N. J. Enfield is a Senior Staff Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Professor at Radboud University Nijmegen and the University of Sydney. Paul Kockelman is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin. Jack Sidnell is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto.

• 1. Introduction: directions in the anthropology of language N. J. Enfield, Paul Kockelman and Jack Sidnell; Part I. System and Function: 2. Basics of a language R. M. W. Dixon; 3. The item/system problem N. J. Enfield; 4. Language and the manual modality: the communicative resilience of the human species Susan Goldin-Meadow; 5. Linguistic diversity and universals Balthasar Bickel; 6. Denotation and the pragmatics of language Michael Silverstein; 7. Language function Sandra A. Thompson and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen; Part II. Process and Formation: 8. Language acquisition and language socialization Penelope Brown and Suzanne Gaskins; 9. Language, society and history: towards a unified approach? Paja Faudree and Magnus Pharao Hansen; 10. Language emergence: Al-Sayyid Bedouin sign language Wendy Sandler, Mark Aronoff, Carol Padden and Irit Meir; 11. Endangered languages Keren Rice; 12. Language evolution Stephen C. Levinson; 13. Causal dynamics of language N. J. Enfield; Part III. Interaction and Intersubjectivity: 14. Intentionality and language Robert B. Brandom; 15. The architecture of intersubjectivity revisited Jack Sidnell; 16. Language and human sociality Alan Rumsey; 17. The ontology of action, in interaction Jack Sidnell and N. J. Enfield; 18. Conversation across cultures Mark Dingemanse and Simeon Floyd; Part IV. Community and Social Life: 19. Poetics and performativity Luke Fleming and Michael Lempert; 20. Ritual language David Tavárez; 21. Oratory, rhetoric, politics Bernard Bate; 22. Language and media Paul Manning and Ilana Gershon; 23. The speech community and beyond: language and the nature of the social aggregate Shaylih Muehlmann; Part V. Interdisciplinary Perspectives: 24. Linguistic anthropology and critical theory Paul Kockelman; 25. Linguistic anthropology and sociocultural anthropology Rupert Stasch; 26. Sociolinguistics: making quantification meaningful Penelope Eckert; 27. Language and archaeology: state of the art Roger Blench; 28. Language and biology: the multiple interactions between genetics and language Dan Dediu; 29. Linguistic anthropology in the age of language automata Paul Kockelman.

'Masquerading under the humble rubric of a 'Handbook', this stunning collection of original essays juxtaposes many of the central senior figures of linguistic anthropology with an impressive array of younger voices - including the editors themselves - shaking the mix further by sometimes unexpected but always provocative conjunctions of themes and expertise. It presents fresh evidence for why theoretical advances stemming from a preoccupation with language now inform the best of current anthropological thinking more widely. The collection not only spans an impressive range of linguistic and transdisciplinary topics, but also reflects the main centers of research and discovery in modern linguistic anthropology.' John B. Haviland, University of California, San Diego