While this volume is based on an earlier work, An Anatomy of Speech Notions (1976), the overall orientation of the present volume is distinctive enough to make it a new work. The former volume was essentially a
half-way house to discourse. While including a chapter on discourse struc­ ture, it was not as a whole explicitly oriented towards con­ siderations of context. The present volume, however, strives to achieve a more
consistently contextual approach to lan­ guage. A great deal of research and theorizing concerning discourse grammar or textlinguistics has characterized the past decade of linguistic studies. This recent work has, of course,
influenced the present volume. In addition, my personal research in several areas has led to increased insistence on the indispensability of discourse studies. Crucial here was my direction of field workshops involving
personnel of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, first in relation to languages of Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador (1974- 1975), and later in relation to languages of Mexico (1978). Of further relevance have been my own studies
of narrative structure in Biblical Hebrew. Last but not least, is the stimulus and feedback which I have received from my graduate students (whose research is embodied in several theses and dissertations), especially Keith
Beavon, Shin Ja Joo Huang, Larry Jones, Mildred Larson, Linda Lloyd, and Mike Walrod.