Reviewed by María A. Fernández-Parra, University of Wales Swansea, United Kingdom

The outcome of a conference held at the University of Lisbon in November 2002, this volume investigates translation studies as a transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary science.

In the first of three parts, the contributions examine translation studies as a discipline, rather than as a process, and discuss its interdisciplinary nature. The authors marvel at the development of the discipline while also fully aware of its shortcomings: on one hand, translation studies is praised as a kaleidoscopic entity in which ‘differences of approach should not be seen as disrupting but as enriching’ (50), while on the other hand, some authors cast doubt on the validity of certain aspects of the current methodology of translation research. Both ends of this continuum are well presented and convincing, thus leaving it to the reader to decide where translation studies currently stands.

Part 2 is devoted to the position of translation within a culture under the influence of a more predominant culture, such as Portuguese in relation to Spanish. Some doubt is shed on the validity of two well-established concepts in translation—namely, that the readership is conceptualized as a homogeneous entity and that translation is not only linguistic but also cultural. With good arguments, Alexandra Assis Rosa claims that the readership of a translation is anything but homogeneous and Matthew Wing-Kwong Leung offers a new perspective of translation not only as linguistic and cultural but also ‘as a means of ideological resistance’ (129).

The papers in Part 3 deal with the less-documented aspects of translation, including the concepts of overtranslatability and pseudooriginals. These concepts are explained using well-chosen examples. Also, a revealing account of the history of translation in China invites Western scholars to collaborate with Asian scholars in the study of the theory and practice of translation.

Overall, with themes that run from theoretical to practical, this volume is both thought-provoking and informative. This is a book for those hoping to view translation studies from a new perspective as well as engage in debate about its methodology and key concepts. This volume would sit well on the shelf of any linguist interested in translation.

Reviewed by Maria del Puy Ciriza, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

In this semantic and syntactic study of intensifiers and reflexive forms in Germanic languages, Volker Gast explains why self-forms can be employed both as intensifiers (e.g. The president himself made the decision) and as reflexives (e.g. John criticized himself). Additionally, G demonstrates how both intensifying and reflexive self-forms can be analyzed through the identity function (ID).

In Ch. 1, after reviewing previous diachronic and synchronic analyses that have attempted to explain the relationship between intensifiers and reflexives, G summarizes the importance of the ID in encoding reflexivity and intensification. He argues that the ID allows for the analysis self as an intensifier when interacting with information structure but as a reflexive when interacting with binding.

Chs. 2–6 focus on intensifiers. In Ch. 2, ‘The distribution and morphology of head-adjacent self’, G describes the basic distributional coordinates of head-adjacent intensifiers in Germanic languages. He observes that in some Germanic languages the most common position of the intensifier is right-adjoined, whereas in other Germanic languages the intensifier may also be preposed or left-adjoined. After illustrating various combinatorial properties of head-adjacent self in different Germanic languages, G concludes that its only restriction is in the propositional background. In Ch. 3, ‘Head-adjacent intensifiers as expressions of an identity function’, G demonstrates that head-adjacent intensifiers can denote the ID.

In Ch. 4, ‘The syntax of head-distant intensifiers’, G parses the distributional differences between inclusive and exclusive self constructions, observing that although exclusive self is contained in the verb phrase, inclusive self occupies a higher position. Ch. 5 discusses the ‘Combinatorial properties of head-distant intensifiers’. G summarizes previous research that calls for a number of semantic and pragmatic distributional restrictions on head-distant intensifiers and shows that these restrictions represent tendencies but not rules. Furthermore, he concludes that the only restrictions on head-distant self involve information structure. In Ch. 6, ‘The interpretation of head distant intensifiers’, G demonstrates that the previously provided syntactic representations (from Ch. 4) can account for these semantic differentiations.

The final two chapters turn to the reflexive function of self. In Ch. 7, ‘Reflexivity and the identity function’, G presents a typology of reflexives as well as two of the most influential theories that account for the distribution of pronouns: Noam Chomsky’s classic binding theory and Paul Kiparsky’s (Disjoint reference and the typology of pronouns. In More than words, ed. by Ingrid Kaufmann and Barbara Stiebels. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002) optimality-theory account. G modifies Kiparsky’s model and proposes two types of predicates with respect to reflexivity: typically self-directed predicates (e.g. to wash) and typically other-directed predicates (e.g. to hate). In Ch. 8, ‘The grammar of reflexivity in Germanic languages’, G classifies Germanic languages along two major dimensions: (i) languages that have simplex (SE)-anaphors versus languages that do not and (ii) languages with a high ranking of the other directed binding constraint versus languages in which this constraint ranks lower than the economy constraint.

This book provides a thorough analysis of intensifiers in Germanic languages, which combines analytical methods from syntax and semantics.

Reviewed by Maria del Puy Ciriza, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This book is a historical itinerary of Western philosophies of language that begins with the work accomplished by the Greek philosophers and continues through the current cognitive debates on the innateness of language. In the forward, Lia Formigari asserts the impossibility of representing a single perspective on the study of language. For this reason, this volume focuses on two approaches: the study of language as (i) a cognitive tool and (ii) a compilation of phylogenetic components.

In Ch. 1, F reviews the disciplines that deal with language, synthesizing their various methods, designs, goals, and adaptations. Ch. 2 explores the putative founding texts of Western language philosophies (i.e. Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine); particular emphasis is given to their linguistic writings that grappled with the arbitrary and natural relationship between language and being. Ch. 3 covers the same historical ground as the previous chapter; however, F’s focus here is on the question asked by the naturalist paradigm: ‘is language connatural to humankind or acquired through the humanization of the species?’ (39).

In Ch. 4, F continues with a study of scholarship in the Middle Ages: she examines the intersection of theology and language sciences in the field of hermeneutics. F discusses how the first biblical analyses helped to expand the idea of semantic categories and semantic universals. Furthermore, she expands on the medieval ideas about the universality of grammar held by Boethius of Denmark (among others) and discusses William of Ockham’s nominalism as a precedent to John Locke’s theory of language, which was to become the starting point of modern language theories in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Ch. 5 focuses on the Renaissance and the Enlightenment: F investigates the creation of the first language typologies, the notion of the vernacular, and the ultimate search for a unitary universal grammar. Here, F continues the discussion of Locke’s ideas about the genesis of words and the first iconic links between things, ideas, and names. F further discusses the transition from Locke’s semantics of ideas to the late-eighteenth-century theories on the semantics of usage.

In Ch. 6, F deals with the emergence of national languages in the nineteenth century, the first ideas of a shared linguistic community, and the concept of language as a cultural expression with a common worldview. She also examines the first studies on historical comparativism. Ch. 7 focuses on the turn of the nineteenth century and the emergence of two contrasting paradigms: linguistic idealism (i.e. the rejection of scientific theories of language) and psychologism (i.e. the study of language with research on its mental preconditions).

In Ch. 8, F surveys current debates on language as an instrument of cognitive interaction and the impact of evolutionary theories on the innate conception of language.

This book provides a rich collection of references that will help readers orient themselves to the seminal works of each historical period. One of the volume’s strengths is F’s ability to demonstrate how different language philosophies are both interconnected throughout history and relevant for today’s linguistic scholarship.

Reviewed by Michael Cahill, SIL International

This slim volume sketches the sounds of seven major Nigerian languages: Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Igala, Idoma, Fufulde, and Efik. Suitable for introductory linguistics students, it includes basic information on articulatory apparatus (e.g. larynx, lips, uvula), airstream mechanisms, and how anatomy and airstream combine to produce sounds. For example, Clara Ikekeonwu details the mechanisms of ejectives and implosives. No language is covered in depth, but there are more details about Igbo and its dialects than any other language. In her discussion of phonation types, for example, I notes contrastive breathy voice in some Igbo dialects.

In the longest chapter, ‘Segments’, I provides a list of consonant and vowel phonemes in the seven languages as well as a discussion of phonetic variants. Several dialects of Igbo have quite unusual variants. I also examines the use of tone in the languages (all except for Fulfulde are tonal).

I presents a few basic phonological processes in these languages, first discussing concepts such as the difference between progressive and regressive assimilation. In hiatus, total vowel assimilation seems common, whereas vowel coalescence is less common. She gives no examples of consonantal assimilation: usually one of two identical consonants in adjacent syllables elides. I covers glottalization, (i.e. insertion of a glottal stop in various circumstances) and weakening of vowels to schwa. One interesting phenomenon is the epenthesis of [r] in Igbo to break up vowel clusters in reduplicated forms.

A chapter on the interference of Nigerian languages on the pronunciation of English will be useful for Nigerians, other English speakers, and ESL teachers working with Nigerians. For example, I discusses mispronunciations of English [p] as [ɸ], [b], or [ɓ], and English interdental fricatives pronounced as stops in all languages. For vowels, I provides a table that indicates whether each language either matches the English pronunciation or changes it in some way. Primary stress in English words is unsurprisingly changed to high tone in the tonal languages.

I concludes with a short comparative text: a description of the harmattan, the dry dusty wind of sub-Saharan Africa. The text is provided in English and is phonemically and orthographically transcribed in Hausa, Igbo, Igala, and Yoruba (including tone markings).

Noteworthy is the claim of the existence of a bilabial click in some Igbo dialects, which corresponds to /m/ in Standard Igbo. However, this may be the voiceless bilabial implosive mentioned by Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson (The sounds of the world’s languages, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1996).

This is not a detailed work but rather an introductory sketch and handy quick reference. More data would be welcome in many cases. There are some unnecessary abbreviations, such as HL (human language) and MD (main dialect) and typographical errors are not uncommon; however, these shortcomings do not interfere with understanding.

Reviewed by Jason Brown, University of British Columbia

This work constitutes a ‘salvage study’ of the Wulguru language; in other words, a study not based on firsthand fieldwork but rather on forms that have been reconstructed from early texts. The primary source of data for this study is the journal of Charles Price from the late nineteenth century. Since Wulguru, a Pama-Nyungan language formerly spoken around Townsville, in northeast Queensland, Australia, ceased to be natively spoken before a complete linguistic documentation could be completed, this reconstruction from a fragmentary record is likely to be the best approximation of the grammar available.

In Ch. 1, Mark Donohue provides a background to the study and also discusses previous work on Wulguru. Here, D describes the unique situation of Wulguru and differentiates its dialects.

Ch. 2 documents the phonology of the language. D identifies the Wulguru phonemes and explains the phonological rules that can be deduced from the texts. Wulguru exhibits consonantal place contrasts between labial, coronal, and velar, and within the coronals, between apico-alveolar, lamino-dental, and palatal. Additionally, there is both a trilled and an approximant rhotic. Vowels exhibit a three-way contrast as well as a contrast in length.

In Ch. 3, D discusses morphology, perhaps the richest area available for documentation. In particular, word classes, pronominals, nominal morphology (including case endings), and verbal morphology are explored. D surveys the functions of the ergative/instrumental case marker, which is infrequent in the texts, as well as the purposive/allative/dative, genitive, and locative markers. He lists the deictics and the reduplicated forms. Finally, D closes with a discussion of verbal derivation, the verbal conjugation system, aspect, and the optional use of agreement on the verb.

In Ch. 4, D outlines the limited syntactic observations about Wulguru. He discusses word order preferences as well as the use of equational sentences. D presents evidence for the possibility of various syntactic pivots and comments on the various ways of expressing negation.

Ch. 5 provides several short texts collected by Price along with his original translations and notes. Each text is followed by D’s interpretation or commentary as well as textual and translation notes on the forms that are found in the texts. D notes that the form of the Lord’s Prayer indicates that much of the translation was done by a Wulguru speaker and not by Price himself. This is suggested by the literal translations of the text, which are a commentary on the white suppression of the Wulguru people.

Ch. 6 contains a general lexicon and a verbal lexicon. These are followed by an English-Wulguru finderlist, which facilitates searching the lexicon in English.

Throughout this work, D does an incredible job of carefully reconstructing the grammar of Wulguru, while also offering informed speculation in places the material from Price’s journals are not entirely clear.

Reviewed by Debra Ziegeler, National Coalition of Independent Scholars

An attempt to combine the three frequently interlinked but underresearched subdisciplines of diachronic, dialectal, and typological linguistics, this volume provides a perspective on the ways in which these fields interact. The volume, which is dedicated to the memory of one of its contributors, Elina Sorva, represents a carefully-selected collection of studies compiled to capture dimensions of linguistic variation relevant to diachronic, dialectal, and typological linguistics. It covers a range of languages—most of which are derived from Indo-European, and specifically, West Germanic languages. As such, this volume is somewhat conservative in its objectives, although it highlights an area of interface studies that has not been recognized to a sufficient degree in similar volumes. Moreover, this volume contributes to the field of typology in that it focuses on the study of nonstandard variation in a language, which is not frequently considered in typological research.

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, ‘Typology and grammaticalization’, begins with ‘“Triangulation” of diachrony, dialectology and typology: An overview’, in which the editors, Terttu Nevalainen, Juhani Klemola, and Mikko Laitinen introduce the volume. Next, Anna Siewierska and Dik Bakker discuss ‘Bi-directional vs. uni-directional asymmetries in the encoding of semantic distinctions in free and bound person forms’. Using a large, computerized database of 328 languages, they illustrate crosslinguistic relations between the degree of morpheme boundedness and the degree of semantic distinctiveness.

In Part 2, ‘Diachrony and typology’, Dieter Kastovsky investigates ‘Historical morphology from a typological point of view’, in which he views the derivation of diachronic morphological change from a typological perspective. Kastovsky concludes that changes at the local level may collaborate to feed back into the system and determine the general direction of the future tendency for change. In ‘Typology and comparative linguistics: Jakobson revisited’, Konstantin Krasukhin uses the middle voice in Greek, Lithuanian, and Russian to exemplify the manner in which diachronic pathways of grammaticalization can be realized in cognate forms that coexist synchronically across related languages.

In ‘Primary adjectives in English and German: Variation and change in diachrony and typology’, Thomas Schöneborn uses Robert Dixon’s (Where have all the adjectives gone? And other essays in semantics and syntax, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1982) classifications of English primary adjectives to investigate whether the same set of adjectives may be found in a related language, German. Schöneborn arrives at the conclusion that German has a different set of primary adjectives than English and also that differences can be found throughout various historical stages of the language.

‘The concessive connective albeit’, by Elina Sorva, is one of the most well-researched contributions: it exhaustively covers the history and grammaticalization of the English conjunction albeit. Using the Helsinki Corpus, the British National Corpus, and data acquired using the Google search engine, Sorva explains the Middle English origin of albeit as well as fluctuations in its frequency over time. Next, in ‘Possessives and determiners in Old English’, Cynthia Allen offers an explanation for the simultaneous occurrence of both possessive-determiner and determiner-possessive constructions in Old English and early Middle English.

In  ‘Analytic of the samyn or synthetic its: The use of neuter possessives in Older Scots texts’, Joanna Bugaj presents a study of the rise of the neuter possessive pronoun its in Older Scots. Using the Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots, Bugaj compares its to a number of other variants such as thereof, the samyn, and of it. The study of pronouns is continued by Mikko Laitinen in ‘Expressing human indefiniteness in English’, which examines the loss of grammatical gender in indefinite pronouns and the rise of plural (gender-neutral) substitutes in Early Modern English.

Part 3, ‘Dialectology and typology’, begins with a contribution from Werner Abraham, ‘Dialect and typology: Where they meet—and where they don’t’. Abraham argues against the general opinion that dialect data must be explained by sociolinguistic or historical factors. Instead, based on the premise that dialects are simply spoken forms of written, standard codes, he offers an explanation in terms of discourse parsing. In ‘Somerset relativizers revisited’, Kirsti Peitsara compares her observations of the use of relativizers in the dialects of Somerset, England, with previous work by Ossi Ihalainen (e.g. Relative clauses in the dialect of Somerset. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 81/82.187–96, 1980) and with other corpora. In ‘Resilient or yielding? Features of Irish English syntax and aspect in early Australia’, Clemens Fritz surveys The Corpus of Oz Early English for residual Irish English features in the grammar of nineteenth-century Australian English.

Part 4, ‘Dialectology, typology and diachrony’, begins with ‘Negative indefinites: A typological and diachronic perspective on a Brabantic construction’, by Johan van der Auwera, Ludovic De Cuypere, and Annemie Neuckermans. Using previous studies, the authors compare the expression of negative indefinite personal pronouns in a dialect of Dutch with typologically similar phenomena in other languages. In ‘The relatives who and what in northern East Anglia’, Patricia Poussa discusses the distribution of  subject relativizers, preposition stranding, and concomitant features in a historical study of East Anglian. Additionally, Poussa compares her data with the same phenomena in Afrikaans. Finally, in ‘Vernacular universals? The case of plural was in early Modern English’, Terttu Nevalainen argues that the generalization of singular concord with the past tense forms of be is a vernacular universal. He compares his Modern English data with data from Finnish.

Overall, this volume offers an unusual selection of studies (some more interesting than others) with a highly original, unified theme. However, the range of languages studied is rather restricted: the theme could be expanded to include a more diverse, crosslinguistic coverage of topics.

Reviewed by Sabine Zerbian, University of the Witwatersrand

A collection of state-of-the-art articles on methodological questions in laboratory phonology, this book is the follow-up publication of a workshop held in Leipzig, Germany, in October 2004. Since the inception of laboratory phonology in the early 1990s, the methodology of prosodic research has become an issue in its own right. The contributors’ backgrounds reflect the anchoring of empirical prosody research at the interface of theoretical linguistics, psycholinguistics, and phonetics.

The contributors investigate three methodological areas: acoustic parameters, annotation practices, and experimental design. In the opening article ‘Acoustic segment durations in prosodic research: A practical guide’, Alice Turk, Satsuki Nakai, and Mariko Sugahara present a method for acoustic speech segmentation that is based on consonantal constriction and is suitable for duration measurements. In ‘Stylization of pitch contours’, Dik Hermes discusses methods that reduce pitch contours to their perceptually essential properties such as close-copy stylization, which contains only the minimum of tonal specification without audibly affecting the intonation, and a syllable-based method, which represents a tone for every syllable.

In ‘Voice source parameters and prosodic analysis’, Christophe d’Alessandro draws attention to voice quality, which is often neglected in the description of intonation. Although voice quality is phonemic in some languages and is important for naturalness in all languages, scholarly work often concentrates exclusively on fundamental frequency (F0) and duration. Greg Kochanski, ‘Prosody beyond fundamental frequency’, also stresses the importance of acoustic parameters beyond F0 and duration. He approaches this topic from a theoretical point of view, arguing that information channel intonation is exploited effectively by speakers. Klaus J. Kohler compares models of prosodic phonology in ‘Paradigms in experimental prosodic analysis: From measurement to function’. Drawing on data collected in various experiments, Kohler argues in favor of the contour-based approach of the Kiel Intonation Model rather than the prevalent tone sequence model of the autosegmental-metrical approach.

Stefan Baumann deals with the annotation of prosody with respect to information structure in ‘Information structure and prosody: Linguistic categories for spoken language annotation’. He describes the development of an annotation system based on the analysis of a corpus of German newspaper texts. In ‘Time types and time trees: Prosodic mining and alignment of temporally annotated data’, Dafydd Gibbon presents a methodology to derive hierarchical models of timing from annotated speech data.

The section on experimental design begins with an article by Fred Cummins, ‘Probing the dynamics of speech production’, which presents experimental designs that intervene in the speech production process, thereby reducing inter-speaker variability. These designs can be fruitfully applied in the investigation of rhythmic organization, phrasing, and pausing. In ‘Using interactive tasks to elicit natural dialogue’ Kiwako Ito and Shari R. Speer compare the naturalness of elicited data collected through scripted and spontaneous speech.

Duane G. Watson, Christine A. Gunlogson, and Michael K. Tanenhaus explore ‘Online methods for the investigation of prosody’. They present the use of eye-tracking in prosody research, taking the interpretation of H* and L+H* accents in English as an example. In ‘How to obtain and process perceptual judgements of intonational meaning’ Toni Rietveld and Aoju Chen evaluate existing scaling methods with respect to their suitability for perceptual judgments.

Carlos Gussenhoven discusses methods that distinguish between discrete and gradual differences in pitch contours in ‘Experimental approaches to establishing discreteness of intonational contrasts’. Finally, Katrin Schneider, Britta Lintfert, Grzegorz Dogil, and Bernd Möbius explore the ‘Phonetic grounding of prosodic categories’. They approach this question from the angle of speech production, perception, and acoustics.

The book also includes portraits of the authors, an author index, and a subject index.

This volume will be a useful reference for those working on experimental research in prosody, as it addresses a wide range of meta-theoretical questions.

Reviewed by Anastassia Zabrodskaja, Tallinn University

The interactions between native (NS) and nonnative speakers (NNS) of Finnish in a range of authentic institutional and everyday situations are explored in this volume by Salla Kurhila. In the introductory chapter (1–18), K outlines the aims and methods of her study and  introduces her primary goals: (i) to investigate linguistically asymmetric interactions between NSs and NNSs, and (ii) to identify any emerging problems and determine their relationship to the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Following classical organizational principles of conversation analysis (CA), K offers new insights to the language-in-interaction between NSs and NNSs.

In Ch. 2, ‘Repair organisation as a means to construct understanding’ (19–30), K discusses repair organization, which is a resource for the interactants to address a variety of problems in conversation. Repair initiation can be seen as a turn-holding device for both NSs and NNSs.

Ch. 3 ‘Other-correction’ (31–90), examines grammatical modifications of prior speaker’s turns made by NSs; specifically, instances in which the NS corrects a linguistic detail, most often a grammatical morpheme, in the previous NNS’s sentence. Usually, the NS produces an alternative version of the word or phrase the NNS had used. These corrections are often managed without emphasis.

Ch. 4 ‘Word search’ (91–152), deals with cases in which the speaker (usually the NNS) focuses on the talk-in-progress. K starts with a brief introduction to previous CA research on word searches, which are found in various types of interaction in addition to NNS data. Here, K presents lexical and grammatical searches from her collection of seventy-eight interactionally-oriented word searches.

In Ch. 5, ‘Candidate understandings’ (153–218), K focuses on turns in which the speaker checks his (or her) understanding of some stretch of prior talk. There are three main types of turn-initial elements: (i) particles that display regonition, understanding, or newsworthiness of the prior talk; (ii) conclusive particles or question utterances; and (iii) completion of a turn (or a proposition) for the other speaker.

K completes the book with Ch. 6 ‘Concluding discussion’ (219–32), a summary of her data of NS-NNS interactions and a discussion of the implications for both SLA and CA research.

This study is an extensive and well-organized linguistic account that will serve as a helpful reference to those interested in NS-NNS interactions and CA.

Reviewed by Anastassia Zabrodskaja, Tallinn University

An investigation of the discourse functions of Jamaican Creole, this volume compares new text types of computer-mediated communication (CMC) with oral communication. This book is comprised of seven chapters and a substantial appendix that contains the primary corpus data.

In an introductory Ch. 1 (1–32), Lars Hinrichs reviews theoretical concepts in Jamaican sociolinguistics and clearly describes the compilation and structure of the corpus. The data include e-mails and postings on internet discussion forums and message boards.

Ch. 2, ‘The creole continuum and CMC’ (33–42), explores the written data. H discusses whether the written data and the speech data reflect the Jamaican creole continuum to the same extent. Additionally, here H explains the new variety of Jamaican English (i.e. Patois) that has emerged through the medium of CMC.

In Ch. 3, ‘How the situation determines code choice: A “simple, almost one-to-one relationship”’ (43–60), the notion of situational codeswitching (CS) is analyzed. Following the work of John Gumperz (Discourse strategies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), H highlights the more reliable and predictable connections between code choice and aspects of the situation. Supporting his hypothesis, H finds a clear correlation between personal style and the relative position of the addressee to the writer.

Ch. 4, ‘Giving contextualization cues: How writers provide context information through code choice’ (61–84), deals with metaphorical CS. H continues the discussion of Gumperz’s (1982) work as well as of Gumperz’s followers and critics. Moreover, H analyzes CSs in his data, arguing that the baseline code in the e-mails is clearly some form of English. However, Patois is used in CS strategies, which contrasts with English in some very standard contextualization cue functions.

In Ch. 5, ‘CS and identity: How writers describe themselves through code choice’ (85–132), H provides an excellent overview of Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and ethnicity (Robert B. LePage & Andrée Tabouret-Keller, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) as well as the Labovian view of variation and the responses it has generated. H explains that identity construction involves the use of Patois in CS to create socially recognized personae. In this chapter, H also examines the correspondence between the social meanings and local discourse functions of Patois.

Ch. 6 (133–38) provides a summary of the analysis and discussion. H points out that Jamaican Creole and English are in a clear functional distribution of unmarked and marked code. He notes that the problems of we– and they-code designation are pervasive in the data. Ch. 7 (139–56) presents general conclusions, compares language use in the Jamaican diaspora and in CMC, and proposes a new direction for the study of English as a world language. Finally, H makes explicit how other researchers might be able to draw on his methods and reasoning in their own CMC research projects.

The primary corpus is included in its entirety in the appendix (169–278). This study is a comprehensive and reader-friendly contribution to CMC and CS studies.

Reviewed by Maria del Puy Ciriza, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This volume is a collection of thirteen articles related to the internal and external factors that affect dialect convergence (DC) and divergence (DD) in European languages. The editors begin with a general introduction, ‘The study of dialect convergence and divergence: Conceptual and methodological considerations’, which addresses the key concepts, main research questions, hypotheses, and methodological issues in the field of dialectology. The subsequent twelve chapters, which are a compilation of case studies about different European languages, are classified into three parts: Part 1 deals with internal factors that affect DC and DD, Part 2 focuses on macrosociolinguistic factors, and Part 3 centers on microsociolinguistic motivations.

In Part 1, ‘Convergence, divergence and linguistic structure’, Jeffrey L. Kallen (‘Internal and external factors in phonological convergence: The case of English /t/ lenition’) argues that language-external social factors, not language-internal phonetic processes, affect the direction of language change in the case of /t/ lenition in various dialects of English. In ‘Dialect/standard convergence, mixing and models of language contact: The case of Italy’, Gaetano Berruto finds Carol Myers-Scotton’s (Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in code switching, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) matrix language frame model inadequate to explain the situation of Italian dialects. Leonie Cornips and Karen Corringan (‘Convergence and divergence in grammar’) propose a combined variationist and generativist framework for analyzing dialectological processes at the grammatical level. They focus on the case of German and Dutch standard and regional dialects. Jenny Cheshire, Paul Kerswill, and Ann Williams (‘Phonology, grammar and discourse in dialect convergence’) recognize the lack of research at the discursive level of variation and present a comparative analysis of the phonetic, discursive, and syntactic patterns uncovered in three distinct British towns.

In Part 2, ‘Macrosociolinguistic motivations of convergence and divergence’, Inge Lise Pedersen illustrates the importance of historical, social, ideological, and economic processes in DC and DD in Scandinavian countries in ‘Processes of standardisation in Scandinavia’. Paul Kerswill and Peter Trudgill examine ‘The birth of new dialects’ in immigrant enclaves, focusing specifically on the case of New Zealandian English. In ‘Dialect convergence in the German language islands’, Peter Rosenberg examines patterns of DC and DD in various settlements of German-speaking communities, stating the importance of language-internal typological changes to explain dialect convergence. Curt Woolhiser (‘Political borders and dialect divergence/convergence in Europe’) considers the importance of political boundaries for DC and DD, giving the example from Belarusian speaking countries. In ‘The influence of urban centres on the spatial diffusion of dialect phenomena’, Johan Taeldeman studies urban dialects in Ghent and argues that, in addition to the factors proposed by the gravity model (Peter Trudgill, The social differentiation of English in Norwich, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), structural and sociopsychological factors are also relevant in the diffusion of language change.

In Part 3, ‘Microsociolinguistic motivations’, Tore Krinstiansean and Jens Normann Jørgensen present a case study of different Copenhagen dialects and discuss the relevance of attitudinal factors in language change in ‘Subjective factors in dialect convergence and divergence’. Juan Andres Villena Ponsoda (‘How similar are people who speak alike? An interpretive way of using social networks in social dialectology research’) studies the Spanish spoken in the city of Malaga through a quantitative network analysis, finding the approach adequate to account for language variation. Finally, Peter Auer and Frans Hinskens (‘The role of interpersonal accommodation in a theory of language change’) investigate language accommodation and state that the acts of identity model (Robert B. LePage & Andrée Tabouret-Keller, Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and ethnicity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) can also function as an optimal model to explain how different subjects accommodate during interaction.

With its rich and varied perspectives of DC and DD, this volume offers an excellent panorama of the field and a fruitful source of case studies that apply different theoretical frameworks.