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Natural Histories of Discourse

Greg Urban editor Michael Silverstein editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:The University of Chicago Press

Published:9th Jul '96

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Natural Histories of Discourse cover

Is culture simply a more or less set text we can learn to read? Since the early 1970s, the notion of culture-as-text has animated anthropologists and other analysts of culture. Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban present this collection of ethnographies arguing that the divide between fleeting discursive practice and formed text is a constructed one, and that the constructional process reveals "culture" to those who can interpret it. Eleven original essays of "natural history" range in focus from nuptial poetry of insult to case-based teaching methods in first-year law-school classrooms. Stage by stage, they give an idea of the cultural processes of "entextualization" and "contextualization" of discourse that they illustrate.

ISBN: 9780226757698

Dimensions: 23mm x 15mm x 3mm

Weight: 652g

362 pages