Abstract
The objective of this paper is to discuss what modes of culture can be analyzed by using the notion of speech community. For the objective, related literature in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and discourse analysis is reviewed. The author examines how speech community is defined in three major schools, and the characteristics of those schools' research are investigated. Conceptualizing the notion of context, by introducing the idea of indexicality from semiotics, has turned speech community studies into studies of culture in action through the investigation of language in context. This paper features a type of discourse analysis that describes and analyzes dynamic processes in which cultures are being formed (textualized) through communication.
