Ruth Finnegan is Professor in Comparative Social Institutions at the Open University. She was editor of the anthropological journal Man from 1987 to 1989, and is the author of many books and articles, including Literacy and Orality, Oral Literature in Africa and Oral Poetry.

1 Introduction: scope and terminology 1.1 Preview 1.2 'Language', 'speech' and 'text': some initial questions 1.3 Some central terms-accepted and disputed 1.4 'Text(s)': a special case 1.5 The interest of the problems 2 Theoretical perspectives 2.1 The role of theory 2.2 Continuing methodological tensions 2.3 Background to studies of oral tradition and verbal art 2.4 Influential methodologies and theories 2.5 Current trends 3 Some prior issues and practicalities 3.1 Some strategic questions 3.2 Background preparation 3.3 Recording equipment 3.4 Relevance for archive research 4 Collecting, recording and creating texts: preliminaries and mechanics 4.1 Some initial techniques and provisos 4.2 The settings for collecting and recording 4.3 Making and keeping records 4.4 Preliminary processing 5 Observing and analysing performance 5.1 Concepts of 'performance' and their significance 5.2 Audiences, performers, participants 5.3 Other components of performances 6 Production, functions and ideas 6.1 Composition, transmission and memory 6.2 Social and economic position of participants 6.3 Verbal art, oral tradition and functions 6.4 Local aesthetics and thought 7 Genres and boundaries 7.1 Approaches to classification 7.2 Some crucial boundaries: or are they? 7.3 Differentiating and studying genres 7.4 Some common genre terms and controversies 7.5 Cross-cutting themes 7.6 Final points 8 Analysing and comparing texts: style, structure and Content 8.1 Textual analysis: problems and opportunities 8.2 Variation, typology and comparison 8.3 Structure and structuralist methods 8.4 Stylistic features and problems 8.5 Relevance of literary analysis and written literature 8.6 Specialist techniques: counting, content and computers 8.7 The quest for 'meaning' 9 Texts in process: translation, transcription and Presentation 9.1 Translating 19.2 Transcription and representation 9.3 The presentation and dissemination of texts and performances 9.4 Conclusion 10 Ethics