Reviewed by Douglas C. Walker, University of Calgary

Questions of identity influenced by language and by linguistic behavior are of increasing importance in studies of linguistic ethnography and ecology. French lends itself particularly well to research in this domain, given the rich geographic, social, and stylistic variation it displays despite centuries of efforts at standardization and attempts to project a unified view of the language and the state. This rich volume surveys a range of the issues involved in the complex link between language and identity, demonstrating the necessity to speak of ‘identities’ rather than a homogeneous and all-encompassing affiliation.

Following an introduction by the editors, the book is organized into four parts. Part 1, ‘Institutionalized identity’, chronicles the linguistic history of the French language and the implications of standardization dating from the seventeenth century.

Part 2 ‘Regional identities’, contains three papers that examine the situation in the Picardy region of extreme north eastern France (and small zones in adjacent Belgium). The persistence of the Picard variety (or set of varieties), the development of its literary tradition, and its formal recognition as a language of France in 2001 all belie the normative and standardizing attitudes that are believed to characterize both French language policy and the elimination of dialects. Nonetheless, as the contributors make clear, the value and the vitality of this variety provoke different reactions in the various segments of the population, and its prognosis is not clear.

Part 3 moves to ‘Social identity’. The first contribution examines pronoun choice—specifically, the notoriously complicated tu/vous ‘you’ distinction. Using results from a recorded interview of six women friends, Penelope Gardner-Chloros shows how, using complicated strategies, speakers make pronoun choice to determine ‘with which groups and which individuals one wishes to be identified and from which, on the contrary, one wishes to differentiate oneself’ (107). Two subsequent papers explore the rich field of terms of address and insults using the categories of context, age, gender, status, and ethnicity, with results that confirm the importance of shared knowledge and the register involved as well as links to more general issues of politeness. Part 3 closes with papers that examine the use of the stigmatized expression quoi ‘what, which’ in the context of recent historical change and the use of the regionally marked forms of the numerals septante ‘seventy’ and nonante ‘ninety’, to explore the relationship between linguistic forms and identity.

The final component, Part 4, ‘Competing identities’, looks beyond the borders of metropolitan France to examine four different domains. David Cowling investigates French-Italian borrowing and codeswitching in the sixteenth century as seen through the eyes of Henri Estienne, who  asserted that the French language is superior to its rivals and must be protected from pernicious foreign influences. This is followed by discussions of the French spoken by the Huguenots in eighteenth-century Berlin and of the French variety spoken by Maghrebian immigrants to France who struggle with conflicting identities and with stereotypical categorization. Part 4 closes with a review by Albert Valdman of variation in Louisiana French and strategies for its revalorization and revitalization.

Finally, Françoise Gadet summarizes the complexities of correlating identity assignment with linguistic variation, particularly given the impact of the vernacular in relation to the standard language, the changing role of the written language, and the increasing influence of nonstandard usages. Of particular importance in the evolution of French and of francophone identities will be, according to Gadet, the language of the younger generations in a globalizing context.

The French language and questions of identity closes with a useful general bibliography and name and subject indexes. It is handsomely produced and, more importantly, contains a wealth of information that will be of interest not only to researchers of French but also to researchers of language and identity.