Dell Hymes

[Francis Hult]

Wikipedia

 

Dell Hymes

 

Dell Hathaway Hymes (born June 7 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_7> , 1927 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1927>  in Portland <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon> , Oregon <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon> , died November 13, 2009 in Charlottesville, Virginia) was a sociolinguist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolinguistics> , anthropologist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropologist> , and folklorist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkloristics>  whose work has dealt primarily with languages of the Pacific Northwest <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest> . He was one of the first to call the fourth subfield of anthropology "linguistic anthropology <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_anthropology> " instead of "anthropological linguistics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropological_linguistics> ." The terminological shift draws attention to the field's grounding in anthropology rather than in what by that time was already become an autonomous discipline (linguistics).

 

He was educated at Reed College <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_College> , studying under David H. French <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._French> , and graduated in 1950 after a stint in pre-war Korea. His work in the Army <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army>  as a decoder <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoder>  is part of what influenced him to become a linguist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics> . Hymes earned his Ph.D. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph.D.>  from Indiana University <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_University_(Bloomington)>  in 1955,[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Hymes#cite_note-0#cite_note-0>  and took a job at Harvard University <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University> .

 

Even at that young age, Hymes had a reputation as a strong linguist; his dissertation, completed in one year, was a grammar <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar>  of the Kathlamet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathlamet>  language <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language>  spoken near the mouth of the Columbia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River>  and known primarily from Franz Boas <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Boas> 's work at the end of the 19th century.

 

Full text:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Hymes

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