numberof introductions into mentalistic linguistics, after rather ritualistic expositions of the well-known theoretico-philosophical principles of rationalismas applied to the study of language, appear to be uncomfortablyclose to just pencil-and-paper exercises in discovery procedures.This fact has been noted by Traugott (1970: 566) for Koutsoudas I966, but it is rather common. Traugott herself feels her comment to this effect may sound 'churlish', and so it may affectmany, but it is as obviously to the point as it is infrequentlynoted. I do not know if Hymes would agree to all of the above comments, but he is himself somewhat ambivalentin regard to mentalistic linguistics. He certainly rejects what he regardsas Chomsky'suse of Skinner as a whipping boy for all basedon languageuse (p. 147: 'most linguistsshould be sophisticated approaches enough not to be misled by such tactics'), but this is one of the few blunt passages in a tolerant book, and more commonly his position is that in principle one may accept Chomsky's 'explanatoryadequacy'in so far as it is 'essential', providedone supplementsit with the 'explanatoryadequacy'that is 'existential' or 'experiential'(pp. 41; 65; I70). But then his objectionsgo deeper: 'the voice [of Chomsky] is the voice of humanism, the hand, one fears, is the hand of mechanism' (p. 147). Interestingly, here we see Hymes tentatively shielding Skinner and hesitatingly accusing Chomskyof Skinnerianism.To me this confirms the theoretical point made above that no black-white choice between behaviorismand mentalismcan ultimately be possible, least of all to those who, like Hymes, would like to reject both on the basis of similaritiesbetween them. But can Hymes' charge of 'mechanism'be upheld? As Chomsky understands 'mechanism' (roughly: freedom from outside stimulus control),he is definitelynot a 'mechanist'.He has, however,nevertaken a stand on physicalism. To Chomsky, physicalistic explanations of language cannot really be distinct from mentalistic explanationsunless 'for a very uninterestingterminological reason,namelythatthe conceptof "physicalexplanation" will no doubt be extended [in future research]to incorporatewhateveris discovered in this domain [i.e. of language],exactly as it was extended to accommodategravitational and electromagnetic force, masslessparticles,and numerous other entities and processes that would have offended the common sense of earlier generations'(Chomsky I972: 98). In other words, by the time physical

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explanations of natural language are perfect enough to be matched with the grammar,they will mentalistic formulasthat have begun with transformational be perfect because they are abstract(and thereforeas counter- or non-intuitive as some theories in post-Newtonian physics). This Platonistic approach is, too obviously to be ignored, 'mechanistic'in its equationof physics and the science of man. I was once irreverentenough to say that '[the rationalistictheorist] as a mentalist [...] is a mechanic of the mind, ultimately, because he has the mind of a mechanic' (Verhaar'973; 365), and that, I like to think, is close to Hymes' objections.As to Chomsky'sreactionsto Skinner,that is perhapsrathera different matter. Chomsky does convincingly demolish many of Skinner's sloppy argumentations,and I feel that the considerableasperity with which he does so is due to oppositionto Skinneras a I984-ideologue ratherthan to anything else. The problem of 'structural'linguistics is basicallyone of formalism.Formalization in linguistics is obviously to a certain extent necessary,but only as a tool where nonformal phrasings would be either too imprecise or too cumbrous. Present-day linguistics is definitely in Chomsky's (and others') debt in having learned how this tool may be used. If, then, Hymes feels that 'formalismmay foreclose too soon' (p. 102), that is perhapsbecause of that strange rationalistic propensity to mistake tool for target. 'Linguists', says Hymes, 'have abstracted of 'sociolinguistics'. (2) The problem from the content of speech, social scientists from its form, and both from the patternof its use' (p. I26). Linguistics will have to change to the point where it 'finds itself on the thresholdof a sociolinguisticconception of self' (p. I72). The candidatefor this change of heart is the linguist ratherthan the sociologist, for he would of course have to be competent in linguistics, and the qualification 'socio-' ought to be redundantanyway. Sociology for him is to be an auxiliary discipline ratherthan an equal partnerin a two-discipline team effort: 'Bloomfield's view that the progress of semantics requiredscientific analysis of everything denotable has been recognized as mistaken. [...] It is equally mistaken to think that sociolinguistic descriptionmust wait upon, or immediatelyentail, a complete sociology' (p. 173). I feel it is a point of importancethat Hymes places the emphasison the communicativedimensionof speech ratherthan on a 'situational'one. Even granted that between the communicativeand situationaldimensions of speech there are considerableoverlaps,the matteris not merely one of terminology.I do not want to belabor my own conception of (what I call) the 'situationalcomponent' in (what I call) the 'speech act' (see Verhaar 1973 and Verhaarforthcoming),and insteadlet me take off from Hymes' conceptionof what is involved in an example he himself gives (p. si): a speech situation may be a party, the speech event would be conversationduring the party, and a speech act therein might be a joke during that conversation:three concentriccircles, as it were (from large to 355

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small in the above order).To me the 'situation'is anything,any utterancein any speech act in the conversationis relatedto outside the utterance.This does contain a great deal of the communicativedimension in Hymes' approach,but it does not comprise all of that, while it does comprise a number of other things. An obvious part of the 'situation' is all that the utterancein question is about. Hymes' 'situation' would be my 'setting'. While situational relationships are largely related to what is semantic in the utterance (this is very much what Hymes calls 'referential',p. 146), setting elements relate to use ratherthan to meaning, and these are particularlyrelevant for the kind of stylistic analysis Hymes advocates(see Verhaar1973, e.g. on metaphorand metonym). My impressionis that Hymes' use of 'referential'(p. 146) is ratherexclusively
'idealized', or 'intensional' (p. I46, note 2), or 'semanticized' (p. 79), and he rejects that notion. I agree that that notion is basically not interesting for linguistics and reflects the mentalist's propensity always to look for the essence of something in its idealized form (epistemologically, in its mental counterpart): the Platonistic addiction that appears to be ineradicable in our own culture (on this see Verhaar forthcoming, with examples from natural language, i.e. from English). 'Referentiality' (or 'situation-relatedness' as I prefer to call it to cover more than referentiality alone) need not, indeed cannot, become 'intensional', as also it need not become the naive realism that Bloomfield's 'semantics' suffered from either. I can illustrate my point by a variation upon Hymes' claim that '[ ...] any analysis that requires social features in the context of forms is evidence of the needfor a prior analysis of the socialfeatures' (p. 155; emphasis Hymes'), by substituting 'situational' for 'social', and the claim would be equally true (without prejudice, for the moment, as to how 'prior' should be understood). Both are needed: the social as well as the situational dimension. If 'structural' linguistics has 'semanticized' referentiality, must we now 'sociologize' it? I would even want to salvage part of the 'structuralist' approach to utterance analysis. True, referentiality has been 'semanticized' in mentalism. But to reject such Platonic reductionism is not to reject an examination of how far the utterance level has a certain autonomy in the entire speech act (my term) or situation (Hymes'). Utterances have an autonomy that the linguist must maintain 'prior' to any social research (which may otherwise well be necessary to complete the theory): hence my reservation about how 'prior' should be understood a moment ago. (Hymes' view on this point is discussed in relation to Bloomfield's example of the beggar and child who each say, 'I'm hungry'; see also Silverstein I972: 365.) Now, I would say that situational analysis is necessary for intra-utterance analysis (for reasons I cannot go into now; see Verhaar (forthcoming) in regard to situational analysis as necessary for subject-predicate analysis), alongside of the kind of communicative analysis that Hymes advocates. The 'setting' (in my sense) will be subject to analysis also when translating stylistic theories into linguistic ones.
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One encouraging perspective for socio(3) The promiseof 'sociolinguistics'. linguistics in Hymes' sense is the simple fact that so many linguists want to go in for it. This is a social fact that cannot be discounted. One does not frequently see scholars shift positions on principle with a full account as to why precisely the shift took place. Impatiencewith formalismis an obvious point, but it does not explain how the impatiencearose. Social concern does not fully explain such shifts either, for many formalists are dedicated to social causes, even to the point of great courageand evident unselfishness.Perhapswe should not so much look for signs of the wish to be relevantto human problems today as for an attitude that wants integration of social concern in scholarlytheory itself.'In the I969 'Postscript' to his celebrated The structureof scientificrevolutions, Kuhn
(I970: 174-2IO)

betweena 'theory'and a 'disciplinary distinguishes matrix':

the latter is called 'disciplinary'because 'it refers to the common possession of the practitionersof a particulardiscipline', and 'matrix'because 'it is composed of ordered elements of various sorts, each requiring further specialization' (Kuhn 1970: i82). A disciplinarymatrix is wider than a theory (many theories are possible within it), but it shares components, of which Kuhn names three: 'symbolic generalizations' (the unifying power socially goes beyond their scientific merit); the 'metaphysicalparadigms'of the 'metaphysicalparts of paradigm' (i.e. shared commitments to certain beliefs, supplying the group, for example, with 'permissible analogies and metaphors'); and, lastly, 'values', such as that 'science should (or need not) be socially useful' (Kuhn 1970: i82-5). The disciplinarymatrix of sociolinguistics in Hymes' sense is so open-ended that one could not now predict where in the future it could break down (as no doubt sooner or later it will, in favor of the quest for a new paradigm),and in this it contrastssharply with the predictabilityof 'structuralist'reaction to the book under review. If for simplicity's sake I may call all three of Kuhn's components of the disciplinarymatrixjust 'values', then I believe they may be described as follows, in contrast to the disciplinarymatrix of structuralism(and for simplicity's sake indicating them by the names of Hymes and Chomsky). One value is the acceptance (Chomsky) and rejection (Hymes) of the nonintuitive and counter-intuitive.Hymes does not use the term 'counter-intuitive' often, once in fact in relationto McCawley ratherthan to Chomsky(ioi), but I believe he would apply it to Chomsky as well. Acceptance of the counterintuitive is based on an idea of what science must be like ideally (and idealistically, its rejectionwe find in the name of humanity. If Hymes is convinced that including communicativedimensions makes linguistics gain in intuitive value, one wonders if Chomsky'sfailureto take accountof such (and of the situational) dimensions of speech is not related to his idea of human freedom as in principle imperviousto outside control; inversely Hymes' rejectionof Chomsky's'Psychology and Ideology' (Hymes p. 92 and passim), with its total condemnation of Skinnerianism, cannot be based on any love on Hymes' part for Skinner's 357

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theories for their own sake. Also, Hymes calls his approach 'Herderian' in contrastto Chomsky'sas 'Cartesian',noting that he does not use these labels as merely historical labels (p. 120). The Cartesianmodel affirmspriority of the mind over experience, the Herderian holds priority of experience over the mind. Consideringall this, does Hymes' approachhold more promise than Chomsky's?I am convinced it does. I would considerChomsky'sapproachas basically roundedoff and not capableof any surprisingdevelopmentswithin the model it represents(though a crisis of the model may well lead to something strikingly new). One could check this in certain key notions, such as those of competence and performance(analysed in detail by Hymes, pp. 92-7), as well as in less centralconceptionssuch as those of noun and verb with their language-universal claims as implied in their inclusion in the categorialsubcomponentof the base of a generativegrammar.Word classes have never progressedmuch beyond their origins in Stoic philosophy of language, and recent innovations of categorial rules in generative semantics are as remote from what is experientiallyinterpretable as their standard theory analogues. Not only is there no progress in this regard,but one would almost think that in principle there could not be. I know, for example, of no generativestudies on word classes that link (systemic) opposition between verbal and nominal categoriesin predicateplace, along with degrees of transitivityof the predicativeconstituent, to something so obviously connectedwith that set of problemsas pronominalsystems. And how would one study pronominal systems adequately within the exclusively intra-utterance I have some reasonto believe that such problemsare analysis of 'structuralism'? unknown to structural totally linguists. In contrast, Hymes' model is for the time being the only obvious one to tackle pronominalsystems, and to proceed from there to a theory of word classes that does not depend on theoreticalascendancy over experience. But the differencegoes deeper than analyticpractice, or positions on what are suitable points of departure. It is a 'value' in the above metatheoreticalsense when Chomsky asserts that 'it is surely true [...] that a single language can providestrong evidence for conclusionsregardinguniversalgrammar'(Chomsky 1972: I58), and it is a value also that Hymes devotes hundreds of pages to the claim that such a thing is unthinkable.Neither strictly proves his case, for their case belongs to the disciplinarymatrix. But possibilities for theory development are (at least to me) beyond dispute in favor of the Hymes model. comments. It is impossible to do justice to Hymes' book in a (4) Concluding brief review. I would have numerous comments on the wealth of material he brings to bear, but this is not the place for them. I wouldjust note a few matters of terminology. For 'sympathetic interpretation'(p. o20) - for which Herder - I believe the term 'empathy'is perhapsmore approcoined the verb einfuhlen 358

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priate: it has become usual in the Husserlian tradition (there is a book on empathy by Husserl's student Edith Stein, philosopher, mystic and Nazi victim (Stein I964, or Germaned. 1917)). Then, Hymes notes with regretthat we have no term for the custom in some cultures of keeping outsiders in the dark about esoteric elements in their communities (p. 42). We may not have an exact term, but perhaps can consider disciplinaarcani, which refers to patristic theology (especially that of Cyril of Jerusalem) as favoring what Hymes discusses. There was always an element of witnessing and attracting converts, and yet, for example, the text of the Our Father was not entrusted to converts until the time of baptism (see Quasten I966, General Index, s.v. disciplinaarcani). The term disciplina arcani itself hails from the French Calvinist theologian Jean DaillH(Dallaeus), seventeenth century, and it is now widely used in patristic studies. After these notes on minor matters, I should like to come back to some points discussed in the previous section, taking off from the two different 'cultures' in academewhich I mentioned at the beginning. A differenceof models is a difference of people, to a greater extent than is often acknowledged.Hymes has the cross-culturalsensitivity of the seasoned anthropologistand he is passionately interested in what is differentfrom what is alreadyknown: 'let people surprise you, as to what they can do, and what they can use to do it' (p. I02), he poses as the first commandment of research. The analogy to phenomenology with its epochi, or suspension of judgment (and hence suspicion of theories conceived a priori)is obvious, as also Hymes' insistencethat experienceshould take priority oneof Caws(I965: i8; see Verhaar 1973: 379)describing overthe mindreminds the phenomenologistas one who places himself in the position of experiencing but not knowing. One can hardly see Chomskytaking this position for himself. Indeed, what is essential to his theory is experientially not accessible, and the strange irony is that in this respect Chomskyis the armchairversion of the field workertackling a languagehe does not know yet and thereforeforced to rely, at least for the time being, on things he knows (the recurrent items in speech them. True, Chomsky relies on native intuition samples) without understanding as to wellformedness (which assumes that there is native competence), but this is a mere operationalcheck on theory and not real insight theoretically. To the phenomenologicalrequirementthat one should suspend judgment on what is new I would add that other requirement:that we do not overlook the obvious. Our own culture is as much subject to investigationas those with which we are only just becoming familiar.Nothing in the world is as easy to miss as the things we live with every day. In Verhaar (forthcoming) I have noted a few limitations of our culture as based on Indo-Europeantypology. Hymes has the device of taking the 'psychiatric' approach, in the sense Sapir presented this model (passim, e.g. p. 2o8). It is not clear to me if that approachwould include also what is pathologicalin human communication(whateverthat would be, for 359

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cultureto a certainextent also determinesthat), but it does in the phenomenology of MauriceMerleau-Ponty(see e.g. I962, ChapterVI on language). In academic circles we may thus observe two cultures in a somewhat looser sense of that term: the continuationof the Westerntradition(even with explicit appealto it, as Chomskyappealsto Descartesand the rationalistictraditionmore generally), and the relativizationof that traditionin a model like that of Hymes. Precisely because of that differenceit makes no sense to react to Hymes' model by insisting (say) that experienceat the expense of the mind cannot but lead the scholar astray. For also that 'mind' is a fruit of Western ideas. Since the Stoa, that mind 'judges', of all things (before that it 'separated', somewhat more plausibly, i.e. what is the case and what is not), whether or not with the power station of 'innate ideas' (whatever those really are), and it has 'authority', it 'contends', 'maintains','claims', 'challenges' and 'defends'; it carriesproof as a 'burden' (which according to dark ritual rules it may now and then 'revolve' on to the 'adversary'),and so forth. To me it is a mystery why there does not seem to be any interest in analysingthe universalpermissibilityof such competitive, bellicose and individualisticmetaphorsin that huge 'disciplinarymatrix' that constitutes Western (and Westernized)academic institutions, in the same way that we like to analyse Shona or Kwakiutlbeliefs in invisible authorities.We certainly have enough material. On the other hand, the circumstancethat we do not know what the 'mind' is does not force us to assume that there is nothing that may appropriatelybe so called even if divested of culture-particularinterpretations.I would not even considerit as certainthat one could not develop the powersof such a transformed mind in the way of armchairscholarship. Levi-Strauss is presumablynone the less valuableas an anthropologistbecausein all his decadesof scholarlyeffort he spent only one year in the field. It is better to leave all this open, provided we develop our powers of observationwhereverwe are, and the more so elsewhere as we feel it is superfluousto go elsewhere.The powers of the non-intuitivehave now been sufficientlypraisedand developed. Hymes' great merit is that the door is opened again to the powers of the intuitive, on the correct assumptionthat there is nothing nonrationalabout the new approach.Hymes himself feels that, after Sapir's failure to change the climate, our expectations must be humble (p. 2o8). I share his pessimism. It has never been a particularlystriking virtue of the West that it is flexibly awareof its own culturallimitations.
REFERENCES Bloomfield, Leonard. (I933). Language. London: Allen & Unwin. Caws, Peter. (I965). The philosophy of science: a systematic account. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand. Language and mind. Enlarged edition. New York: Harcourt Chomsky, Noam. (I972). Brace. Dik, S. C. (I969). Oppervlaktestruktuur en dieptestruktuur. Forum der Letteren so. i9-4I.

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REVIEWS Hockett, Charles F. (1954). Two models of grammatical description. Word 10. 210-31. (In: Joos 1963, 386-99.) Joos, Martin (ed.). (1963). Readings in lingtistics. The development of descriptive linguistics in America since I925. Third edition. New York: American Council of Learned Societies. Koutsoudas, Andreas. (I966). Writing transformational grammars. An introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill. Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970). The structure of scientific revoluitions. Second edition, enlarged. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (X962). Phenomenology of perception. Tr. by Colin Smith. New York: Humanities Press. Natanson, Maurice (ed.). (1973). Phenomenology and the social sciences. 2 vols. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Quasten, J. (i966). Patrology. Fourth edition. 3 vols. Utrecht: Spectrum. Silverstein, Michael. (1970). Linguistic theory: syntax, semantics, pragrnatics. Annual review of Anthropology I. 349-82. Stein, Edith. (i964). On the problem of empathy. Tr. by Waltraut Stein, with a foreword by Erwin W. Straus. The Hague: Nijhoff. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. (I970). Review of Andreas Koutsoudas I966. Foundations of Language 9. 585-8. Verhaar, John W. M. (I973). Phenomenology and present-day linguistics. In: Natanson 1973, vol. I, 36I-464. (forthcoming). On speech and thought. Paper given at the IXth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Chicago, August 28-September 8, 1973. Reviewed by JOHN W. Universitas Indonesia Jakarta, Indonesia
M. VERHAAR

(Received 23 December, 1974)

LANGUAGE
COMMISSIONOF INQUIRY,

SITUATIONS

Thepositionof the Frenchlanguagein Quebec.Report of the Commissionof Inquiry on the Position of the French languageand on Language Rights in Quebec, 3 volumes. Montreal: L'Editeur Officiel du

Quebec,1972.
Surely one of the most striking facets of the Canadianscene in the last decade or so has been the emergenceof Quebec nationalism.This nationalismhas been found in almost every corner of Quebec society - from the more intellectual centre of Montreal and Quebec City to the far-reachingareas of the province once known only for their agriculturaloutput. From the time of Wolfe and Montcalme, through the period when the confederation was finally sealed, Quebec has always been a 'special' province in Canada.The populationhas had their own way of life, definitely differentfrom the English-speakingprovinces. Furthermore,the Quebec Act of 1774 guaranteed to the French their own civil code and status of religion, and may even be consideredto have been in their favour. There existed in Quebec a definitely conservative mood. The populations,
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