Verbal Art as Performance

The cross-disciplinary and integrative nature of sociolinguistics is clearly evidenced in this highly regarded, insightful volume. Bauman’s holistic study brings together the separate fields of folklore, anthropology, linguistics, and literary criticism as they focus on verbal art. The work represented here is a clear assembly of perspectives and methodology of these disciplines from the viewpoint of performance—artistic action and artistic event. The basic principles underlying sociolinguistics (patterned variability and context as revealed through language) provide the coherence. In addition to Bauman’s useful conceptual framework, four lively, informative essays by leading scholars are included that clarify, illustrate, and amplify in an effort to treat verbal art as performance.