AN HISTORICAL NOTE: Hugh Duncan came to Carleton College for the spring semester, 1961, to review the manuscript for this book with a seminar of twelve senior sociology majors. I was privileged to be one of the dozen. The experience was unforgettable and life-changing. Dr. Duncan's work generated new models for seeing how communication functions in society. The concepts presented so vividly in this work have remained with me for a lifetime, providing the lens through which I have seen the world and my lifelong work with language.

Dr. Duncan referred to this manuscript as his attempt to define, alternately, "the sociology of language" and "the sociology of art". He leaned toward the latter.

This work is non-technical and eminently readable -- a rich tapestry of scholarship and illumination. It is my privilege again, after nearly 40 years, to commend it to the inquiring reader.