Reviewed by Dinha T. Gorgis, Jadara University for Graduate Studies

Hall’s book includes four parts with a preface and a glossary. For H, ‘language isn’t just a way of transmitting meaning’ (xi), but also a way of transmitting ‘power’ (xii) through which we can see ourselves and understand the other. Although the book is about linguistics, yet it is not a conventional textbook; it ‘embraces and integrates the social and psychological aspects of language’ (xiii).

Part 1, ‘Magic’, has two chapters. Ch. 1 (3–27) is an invitation to finding out ways to break the language spell with which we live, linguists included. Thought is encoded in language, which is expressed through speech (or text), as its ‘external manifestations’ (6). We are put under the spell probably because language is invisible to us. And this ‘led our preliterate ancestors to associate it with magic’ (7). We all know that language is there, but we are unable to ‘penetrate its mystery’ (10). The paradox then is one of invisibility vs. presence. And this is what H calls the language spell. Three mental domains are assumed to encode the spell: linguistic knowledge (‘our language software’), linguistic awareness, and linguistic belief, the first being ‘most fundamental’ (14).

Ch. 2 (28–46) introduces the field of linguistics that H criticizes as not having been able to make the inner workings of language visible enough to break the spell. He therefore appeals to language professionals to abandon their ‘ivory tower’ (28) and invites them to do down-to-earth linguistics. H attempts to break the spell by demonstrating how linguistic knowledge operates (Fig. 1, p. 36), and how language use works (Fig. 2, p. 44).

The three chapters in Part 2 handle just ‘words’. In Ch. 3 (49–84), one finds the amazing world of words, names, meanings, and thought, and their associated problems. Fig. 1 (67) nicely depicts how our word information flows between the outside world and the human mind. Only then comes the question of what a word is. Having been aided by ample evidence from reported experiments, a word for H ought not to be envisaged as a bi-dimensional thing like a coin ‘but rather a “triad” of three things at least’ (79; see Fig. 4, p. 80).

Ch. 4 (85–109) continues ‘to challenge the public Spell-bound view of language’ (85). It seeks to find out where words come from, starting with language acquisition, going beyond the conventional dictionary, delving into the mental lexicon, and relating internalized language (I-language) to externalized language (E-language). Ch. 5 (110–29) deals with word forms and how words come into existence. H tries to draw distinctions between speech and spelling, between phonemes and graphemes, and, most importantly, between ‘phonetic procedural knowledge’ and ‘declarative knowledge of phonology’. He regrets that linguists are IPA spell-bound. Several factors seem to conspire in the creation of new words, such as crosslinguistic influence, code-switching, and borrowing ‘via contact’ (127).

Part 3, ‘Grammar’, includes three chapters. Ch. 6 (133–53) handles ‘morphology’. Combinatoriality within the word and between words is approached ‘from the perspective of I-linguistic declarative knowledge … and how such knowledge changes through time’ (133). Ch. 7 (154–86), ‘Syntax’, shows us that a sentence exhibits a hierarchical structure, just like a syllabic structure, and that when syntax is put into action, it interacts with pragmatics. Demonstrably, Fig. 15 (183) illustrates a small part of an English syntactic component, lexical component, and conceptual structure, which is assumed to reside in all English minds.

In Ch. 8, H moves from DNA to discourse community (187–208). The innatist view of language is challenged as being insufficient, though plausible. To go beyond syntactic rules, trees, and semantics, pragmatic knowledge and communicative competence must go together with our linguistic competence. It is this interface that can ‘resolve more of the reality behind the Language Spell’ (208).

Part 4, ‘Babel’, concludes the book with three more chapters. Ch. 9 (211–37) explores interlinguistic diversity. Although we share one human language emerging from our DNA, our E-languages are different. H notes that ‘one nation, one language’ is yet a second spell that we equally need to combat as long as we believe that ‘languages change rapidly and intermix freely, leading to the multilingual world’ (236) in which we live.

Ch. 10 (238–69) is a move from a macro to a micro view of surface diversity. Thus, H has extended Dell Hymes’s acronym SPEAKING, which is ‘essentially a product of external sociocultural forces, rather than internal linguistic ones’ (268). Ch. 11, ‘The spell unbroken’ (270–99), addresses the question of linguistics in action. The linguistic knowledge, awareness, and belief are discussed once more and related to some of the ways linguistics and allied fields can contribute to the breaking of the spell. ‘And yet the Spell will remain completely unbroken for most until linguists are heard and read more widely’ (297).

H’s book is unique in presentation, coverage and, above all, style; it is breathtaking. He attempts to convince us through an intellectual and uninterrupted journey that we are able and/or should be enabled to break the language spell. Except for Fig. 3 on p. 158, which unfortunately is missing, the whole book is error-free and elegantly presented. And passing such a judgment may be infected by the spell!