Signs of Difference

Susan Gal is Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Chicago. She is author of 'Language Shift' (1979), co-author with Gail Kligman of 'Politics of Gender After Socialism' (2000) and co-editor with Kathryn Woolard of 'Languages and Publics: The Making of Authority' (2001). Judith T. Irvine is Edward Sapir Collegiate Professor of Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Author of many articles and chapters in linguistic anthropology, she is co-editor with Jane H. Hill of 'Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse' (1993); co-editor with Regna Darnell et al. of the 'Collected Works of Edward Sapir' (1999) and Associate Editor of the journal 'Language in Society'.

• Prologue: questions and exhibits; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I. Ethnography: 1. Wolof in Senegal; 2. German-Hungarians in Hungary; Part II. Semiotics: 3. Ingredients: signs, conjectures, perspectives; 4. Comparison: the semiotics of differentiation; 5. Dynamics of change in differentiation; Part III. Sites: 6. Situating ideological work; 7. Among and between sites; 8. Scales and scale-making: connecting sites; Part IV. Pasts: 9. Library to field: ideologies in nineteenth-century linguistic research; Coda: avenues of inquiry.

'Systematically mapping out new theoretical and empirical ground, this field-defining book richly develops the promise of Susan Gal and Judith T. Irvine's influential approach to understanding ideologies of linguistic and social difference. In crystal-clear analyses of ethnographic and historical material from Africa, Central Europe, and the United States, they make accessible the interlocking semiotic processes through which ordinary folks and experts alike create consequential contrasts between kinds of people. This landmark study will be essential reading for scholars of social relations well beyond the borders of linguistic anthropology.' Kathryn A. Woolard, University of California, San Diego