Dell Hymes facts for kids

Dell Hathaway Hymes (born June 7, 1927, in Portland, Oregon – died November 13, 2009, in Charlottesville, Virginia) was a very important scholar. He studied how people use language in different ways. He was a linguist (someone who studies language), a sociolinguist (someone who studies language in society), an anthropologist (someone who studies human societies and cultures), and a folklorist (someone who studies traditional stories and customs).

Hymes helped create new ways to study how language is used in real life, especially focusing on languages from the Pacific Northwest. He was one of the first to call the study of language within anthropology "linguistic anthropology" instead of "anthropological linguistics." This change showed that the field was deeply rooted in the study of human cultures. In 1972, Hymes started the journal Language in Society and was its editor for 22 years.

Growing Up and Learning

Dell Hymes went to Reed College and studied with David H. French. After serving in the United States Army in Korea, he graduated in 1950. His work as a decoder in the Army helped him decide to become a linguist.

He earned his PhD (a high university degree) in linguistics from Indiana University in 1955. After that, he started working at Harvard University. Even when he was young, Hymes was known as a very skilled linguist. His PhD paper, which he finished in just one year, was about the Kathlamet language. This language was spoken near the Columbia River, and much of what was known about it came from the work of Franz Boas in the late 1800s.

What Did Dell Hymes Do?

From 1955, Hymes taught at Harvard University for five years. In 1960, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for another five years. Then, in 1965, he joined the Anthropology Department at the University of Pennsylvania.

While at the University of Pennsylvania, Hymes helped start the academic journal Language in Society. He also became the Dean (a leader) of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education in 1975.

Hymes was a leader in several important academic groups. He was president of the American Folklore Society in 1973, the Linguistic Society of America in 1982, and the American Anthropological Association in 1983. He was the last person to have led all three of these organizations.

Later, Hymes joined the Departments of Anthropology and English at the University of Virginia. He retired in 2000 but continued to be a professor emeritus until he passed away on November 13, 2009, due to complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Who Influenced Dell Hymes?

Dell Hymes was inspired by many different experts in language, culture, and society. Some of these included Franz Boas and Edward Sapir, who were important American anthropologists. He was also influenced by Roman Jakobson and others from the Prague Linguistic Circle, a group of linguists.

Two of his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, sociologist Erving Goffman and anthropologist Ray L. Birdwhistell, also influenced him. Hymes's work changed over time. In his early career, he studied how language and social situations are connected. He was a pioneer in looking at how language is used in society.

Later in his career, Hymes focused on the poetic side of language, especially in Native American stories. He and Dennis Tedlock created a field of study called ethnopoetics. This field looks at the poetic patterns in oral stories. Hymes said that the literary critic Kenneth Burke was his biggest influence for this later work. He studied with Burke in the 1950s.

Why Was His Work Important?

Dell Hymes was one of the first sociolinguists. He helped us understand the strong link between how we speak and our social relations. His work put the study of language in culture at the center of how we understand human behavior.

Hymes also responded to ideas from another famous linguist, Noam Chomsky. Chomsky talked about "competence" (knowing grammar rules) and "performance" (how language is actually used). Hymes felt that how language is used in real life was very important. So, he came up with the idea of "communicative competence." This means knowing not just the grammar, but also how to use language correctly in different social situations.

Since the right way to use language changes in different communities, much of Hymes's early work focused on studying these different patterns. He called this approach "the ethnography of speaking." Later, he changed the name to "ethnography of communication" to include all forms of communication, not just speaking, and to include nonverbal actions too.

Hymes also promoted "ethnopoetics." This is a way of writing down and studying traditional stories and oral narratives. It pays close attention to the poetic structures within speech. For example, when reading old Native American myths that were written down as regular prose, Hymes noticed that they often had poetic patterns in their words and structure.

Hymes believed that all stories in the world are organized by hidden rules of form. These rules help share important knowledge and ways of thinking. He argued that understanding these stories helps us understand language itself and other fields that use storytelling, like ethnopoetics and literary criticism.

He felt that translated versions of stories were not enough to truly understand their role in a culture. He gave an example from the Navajo language, where small words (like "uh" or "so") that are often left out in English translations are actually very important for understanding the story's shape and how repetition creates its structure.

The "S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G" Model

Hymes created a helpful model to understand the different parts of a conversation or speech event. He believed that to speak a language correctly, you need to know more than just words and grammar. You also need to know when and how to use those words.

His model had sixteen parts, which he grouped into eight main areas using the acronym SPEAKING:

Setting and Scene

• Setting is the time and place where people are talking. For example, a family story might be told in the living room at Grandma's house.
• Scene is the feeling or mood of the place. The family story might be told at a fun anniversary party, so the mood could be festive and playful, or serious and respectful.

Participants

• This refers to the speaker (the person talking) and the audience (the people listening). For instance, an aunt might tell a story to the young girls in the family, but the boys might also hear it, even if they are not directly spoken to.

Ends

• This is about the purpose or goal of the conversation. The aunt might tell a story to entertain, to teach the young women, or to honor her grandmother.

Act Sequence

• This describes the order of what happens in the conversation. The aunt's story might start after a toast. The story itself would have a plot. People might interrupt to add details. Finally, the group might clap and move on.

Key

• This is about the tone or spirit of the speech. The aunt might tell the story playfully, imitating voices, or she might speak seriously to show respect.

Instrumentalities

• This refers to the forms and styles of speech used. The aunt might speak in a relaxed way with local slang, or she might use more formal, "standard" language.

Norms

• These are the social rules for the event. In a playful story, people might be allowed to interrupt and join in. In a serious story, the rules might be that everyone listens quietly without interrupting.

Genre

• This is the type of speech event or story. The aunt might tell a funny story about her grandmother to entertain, or a story with a moral lesson. Different cultures and groups have their own names for different types of stories.

Family Life

Dell Hymes's wife, Virginia Dosch Hymes, was also a sociolinguist and folklorist. They met at Indiana University and got married in 1954.

Awards

Dell Hymes received the Gold Medal of Philology in 2006.

See also

In Spanish: Dell Hymes para niños