Sociolinguistics is concerned with the ethnography of speaking, that is, with cultural and subcultural patterns of speech variation in different social contexts. The sociolinguist might ask, for example, what kinds of things one talks about in casual conversations with a stranger. A foreigner may know English vocabulary and grammar well but may not know that one typically chats with a stranger about the weather or where one comes from, and not about what one ate that day or how much money one earns. A foreigner may be familiar with much of the culture of a North American city, but if that person divulges the real state of his or her health and feelings to the first person who says, “How are you?” he or she has much to learn about “small talk” in North American English. Similarly, North Americans tend to get confused in societies where greetings are quite different from ours. People in some other societies may ask a greeting, “Where are you going?” or “What are you cooking?” Some Americans may think such questions are rude; others may try to answer in excruciating detail, not realizing that only vague answers are expected, just as we don’t really expect a detailed answer when we ask people “How are you?” --Judith Resnick & Lanny Lester, Text & Thought, pp. 194-195 Which of the following is the best summary for this passage?