Reviewed by Richard W. Hallett, Northeastern Illinois University

The major objective of this book is ‘to sensitize users of English to its varieties across cultures, and to emphasize that effective communication among users of different Englishes is possible by cultivating an awareness of the variation in Englishes and their cultural, social, and ideational functions’ (xiii).

In ‘Introduction: World Englishes and cultural contexts’ (1–13), the authors begin with the claim that English is the most widespread international language ever. After describing the four diasporas of English, they provide a table of the functions of the language in what they term (following Braj Kachru) the inner, outer, and expanding circles (4) of world Englishes.

The authors claim that the goal of Part 1 ‘is to focus on the interaction of cultural assumptions, social configurations, and linguistic resources’ (15) of various users of English. In Ch. 1, ‘Interaction as cooperation’ (19–29), they provide a general overview of the concepts of speech acts, conversational implicature, and face, among other pragmatic concerns. Based on these concepts, Ch. 2, ‘Context of culture’ (31–39), explains why defining culture and its contexts can be difficult. Ch. 3, ‘Parameters of politeness’ (41–58), discusses twelve parameters of politeness (e.g. values and group membership) and twelve devices that serve as instruments of politeness (e.g. pronouns of address and honorifics). In Ch. 4, ‘Intelligibility and interlocutors’ (59–70), the authors define and exemplify the notions of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and interpretability.

Part 2 introduces three chapters. Ch. 5, ‘Sounds and rhythm’ (77–84), discusses variations and innovations in the phonetics and phonology of varieties of English. Ch. 6, ‘Phrases and sentences’ (85–101), examines syntactic variation in World Englishes, focusing on nouns, verbs, select syntactic patterns, and thematic information. Ch. 7 ‘Words and collocations’ (103–11) presents issues in compiling regional dictionaries, with a special emphasis on Asian Englishes.

Three chapters are included in Part 3. Ch. 8, ‘Conversational interaction’ (119–34), provides an in-depth discussion of cross-cultural differences in conversation styles, such as turn-taking, backchannels, and simultaneous talk. Similarly, Ch. 9, ‘Interaction in writing’ (135–63), gives examples of cross-cultural differences in letter writing, academic writing, and argumentative text construction. Ch. 10, ‘Contextualizing world Englishes literatures’ (165–76), argues for the examination of literary texts and the teaching of English literatures in various contexts. In ‘Conclusion: World Englishes: Legacy and relevance’ (177–84), the authors briefly present attitudes and ideologies concerning varieties of English, and their implications for sociology and pedagogy.

This book is of great value to researchers in the areas of sociolinguistics, language variation, discourse/conversational analysis, and of course world Englishes. Moreover, the book can easily serve as a textbook for a course in any of these areas.