The development of ethnopoetics as a separate subfield of study was largely pioneered from the middle of the 20th century by anthropologists and linguists such as Dennis Tedlock and Dell Hymes.
Tedlock explain his perspective in this way, An ethnopoetic score [or text] not only takes account of the words but silences, changes in loudness and tone of voice, the production of sound effects, and the use of gestures and props.
Ethnopoetics remains open to the creative side of performance, valuing features that may be rare or even unique to a particular artist or occasion.
"[2] On the other hand, Dell Hymes believes that even previously dictated texts retain significant structural patterns of poetic repetition that “are the ‘reason why’” storytellers use pauses in their oral performances (1999, 97–98).
[1] Hymes’s ethnopoetic theories focus on repetitions in the grammar and syntax of transcribed and translated texts that he suggest can still be analyzed and retranslated.
(Blommaert 2007, 216)[4]Also, understanding the native language of oral performers is essential for accurate, ethnopoetic translation of their words into written texts.
For example, folklorist Barre Toelken explains that Hymes’s “knowledge of the extant Chinookan languages” helped him to “notice stylistic devices that highlighted certain actions and themes and even performance styles that brought scenes into sharp focus” (2003, 122).
For example, Tristan Tzara created calligrams and William Bright worked with the Karuk tribe to preserve their native language.
Overall, then, ethnopoetic methods and theories strive to capture on the written page the unique aesthetic elements of individual cultures’ oral poetry and narrative performance traditions, or what folklorists would call their verbal lore.