ABSTRACT
The principal stimulus to the conceptualization and study of folklore as communication was the ethnography of speaking, a subfield of linguistic anthropology called into being by Dell Hymes’ seminal essay of that title in 1962. The verbal art forms of a community call attention to themselves as conspicuous, attractive, powerful, and highly valued parts of its speech economy, of special interest to community members and ethnographers alike. Consistent with the important role played by the ethnography of speaking in the development of a communication- oriented perspective on folklore, much of the focus of recent work has been on verbal art, which has always occupied a central place in the field of folklore no matter how defined. The concerns of folklore, literature, anthropology and linguistics were united in the work of such early giants as Johann Gottfried Herder and the Grimms, and they appear to be coming together in a new synthesis.
