Muriel Saville-Troike is Professor in the Department of English at the University of Arizona. She is author of Bilingual Children (1975), Foundations for Teaching English as a Second Language (1976), A Guide to Culture in the Classroom (1978), and co-editor of Perspectives on Silence (with Deborah Tannen, 1985).
This third edition of The Ethnography of Communication is a real treasure. For someone new to linguistic anthropology in general, or to the ethnography of communication in particular, it provides a thorough and accessible introduction to the basic contents and concepts, vocabulary, methodologies and theories of contemporary research in the intertwined topics of language and culture. For others, it is a refresher course and a briefing on the progress of the past couple of decades... a thoughtful and important work. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development If you read one book on the ethnography of communication, read this one. Its coverage of what has been a major area of study for scholars in sociolinguistics, communication, and linguistic anthropology for the past three decades is comprehensive, insightful, and, in this third edition, completely brought up to currency with developments in the field. Ron Scollon, Georgetown University This is a fine introductory text and an excellent reference volume as well. In short, it is a first-rate work by a world-class scholar. TESOL Quarterly The Ethnography of Communication more than meets the pointed criteria for a good textbook. In addition, it is well written, interesting, and enlightening. Language and Social Psychology