Hindi Reader, vol. I

John Gumperz developed a new way of looking at sociolinguistics with Dell Hymes, also a scholar of sociolinguistics. Their contribution was a new method called the "ethnography of communication." Gumperz' own approach has been called Interactional sociolinguistics.
Sociolinguistics analyzes variation in discourse, within a particular speech community, and studies how that variation affects the unfolding of meaning in interaction and correlates with the social order of the community.
"The universe is the speech community: Any human aggregate characterized by regular and frequent interaction by means of a shared body of verbal signs and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language use." (J.J. Gumperz)
Gumperz was interested in how the order of situations and the culture of the speaker affect the way in which they make conversational inferences and interpret verbal or non-verbal signs known as contextualization cues.
This reader is intended as an introduction to simple Hindi prose for those who have some previous knowledge of the pronunciation and grammar patterns of the language. It may be used either in conjunction with a spoken language course or for private study by individuals who speak the language but do not read it. The material in this firs volume is divided into three parts, of which the first two are suitable for the beginning semester of an elementary course and the third can serve as a supplementary reading material during the second semester.