A study that examined two speech events, "giving testimony" and "being interviewed," was conducted to test the relevance of the "ethnography of speaking" approach to communication research proposed by Dell H. Hymes. These speech events occur when someone seeks information from another for a formal purpose. The study analyzed one speech act within each speech event for each of two participants in a job-related legal controversy. Following Hymes' methodology, the following components of the speech acts were identified: situation, or setting and scene; participants; ends in view; act sequence, or message form and content; key, or tone; instrumentalities, or channels and forms of speech; norms of interaction and interpretation; and genres. Results indicated that once a speech act has been identified as belonging to the "giving testimony" genre, all other speech act components can be predicted. Similarly, once a speech act has been identified as a member of the "being interviewed" genre, all components, with the exception of setting, can be predicted. The findings suggest that Hymes' methodology neglects the relationship of the speaker to the content of the speech act--a component that influences speech act form. (DF)