Speaking Culturally presents case studies of two cultures, focusing on how speaking is thematized and enacted in each. The Teamsterville culture is drawn from the author's studies of the spoken life of an urban, working-class neighborhood in Chicago, while the Nacirema culture draws upon studies of communication among middle-class Americans, primarily on the West Coast.

Using fieldwork conducted over a period of twenty years, Philipsen shows how listening to a people's spoken life can reveal expressions of underlying codes--or social rhetorics--of what it means to be a person, how persons...

The authors analyze and discuss the field of communication from a multidimensional point of view. Divided into three parts, the first traces its history from scientific, humanistic, and technological roots. The second explores communication theory in the areas of interpersonal, organizational, mass media, intercultural, telecommunication, nonverbal, and with reference to issues of gender as the authors summarize the most significant theories, research, and practices in each area. A discussion of the future direction of communication research is provided in the final section.