Hymes, Dell (Hathaway) (1927– )

US sociolinguist who taught at Harvard and Berkeley before becoming professor of folklore and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1972. He accepted a professorship of anthropology and English at the University of Virginia in 1987. An authority on the use and functions of language, he wrote Language and Culture in Society 1964 and other scholarly works.

Born in Portland, Oregon, he graduated from Reed College in 1950 and took a PhD at Indiana University in 1955.