THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF WILLIAM LABOV
In 1972, William Labov published collections of his major sociolinguistic essays in the University of Pennsyl vania Conduct and Communication series. These two volumes find sym pathetic company in other published works of the series, Dell Hymes' Foundations in Sociolinguistics, Erv ing Goffman's Strategic Interaction, and Ray Birdwhistell's Kinesics and Context. The writings in the series' five volumes to date present little new material for the follower of anthro pological and sociolinguistics; Goff man and Birdwhistell had been pre viously published, even in supermar ket style Ballantine paperbacks at half the price most of Labov's work had been previously published in period icals. The series does, however, re present a compilation of intriguing trends in communication analysis.