Reviewed by Michael Haugh, Griffith University

Interest in formulaic language, which encompasses preconstructed or semipreconstructed word combinations such as collocations, similes, and proverbs, has grown steadily in the past thirty years. Yet, although there has been a long tradition of exploring links between culture and language—famously expounded in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—the interface between formulaic language and culture-specific ways of thinking has remained relatively unexplored territory. In this edited collection, Paul Skandera brings together a diverse range of approaches to explore the interface between phraseology and culture in English.

The volume is divided into four sections and includes a prologue by Andrew Pawley, who masterfully outlines developments in the study of formulaic language over the past thirty years, and an epilogue by Penny Lee that carefully unites the chapters within the theme of a cultural perspective on formulaic language.

In Section 1, ‘Focus on particular lexemes’, the cultural connotations that relate to particular word combinations in English are discussed. Anna Wierzbicka examines how different senses of the collocation reasonably well have evolved, while Bert Peeters argues that weekend can be considered a key cultural word in Australian English. Monika Bednarek and Wolfram Bublitz examine collocations in corpora that contain enjoy as a directive and argue that the use of such collocations is a reflection of consumerism. Finally, Doris Schönefeld compares collocations using hot in English, German, and Russian, building evidence that formulaic language reflects underlying ways of interpreting experience that may be culture-specific.

In Section 2, ‘Focus on types of idioms’, the papers focus on the cultural connotations associated with idiomatic word combinations. Charles Clay Doyle examines how proverbs became a part of the linguistic and cultural fabric of English, while Wolfgang Mieder analyzes the historical roots of proverbs particular to English in New England. Pam Peters focuses on similes and evaluative idioms in Australian English, which she argues reflect themes prominent in Australian society. This section concludes with a collocational analysis of modality and related politeness implications by Svenja Adolphs.

In Section 3, ‘Focus on use-related varieties: Registers’, the papers investigate how formulaic language is used in particular registers or discourses. Melina Magdalena and Peter Mühlhäusler examine greenspeak (i.e. environmental discourse), Andrea Gerbig and Angela Shek explore tourism discourse, and Karin Aijmer discusses answering machine messages. From these three chapters a common theme emerges: the analysis of formulaic language can be used to understand shifts in cultural values.

In the final section, ‘Focus on user-related varieties: Dialects and ethnolects’, the analytical lens moves to dialects or ethnolects. Daniel Schreier examines greetings in Tristan de Cunhan English, while Ian G. Malcolm and Farzad Sharifian discuss the use of formulaic language in Australian Aboriginal English. Hans-Georg Wolf and Frank Polzenhagen use a similar approach in their analysis of formulaic language in African English. This section concludes with a corpus study of formulaic sequences used on the Internet across a variety of Englishes by Christian Mair.

The variety of approaches represented is one of its strengths of this volume. It gives credibility to the claim that there is indeed a substantive link between culture and formulaic language.