Dell Hymes’ formative role in the ethnography of communication, ethnopoetics and educational
ethnography alone merit him biographic attention. In addition, though, tracing out Dell Hymes’
career arc offers a window on the birth and development of sociolinguistics as a whole. The
particular cluster of early influences on Hymes – Franz Boaz, Edward Sapir, Roman Jakobson
and Kenneth Burke – as well as Hymes’ resulting resistance to Chomskyan linguistics, are
representative of the sources of impetus for sociolinguistics in general. Hymes had an abiding
personal and scholarly interest in American Indians in all their linguistic and cultural diversity.
He argued for a widened scope for linguistics which started with diversity rather than in a search
for the universal. In particular, he wanted linguists to pay attention to the poetic, aesthetic,
reflexive aspects of discourse through which cultural knowledge is circulated. His interest in
diversity has always been linked with a concern for the sources and consequences of inequality,
and much of his work has taken place in the context of educational research. In Hymes’ interests,
we can see sociolinguistics’ recurring concerns. If we want to understand how sociolinguistics
grew out of linguistics, understanding Dell Hymes’ life and career is a good place to start.