Reviewed by William O. Hendricks, Portland, OR

Widespread agreement exists that one critical component of a narrative text is the plot, which progresses from a beginning through a middle to an end. Michael Toolan’s study makes the reasonable assumption that there must be explicit features in the text that guide the reader in this progression. His hope, as laid out in his introductory chapter (1–13), is that corpus linguistic methods will make possible a semiautomatic identification of those features in a few representative twentieth century short stories. Ch. 2 (15–30) provides some background to T’s approach as well as a discussion of some methodological issues.

Chs. 3 (31–52) and 4 (53–76) focus primarily on James Joyce’s story “Two Gallants”. T uses the WordSmith Tools Keywords procedure to identify words that are disproportionately frequent, compared to a 500,000 word corpus of twentieth century fiction by major British and North American authors. The top keyword in the story is the name Corley. T isolates fifty-one sentences in the story containing this name; this abridgment makes evident, to a limited degree, the progression of the story. T concludes that such top keyword sentences are only one component of the textual features that signal progression.

In Chs. 5 (77–96) and 6 (97–112), T pursues a somewhat different approach to Alice Munro’s “The Love of a Good Woman”, which might more appropriately be termed a novella since it is 25,000 words long. One of several tactics T tries is dividing the text into twenty-six subsections and identifying the keywords that occur in each section. He then applies WordSmith’s Plotlinks to the keywords of each section to determine the number of occurrences of each keyword with other keywords. Sentences in which at least four different keywords cooccur are deemed especially relevant to story progression. Another tactic is to attend to the initial clauses in narrative paragraphs. T concludes that a focus on just these linguistic features is too narrow.

Chs. 7 (113–34) and 8 (135–64) present a multifactor model of narrative progression. Eight linguistic features, or parameters, are deemed to contribute to narrative progression. These include features already examined in the earlier chapters as well as (i) free indirect representation of a character’s thought, (ii) direct speech that has a transactional function, (iii) negation-carrying clauses, and (iv) mental process verbs that have a proposition as a complement.

Ch. 9 (165–88) deals with textual features that contribute to suspense and surprise. In the final chapter (189–200), T offers his own evaluation of his attempt to apply corpus analytic methods to the study of narrative progression. He recognizes that his corpus-based approach is still at a very early stage, and throughout this book he has been candid about shortcomings in his analyses. Nevertheless, T expresses optimism that future work will be fruitful since he sees no intrinsic defect in his method.

I remain unconvinced that corpus analytic methods represent the best approach for the analysis of narrative progression. T observes that these methods necessarily focus on textually explicit features rather than more implicit ones. However, plot structure can be fully uncovered only via inferences from what is explicitly stated. T occasionally makes reference to Gricean implicatures, but these references are insufficient. Only a developed system of textual inferences will make clear what explicit textual features need to be attended to.

Reviewed by Karen Steffen Chung, National Taiwan University

Until fairly recently, Georgian language learning materials were hard to come by. The few volumes available tended to be short, inadequate, dense, overly academic, and error-prone; those that were not in Georgian or Russian were in problematic English or were not easily available outside of Georgia. During the past decade and a half, however, LINCOM Europa has published several volumes on Caucasian languages. Tamar Makharoblidze’s Basic Georgian, the first in the LINCOM practical language courses series, is one of the few introductory Georgian texts available in the West.

The volume opens with background material on Georgia and the Georgian language of the type commonly found in Georgian tourist literature. There are twenty-eight lessons consisting of a list of new vocabulary in Georgian script with English translations, a list of phrases, e.g. ‘He shouldn’t do this’, a detailed section on grammar, and a reading text, finished off by translation and other exercises.

One strength of this book is that the lessons are carefully graded in difficulty so beginners can work through them smoothly, without sudden leaps to material too difficult to handle. The vocabulary featured in the clearly-written texts is useful, e.g. family relationships, foods, colors, furniture, animals, the seasons, and common adjectives. There are four pages of common phrases in table form in the back of the book, but no glossary or index.

The book calls for improvement in two areas. First, it would be helpful to have an introduction outlining the work and how to use it. Second, the English in the instructions, translations, and exercises should be carefully edited and corrected. A typical English translation: ‘I wish I paint as you are painting’ (153). In addition, the volume is rather expensive, but that is perhaps to be expected of relatively low-circulation academic texts.

A useful comparison can be made between this book and another of the same title by Nana Danelia published by Universali (Tbilisi, 2006). Danelias work does have an introduction on how to use the book and English explanations and translations of the vocabulary. It uses less English overall than M’s volume, in part because there are no English-to-Georgian translation exercises. There is an appendix of vocabulary organized by topic. No mistakes in the English were spotted. It is not, however, easily available outside of Georgia.

Though there is now considerably more information on Georgian available than two decades ago, there is not enough yet that one can reject any book for minor flaws in format or English. This book is thus a valuable addition to the growing body of Georgian textbooks. One hopes the publishers will revise it by adding an introduction and glossary, to increase its value and utility to learners of this complex and fascinating language.

Reviewed by Laure T. Y. Peem, University of Bayreuth, Germany

How can communication on health issues, especially HIV and AIDS, be carried out efficiently in a culturally diversified country like South Africa? This volume provides a variety of answers to this question from divergent perspectives. The nine chapters investigate strategies for weaving HIV and AIDS interventions into the cultural fabric of given target groups. The contributors come from different research backgrounds (e.g. language studies, psychology, journalism and mass communication, health sciences).

The introductory chapter, ‘Optimizing health communication in South Africa’ by Hans Hoeken and Piet Swanepoel, is an overview of the content of the volume. In ‘Planned development of culturally sensitive health promotion programs: An intervention mapping approach’, Madelief G. B. C. Bertens, Herman P. Schaalma, Kay Bartholomew, and Bart van den Borne present the intervention mapping approach as a fundamental tool for successfully planning health promotion programs likely to match the socio-cultural backgrounds of their target populations. Gary R. Pettey and Richard M. Perloff, in ‘Creating a climate of safer sex: Making efficacious action plausible’, argue that for health campaigns to succeed, there must be adequate information and necessary equipment (e.g. condoms) for the target groups.

Marco Yzer’s ‘The integrative model of behavioral prediction and message-based HIV prevention’ demonstrates the usefulness and applicability of the integrative model of behavioral prediction for the development of culturally sensitive messages to fight HIV in non-Western societies. In ‘Health education in action in Southern Africa: Soul City’, Sue Goldstein, Harriet Perlman, and Caroline Jane Smith analyze the design and implementation of the Soul City model in South Africa and other neighboring countries and show that an ‘edutainment’ (73) and a participatory approach can be effective for sensitization at the individual, the community, and the socio-political levels. Piet Swanepoel, Marije Burger, Anne Loohuis, and Carel Jansen, in ‘Promoting VCT among South African students: Are we missing the message?’, propose guidelines for choosing the content of brochures that will encourage young people to overcome fear and take up voluntary counseling and testing.

In ‘Cultural differences in the perceptions of fear and efficacy in South Africa,’ Carel Jansen, Hans Hoeken, Dineke Ehlers, and Frans van der Slik show that the efficacy of ‘fear appeals’ (108) in health interventions is determined by the perception of fear, which varies from one culture to another. ‘The effect of language style in message-based HIV prevention’ by Elvis Saal, stresses the importance of selecting appropriate language varieties for successful HIV messages. In the concluding chapter, ‘Visual health communication: Why and how do literate and low literate South Africans differ in their understanding of visual health messages?’, Alfon Maes, Karen Foesenek, and Hanneke Hoogwegt demonstrate that consideration of aptitudes and strategies of interpreting health visuals may vary from one target group to the next depending on their respective level of visual literacy. They argue that this variation must be taken into account in the production of more efficient health visuals.

This collection elaborates on pertinent theoretical and methodological frameworks applicable to health communication. It provides remarkable insights for better HIV and AIDS campaigns. Thanks to its multidisciplinary focus and given the variety and the pertinence of the issues, this clearly written and well-illustrated volume will be stimulating for scholars, students, health programs planners or designers as well as those particularly interested in health communication in non-Western cultures.

Reviewed by Nikolai Penner, McMaster University

This volume consists of seventeen articles in five thematic sections selected from presentations at the workshop, Grammatical Changes in Indo-European Languages, held at the Université du Québec à Montréal in August 2007.

Section A contains five articles on gender, animacy, and number. Silvia Luraghi’s paper on the origin of the *-h₂ suffix in Indo-European (IE) is followed by an article on cognitive categories and noun classification by Maria M. Manoliu that examines the reduction from the threefold noun class of Latin tothe twofold system of the Romance languages. Next, Hans H. Hock focuses on the resolution of mixed-gender antecedents through a ‘nearest conjunct’ agreement strategy. Kyongjoon Kwon looks at the development of literacy in Early East Slavic, and argues that the Old Novgorod dialect developed the grammatical category of animacy much earlier than the other Slavic dialects. Finally, Inés Fernández-Ordóñez’s article deals with the way in which pronominal systems can become noun systems, and examines these processes in Western IE varieties in light of the hypotheses of Joseph Greenberg and Greville Corbett.

Section B—concerning definiteness, case, and prepositions—starts with Brigitte Bauer’s paper on strategies of definiteness in Latin. It is followed by Vit Bubenik’s article, which analyzes the Middle Iranian genitival construction in the context of the replacement of morphological case distinctions by an analytic phrasal system. The final paper in this section, by Gag T. T. Haug, is a theory-oriented discussion of the categorical status of ‘place holders’ in Homeric Greek.

Section C consists of four articles on tense/aspect and diathesis. Henning Andresen’s article aims to establish the relative chronology of the grammaticalization of Common Slavic aspect. Next, the paper by Driget Drinka on the *-to-/-no- construction in IE assesses the claim that periphrastic formations can be reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European (PIE). The last two papers in this section, by J. Hewson and Sarah Rose, examine the grammaticalization of Germanic verbal diathesis, and the origin and meaning of the Hittite hi/mi conjugations, respectively.

Section D features four papers on morphosyntactic problems: by Johanna Barðdal and Thórhallur Eythórsson on the origin of the oblique-subject-construction in IE languages, Azam Estaji on the origin of the ezafe construction in Persian, Hakyung Jung on the development of the North Russian be-perfect construction, and Eugenio R. Luján on the process of grammaticalization of *k^wi-/k^wo- relative clauses in PIE.

The fifth section of the collection consists of a paper by Luís Garcia-Ramón examining the reconstruction of inflectional categories in IE.

Dedicated to the memory of Carol F. Justus, the volume is a solid collection of articles in historical linguistics that will appeal to anyone interested in language change and the development of the IE languages.

Reviewed by Haitao Liu, Communication University of China

Language policy and planning frequently involve choices. In bilingual or multilingual situations, people often have to choose between two or more languages. Some of these choices reflect a conscious effort by language managers to control the options. In this book, Bernard Spolsky presents a theory of language management.

In Ch. 1 (1–9), S presents the reasons for a theory of language management and suggests how to develop such a theory.

Ch. 2 is concerned with language management within the family (10–30). Upon the establishment of a family, its members must decide on a certain language variety to be the home language. S maintains that this decision is usually made in accordance with the sociolinguistic ecology inside and outside the home as well as the parents’ beliefs about the best strategy.

Religious language policy is the topic of Ch. 3 (31–52). S notes that religious institutions are often the focus of language conflict. Therefore, the religious impingements, or the religious efforts committed to inflicting such impingements, have a great significance on language, practices, and policies. To develop some general principles, S surveys the language policies, beliefs, and management efforts of several major religions.

Ch. 4 discusses language management in the workplace (53–64). S focuses on employers who manage the language of their employees, suggesting that the perceived value of a language is a major force in driving management efforts to change language practice in the workplace.

Ch. 5 (65–89) focuses on public linguistic space—that is, places that are neither private nor institutional. Public linguistic space may include written material (e.g. public signs, newspapers, magazines, books), spoken content (e.g. announcements, radio, television), or computers and the Internet. S arrives at the conclusion that, although it seems theoretically appealing to treat it as a single domain, in practice it is advisable to observe public linguistic space as many smaller subdomains.

Without doubt, the language policy adopted by an educational system is one of the most powerful forces in language management; therefore, this topic is discussed in Ch. 6 (90–114). S points out that the school domain is probably the ultimate test of a theory of language management.

Ch. 7 (115–28) covers both legal and health institutions because they have many features in common. S contends that the legal and health domains offer classic cases of organized language management and that the solutions for these cases are the result of a complex interplay between the various participants inside and outside of the domains.

Armies, navies, air forces, and other military formations have special communication needs and problems, which are discussed in Ch. 8 (129–43). S argues that the military domain confirms the usefulness of the domain approach and that it is helpful to clarify the complexity introduced when external forces attempt to influence a domain or a domain attempts to affect others.

Ch. 9 (144–80) reviews the roles of and relationship between the local, regional, and national governments in language management. S suggests that an appreciation of language management at the level of the nation-state can be greatly enhanced with an understanding of the international activists and supranational organizations, which are dealt with in Ch. 10, ‘Influencing language management: Language activist groups’, (181–205), and Ch. 11, ‘Managing languages at the supranational level’ (206–24).

Ch. 12, ‘Language managers, language management agencies and academies, and their work’ (225–48), investigates language agencies, which, as active participants in language management, aim to solve long-term communication problems by changing participants or modifying the language.

In the final chapter (249–61), S argues that the construction of a testable predictive theory of language management may encounter extreme difficulties. He concludes this book with two fundamental questions: can language be managed? And if it can, should it be?

Reviewed by Dustin De Felice, University of South Florida

In this volume, Bill VanPatten and Jessica Williams collect introductions to nine theories in second language acquisition (SLA) currently used to explain the acquisition of a linguistic system by the foremost proponents of each theory or model. The text is written with the beginning student in SLA theory and research in mind. Each chapter addresses the following: an overview of the theory, the evidence that is used for the theory, a brief discussion of some of the common misunderstandings held about that theory or model, and an exemplary study employing it. The last area addressed in each chapter comes from a condensed list of phenomena and observations that have been catalogued over the years in numerous studies and texts, presented as a series of discussion points for each approach in Chs. 1 and 2 (1–36).

Within the text, the following theories or models are discussed. In Ch. 3 (37–56), Lydia White discusses the contributions of generative linguistics, and in Ch. 4 (57–76) Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig covers the functional approach. In Ch. 5 (77–96), Nick C. Ellis details the view that SLA is construction-based, rational, exemplar-driven, emergent, and dialectic. In Ch. 6 (97–114), Robert DeKeyser, discusses the skill acquisition theory, while Bill VanPatten handles input processing in Ch. 7 (115–36), and Manfred Pienemann discusses the processability theory in Ch. 8 (137–54). In Ch. 9 (155–74), Susanne E. Carroll details the autonomous induction theory. In Ch. 10 (175–200), Susan M. Gass and Alison Mackey cover input, output, and interaction theories and models. Finally, Ch. 11 (201–24), by James P. Lantolf and Steven L. Thorne, handles socio-cultural theory.

According to Louis Ortega in the concluding chapter (Ch. 12, 225–50), the ten observable phenomena outlined in Ch. 1 can be combined into five central areas that have been the focus of attention for most SLA researchers over the past forty years: the nature of second language knowledge, the nature of interlanguage development, the influence of the first language on the second language, the linguistic environment, and the limits on output, the effects of frequency, and the effects of instruction. The author summarizes the nine theories in terms of the five central areas of attention, and uses figures to illustrate how each theory addresses the observable phenomena.

While this volume might be challenging for a novice reader, students will benefit from such an efficiently organized overview of some of the most important current theories in the SLA field. For the teacher, the text provides an annotated bibliography with suggested further readings, as well as discussion questions and a succinct reference list at the end of each chapter that can provide novice readers the opportunity for further study of seminal as well as current research.

Reveiwed by Omaima Ayoub, Islamic Foundation School

In this book, Peter Sharpe provides an overall picture of language and its mechanisms. By posing a number of key questions, S examines several interesting lines of linguistic inquiry, including the origins of language, whether language is exclusive to humans, why languages change, the variation of language across cultures, Noam Chomsky’s impact on linguistics, how language is used in society, how language produces meaning, how language is represented in the mind, and whether there is a correct way to use language. Each chapter provides examples mostly drawn from Japanese and concludes with a summary, research and discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading.

Ch. 1, ‘What are the origins of language?’, explains several theories (e.g. onomatopoeic, interjective, synergistic) of the origin of language. Ch. 2, ‘Is language exclusive to humans?’, examines the connection between language and consciousness and argues that language is indeed unique to humans, especially when we use it for reasoning. Ch. 3, ‘Why do languages change?’, describes, from a historical linguistics perspective, how language changes with time and the underlying causes behind those changes.

In Ch. 4, ‘How does language vary across cultures?’, S examines language from a cultural-anthropological perspective to explain how language variation is caused by cultural differences. Ch. 5, ‘Where does Noam Chomsky fit into linguistics?’, briefly outlines the pre-Chomskyan era of linguistics and explains how Chomsky’s theory of generative grammar has significantly influenced the direction of linguistics.

In Ch. 6, ‘How scientific can linguistic theory be?’, S considers the main features of scientific inquiry, outlines the main tenets of two theories (Chomsky’s generative grammar and Michael Halliday’s systemic grammar), and identifies the scientific criteria that linguistic theories should meet. Ch. 7, ‘What makes semantics difficult?’, discusses the reasons why semantics has become a complicated subject and examines four approaches to the study of semantics (i.e. reference, sense, context, concept). Ch. 8. ‘From whence the power of symbols?’, examines the symbolic nature of language and the role of symbolism in society. Finally, Ch. 9, ‘How is language represented in the mind?’, probes two cognitive theories of the representation of language in the mind.

Overall, this book offers an accessible and attractive introduction to linguistics that will prove invaluable for both linguistics students and inquisitive readers.

Reviewed by Esther Núñez Villanueva, Bangor University

Although it has been identified as the locus of language change, teenage talk has not occupied a significant place in the linguistics research agenda. This welcome publication brings together thirteen innovative articles on the topic. Many of the articles (including all the contributions in Parts 2 and 3) use recently developed corpora of teenage conversations: the Corpus Oral del Lenguaje Adolescente (Spanish spoken corpus of youth language) and the Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language feature predominantly.

Anna-Brita Stenström and Annette Myre Jørgensen open the volume with an introductory chapter that provides the theoretical background for the volume. A comprehensive series of guidelines for research on youngspeak is found in Klaus Zimmermann’s contribution. This article is included in Part 3 since it is specifically targeted to crosslinguistic research, but his insightful comments are broader in scope.

The volume is divided into three parts devoted to particular areas of study. Part 1 analyzes the linguistic tools that teenagers use to project their identity by expressing group membership and rejection of other groups. The three contributions to this section constitute a fruitful link between discourse analysis tools and socio-psychological methods. Argiris Archakis and Dimitris Papazachariou analyze the prosodic devices used by a group of young Greek females to differentiate the reported speech of authoritative figures from that of peers. Janet Spreckels examines how a group of German teenagers shows group membership and disaffiliation to other groups in their discourse by exaggeration and polyphonic discourse. Vally Lytra and Taşkin Baraç investigate how multilingualism is used to construct identity among young Turkish-English bilinguals in Turkish complementary schools.

The contributions in Part 2 are devoted to the study of particular linguistic expressions common in teenage speech that could become established in the language. Juan A. Martínez López identifies new intensifiers used by Madrid adolescents. Annette Myre Jørgensen discusses the use of hedging in youngspeak, a linguistic strategy used to mitigate the strength of an utterance.

Part 3 is devoted to crosslinguistic analyses of teenage speech. The four contributions contrast linguistic items, degrees of slang used, and English borrowings across languages to reveal the versatility of teenage language. Anna-Brita Stenström compares the functions of two pragmatic markers in Spanish and English, Spanish pues nada and English anyway. Eli-Marie Drange discovers that Anglicisms are not only used to fill lexical gaps but, surprisingly, to fulfill such functions as reinforcing a message or catching the attention of the hearers. Jolanta Legaudaite considers teenage slang a product of psychological and socio-cultural motives. Contrasting the functions of slang in English and Lithuanian, the author finds interesting differences in the functions and percentage of slang used.

Reviewed by Caroline Gagné, Université Laval

Sara Mills’s book offers a critical examination of the study of sexism in language. Although many previous papers have argued that sexism in language was easy to identify, M claims that even in feminist circles, sexism in language has been a problematic concept. In this volume, M develops a third wave feminist analysis of sexism that includes the specifications of the second wave. Based on her multidisciplinary studies of conversational and textual data, M identifies two forms of sexism (i.e. overt and indirect).

In the introduction, M presents her theoretical position, which is based on third wave feminism and critical discourse analysis. Additionally, she explains the differences between second wave and third wave feminist analysis—namely, that the second wave studies women’s language as a subordinated group, whereas the third wave focuses on the homogeneity of women. The remaining chapters reflect the evolution of sexism.

Ch. 2 investigates overt sexism, which is sexism that is clear and unambiguous. Overt sexism is the type of sexism analyzed by the second wave. In this book, overt sexism is used to describe generic pronouns and nouns as well as other derogatory connotation towards women. Because overt sexism is direct and focuses not only on sexism but also on racism and homophobia, antidiscriminatory language campaigns have condemned it.

In Ch. 3, M describes campaigns against discriminatory language as well as some strategies of antihomophobic and antisexist language campaigners. Common strategies include inflecting pejorative words positively and using alternative terms and neologisms. M also discusses the impact and the effectiveness of these campaigns along with some reactions to them. The remaining chapters focus on those reactions.

Ch. 4 covers political correctness. M explains why the term political correctness is viewed negatively whereas political incorrectness is viewed positively.

Ch. 5 focuses on indirect sexism, the second response feminist campaigns on language received. Indirect sexism must be studied contextually by examining and interpreting surrounding utterances. Usually, indirect sexism is hidden under humor and irony; therefore, it can be quite hard to identify. Based on the third wave feminist analysis of sexism, M offers new ways to analyze the most common forms of indirect sexism (e.g. humour, presupposition, conflicting messages, scripts and metaphors, collocation, and the androcentric perspective).

This well-written book will be useful for linguists and sociologists, especially those interested in discourse analysis or feminist and sexism studies.

Reviewed by Anish Koshy, The English & Foreign Languages University, India

Annual review of South Asian languages and linguistics (ARSALL) is an annual series that replaced The yearbook of South Asian languages and linguistics in 2007. ARSALL2008, the second issue, has four papers as ‘General contributions’, two invited papers as ‘Special contributions’, four ‘Reports’, four ‘Reviews and abstracts’, and two ‘Dialogues’.

Arguing that non-arbitrariness and transparency are distinct grammatical entities, Probal Dasgupta (3–19) discusses the significance of the fact that definite human nominals do not follow the same paradigm as inanimate definite nominals in Bengali. Annie Montaut (21–61), studying the semantics of reduplication, shows that total reduplication leaves the item being reduplicated with no stable value and that echo-formation or partial reduplication, through an extension, disqualification, or parody of the notional domain, leaves the notion decentered. Prashant Pardeshi (63–82) analyzes invisible agent constructions in four South Asian languages as naru ‘become’ expressions, following the Japanese linguistic tradition, and demonstrates their semantic similarity to and morphosyntactic differences from canonical passives. Arguing that modality may be responsible for the overall organization of the Hindi tense-aspect system, Ghanshyam Sharma (83–113) shows that the frequent use of the verb hona ‘to be’ to signify necessary belief qualifies it as a presumptive modal rather than a tense-marked form.

In ‘Special contributions’ Sanford B. Steever reexamines his earlier analysis of finiteness in Dravidian in the light of Hans Henrich Hock’s formulation of Dravidian and Indo-Aryan finiteness in terms of a strict-OV restriction. Hock responds that many of Steever’s formulations are based on middle and modern Tamil, extrapolated to the other Dravidian languages, and hence are not always applicable to them.

In the ‘Reports’ section, Tej Bhatia and Rajend Mesthrie report on research on South Asian languages in North America and South Africa, respectively. Niladri Sekhar Dash and Joga Singh each report on various linguistic publications in Bengali and Punjabi from 2000-2008.

In the ‘Dialogue’ section, a forum for discussion of previous papers published in ARSALL, Shishir Bhattacharja and Lionel Wee respond to two papers that appeared in ARSALL2007.

The book’s value lies in its conception as a forum where linguists working on South Asian languages can contribute to, debate, and discuss current issues in the study of these languages. The series is also useful for those interested in current trends and research orientations among South Asian linguists. That it invites responses to earlier publications and sponsors debate between two scholars makes the book a lively and engaging read.