Rules and representations. By Noam Chomsky. Foreword by Norbert Hornstein. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Pp iii, 299. ISBN 0231132719. $25.

Reviewed by Sharbani Banerji, Ghaziabad, India

Rules and representations initiates the principles-and-parameters approach in the real sense. First published in 1980, the first four chapters of Part 1 are based on Chomsky’s 1978 Woodbridge lectures. The chapters in Part 2 are based on two lectures delivered in 1976. This edition begins with a foreword by Norbert Hornstein extensively discussing how Chomsky’s impact in linguistics, philosophy, and psychology has changed the way we think about language.

Chomsky postulates, and proves through numerous arguments, that the study of language is part of human biology, that the mind should be conceived of as modular in structure, a system of mental organs, of which the language faculty is one. The grammar represented in the mind is a real object, which grows in our mind. There is a genetically determined initial state, the universal grammar, that allows for several possible realizations. Each such possible realization is a possible final steady state, the grammar of a specific language.

In the foreword, ‘Chomsky’s natural philosophy’ (vii–xlix), Norbert Hornstein claims that Chomsky’s central conceptual contribution has three interrelated parts. First, we must shift from the study of (linguistic) behavior to the study of the structures and etiologies of mental/brain states. Second, we must adopt the abstractions and idealizations characteristic of the Galilean approach in the physical sciences to the study of mental sciences, too—in particular, to the study of language. Third, Chomsky has demonstrated how to actually do it, by developing research tools and strategies. The most important of these is the well-known ‘poverty of stimulus argument’.

Ch. 1, ‘Mind and body’ (3–46), argues that the number faculty, the language faculty, and others are ‘mental organs’, analogous to the visual system, and so on. In Ch. 2, ‘Structures, capacities, and conventions’ (47–87), Chomsky gives clinical evidence to prove that to ‘know a language’ is to be in a certain mental state, composed of structures of rules and principles. Ch. 3, ‘Knowledge of grammar’ (89–140), argues that the ‘knowledge of grammar’ is tacit. In this context, it is demonstrated that the properties of a wide-scope quantifier like any must be expressed in logical form (LF).

Ch. 4, ‘Some elements of grammar’ (141–81) gives substantial syntactic, semantic, and even phonetic evidence to prove that the mental representation at the level of the S-structure includes trace [_NP e], a bound variable with no phonetic content. The reality of trace argues against a variable-free notation of logic. It is also shown that the rule of focus is part of the mapping from S-structure to LF, and that LF provides representation relevant to pragmatic presupposition as against logical presupposition. It is proved that LF is governed by the principle of opacity. Ch. 5, ‘On the biological basis of language capacities’ (185–216), argues that the evidence provided for the apparatus of the language faculty, for example, the ‘locality principle’, is analogous to that of the physicist postulating certain processes in the interior of the sun, based on the evidence provided by the light emitted at the periphery. Ch. 6, ‘Language and unconscious knowledge’ (217–54), argues that the theories of grammatical and pragmatic competence must find their place in a theory of performance. Such a rationalist approach contrasts with other learning models.

The function of function words and functional categories. By Marcel den Dikken and Christina M. Tortora. (Linguistik aktuell/Linguistics today 78.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. 293. ISBN 9789027228024. $162 (Hb).

Reviewed by Asya Pereltsvaig, Stanford University

This volume is a collection of papers presented at the 19th Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop, held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The papers selected for this volume all address the question of the function of function words and functional categories. This is a brief outline of the contributions in the volume.

C. Jan-Wouter Zwart challenges the widely adopted hypothesis that morphological properties of functional heads (in this instance, on the left periphery) are responsible for whether a language does or does not exhibit verb second. Instead, he places verb second in the domain of narrow syntax and analyzes it as a positional dependency marking strategy. Verb second is also the topic of Ute Bohnacker’s article, which examines the second language acquisition of this phenomenon by Swedish learners of German.

The article by Josef Bayer, Tanja Schmid, and Markus Bader concentrates on the functional superstructure of embedded control infinities with zu, focusing on German (but discussing also Dutch and Bangla). They argue that while ‘extraposed’ zu-infinitives are CPs with a null functional head, ‘intraposed’ zu-infinitives that exhibit no clause-union properties cannot be taken to be null-headed CPs: they project no further than VP. The C-head once again plays an important role in the paper by Marc Richards and Theresa Biberauer, which concerns itself with the question of how best to explain the distribution of expletives in the Germanic languages. Their central hypothesis is that expletives may only be merged in the specifier positions of phase heads—C and v. The former introduces expletives such as German es, while the latter is the merge-site of English-type there-expletives. The contribution by Marika Lekakou is related in as much as she is concerned with the question of whether reflexive markers such as German sich and Dutch zich are argumental lexical categories or dummy functional categories (like the expletives). She argues that while German sich can be either an argument or what she calls a marker of valency reduction, Dutch zich is systematically an argument. The article by Guido Vanden Wyngaerd is concerned with constructions in English where the simple present is used episodically, namely sports commentaries and performatives. His central observation is that all such constructions denote an event of ‘very short duration’ (in contrast to languages like Dutch).

The final two papers in this volume are concerned with functional categories in the nominal domain. The article by Marit Julien is a detailed study of possessive noun phrases throughout Scandinavian, bringing together an impressive array of empirical facts and discussing them against the background of a uniform base configuration, with surface variation resulting from movement operations in the course of the overt syntactic derivation. The paper by Dorian Roehrs zooms in on the left periphery of the extended noun phrase, looking at fillers of the D-head. His central claim is that the approach to phrases like us linguists that takes the pronoun to be in D is correct; yet, he argues that all D-elements are moved to D from a lower functional category.

Overall, this volume makes an excellent contribution to the study of microparametric Germanic syntax as well as to syntactic theory in general.

Written communication across cultures: A sociocognitive perspective on business genres. By Yunxia Zhu. (Pragmatics and beyond new series 141.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. xvii, 215. ISBN 9027253846. $126 (Hb).

Reviewed by Aleksandar Čarapić, University of Belgrade

What is the best way to approach the comparison of intercultural business genres? What persuasive orientations can be embedded in English and Chinese cultural and rhetorical backgrounds? What are the main persuasive strategies used in English and Chinese business correspondence? How are they similar or different, and what causes such similarities and/or differences? What are the implications of the research for learning and teaching business language in cross-cultural communication? These major questions underlie the research in Yunxia Zhu’s exciting study, Written communication across cultures.

The volume consists of nine chapters. In addition to a brief introduction to the book, Ch. 1, ‘Introduction and outline’, brings in the necessity for developing a theoretical framework for genre comparison. It discusses genre in relation to a ‘stock of knowledge’ that is shared in a relevant discourse community in specific sociocultural contexts. Ch. 2, ‘Communication across cultures’, focuses on cross-cultural aspects as a part of the theoretical groundwork for comparing Chinese and English genres, and discusses sociocultural, organizational, and interpersonal levels for studying the business genres involved. Specifying the main theoretical framework for intercultural genre analysis, Ch. 3, ‘Conceptual framework: A dual perspective’, proposes a model for genre comparison, emphasizes genre-intertextuality interaction, and promotes cross-cultural genre study from sociocognitive and intercultural viewpoints based on English and Chinese literature related to genre analysis.

An overview of the research design, its methodology, data, questionnaires, and interviews, and of the method of analysis is given in Ch. 4, ‘Research design’. Both Ch. 5, ‘Comparing English and Chinese sales letters’, and Ch. 6, ‘Comparing English and Chinese sales invitations’, apply the proposed model with regard to the specific differences that different genre types impose. Ch. 7, ‘Comparing English and Chinese business faxes’, focuses on business faxes as a relatively new business genre, showing the possibilities of extending the use of the approach to high-tech-related business genres, thus going beyond business genres and involving the influence of technology on genre writing in general.

Ch. 8, ‘Cross-cultural genre teaching’, considers implications of the proposed framework for the processes of learning and teaching genre, and applies previous findings to cross-cultural genre learning with respect to pedagogical issues in English and Chinese curricula. Ch. 9, ‘Summaries and conclusions’, offers a working definition of genre from a cross-cultural standpoint based on the previous findings.

Written communication across cultures has made several great contributions. First, as one of the first books to study the cross-cultural business genre, it conceptualizes this field with a sociocognitive and intercultural dimension. Second, it presents an in-depth theoretical exploration of business discourse by considering discourse community, cognitive structuring, and the deep semantics of genre and intertexuality. Third, it offers an insider’s perspective on cross-cultural comparison by soliciting professional members’ intracultural and intercultural viewpoints about the target cultures. As such, the book is a valuable read for scholars interested in intercultural communication, applied linguistics, (critical) discourse analysis, contrastive rhetoric, interlanguage pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and other interdisciplinary fields.

English and globalization: Perspectives from Hong Kong and Mainland China. Ed. by Kwok-kan Tam and Timothy Weiss. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2004. Pp. xxvii, 276. ISBN 9629961849. $35 (Hb).

Reviewed by Liwei Gao, Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center

This volume collects fifteen papers that examine the different cultural and pedagogic aspects of English as an international language, and the effects of Englishization in Hong Kong and Mainland China. The papers in this book address the issue from a broad variety of perspectives, which include culture, communication, and the classroom; standards and variations; diversity and plurality; computers and linguistic fashions; interrelationships among language, literature, and culture; English language education and intercultural competencies; and interrelationships among linguistic standards, international communication, and linguistic imperialism. Papers about the context in Hong Kong precede those about Mainland China.

In Ch. 1, ‘World English(es) in the age of globalization’, Kwok-kan Tam provides a theoretical and historical overview of this issue. He argues that language cannot be conceived of as being independent from cultural formation in the process of globalization. In Ch. 2, David Parker discusses the relationships among English, culture, and modernity and stresses that students in Hong Kong need to be literate in the cultures where English is the major medium of communication via the study of English literature. In Ch. 3, Timothy Weiss argues that English study is a creolizing event in that it is done through readers with diverse cultural backgrounds who interpret, fragment, and transform the texts that they read through different cultural lenses. In Ch. 4, ‘Linguistic imperialism and the history of English language teaching in Hong Kong’, Joseph Boyle notes that English now actually mostly serves a pragmatic means of globalization. In other words, it has largely transcended its colonial heritage. In Ch. 5, Stuart Christie discusses Maxine Hong Kingston’s The woman warrior and observes that Hong Kong students tend to use cross-cultural imagery to interpret the cultural issues in this work.

In Ch. 6, ‘Globalization, tribalization, and online communication’, Suying Yang remarks that globalization does not necessarily lead to the end of diversity in the modern society. Instead, globalization and localization will coexist and interact with each other. In Ch. 7, ‘Globalization and English language teaching in Hong Kong’, George C. K. Jor describes how internationalization affects the teaching of English in Hong Kong and suggests that new information technology and global resources be applied in English teaching. In Ch. 8, ‘The English language and Chinese people’, Phillip Shu-yue Sun discusses the disadvantages inherent in the communicative approach to language teaching and argues that one’s mother tongue may actually be an asset for learning foreign languages. In Ch. 9, ‘When English becomes big business’, Labao Wang points out that English in China has now become a trendy commodity and cautions people against the potential corrosion of the Chinese culture in the process of excessive consumption of English. In Ch. 10, ‘Globalization and intercultural competence’, Qiufang Wen points out the inadequacy in present models of English teaching in China and proposes a new model, a model of intercultural communicative competence.

In Ch. 11, Ming Li (Suzhou) discusses the issue of standard and variation in teaching English as a foreign language and suggests that educators should not be teaching one and only one so-called standard variety. In Ch. 12, Liyan Ma emphasizes the important role of empathy in intercultural communication and contends that students will be able to be engaged in more effective intercultural communication once they understand the role of empathy. In Ch. 13, Hong Ye calls people’s attention to the significance of cultural literacy and stresses a cultural approach to teaching literature to Chinese students. In Ch. 14, Ming Li (Guangdong) demonstrates how the integration of language and culture will help Chinese students to improve their intercultural communication. In the last chapter (Ch. 15), Agnes Lam and Kathy Chow review English language education in China and conclude that both ideology and economic needs provide the impetus for English learning in China.

Linguistic dimensions of crisis talk: Formalising structures in a controlled language. By Claudia Sassen. (Pragmatics & beyond new series 136.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. ix, 230. ISBN 9789027253798. $132 (Hb).

Reviewed by Charlotte Brammer, Samford University

In Linguistic dimensions of crisis talk, Claudia Sassen presents a complex method for describing and analyzing crisis talk within the specific realm of aviation parlance and posits the method’s applicability to other types of crisis talk. Her goal seems two-fold: to illuminate possible communicative opportunities to avoid future crises and to propose a methodology that ‘promises to lead to extensions for a comprehensive modeling of discourse that is both theoretically well founded and empirically testable’ (175).

In Ch. 1, S uses her previous work (2003) to carefully define ‘crisis talk’ as ‘a dialogue genre that occurs in threatening situations of unpredictable outcome, with no obvious way out, and requiring spontaneous decision, unconventional strategies and unrehearsed actions’ (1). In Ch. 2, she justifies her use of head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) as a ‘reductionist’ tool for operationalizing illocutionary force, as derived primarily from Austin 1962, Searle 1969, and Searle & Vanderveken 1985, among others.

Seventy-seven transcript files and five audio files make up the corpus of air traffic control and cockpit voice recordings (ATC/CVR) used for this project. As a condition for inclusion in the corpus, the files are available on the internet. Additionally, all of the transcripts are in English, even though English may not have been the first language for all speakers. Chs. 3 and 4 contain extensive detail of S’s use of KWIC-concordance and XML-markup, and provide as well a list of steps for creating the XML tags (115). In Ch. 4, S finds that intra-cockpit conversation is ‘leaky’ at times, meaning nonprofessional or off-task, and that normal conversation patterns are disrupted (131). One possible explanation for this behavior, according to S, is because ‘the participants, in particular the crew hopes to receive help from the tower’ (sic, 132).

In Ch. 5, S selects three transcripts for closer analysis and makes several observations about crisis talk in comparison to noncrisis talk in aviation. First, she finds that crisis talk exhibits more patterns, defined in terms of illocutionary force (e.g. command, ask, response). She also finds that elaboration occurs only in the noncrisis talk examples, presumably because ‘to elaborate on one’s preceding clarification is probably too time-consuming for a situation that requires quick action’ (155). Not surprisingly, perhaps, she also finds that expressives (curses and warnings) are relatively frequent in crisis talk, but not in noncrisis conversation; similarly, ‘the number of politeness formulae like thank and greet decreases in crisis talk’ (155). In sum, S develops a speech act/HPSG model in order ‘to detect leaky and thus dangerous points in communication … to minimise escalations during flights and to make aviation safer’ (173). Her model appears substantive and should be tested in other types of crisis talk.

Dialect and dichotomy: Literary representations of African American speech. By Lisa Cohen Minnick. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Pp. xxii, 194. ISBN 0817313990. $39.95 (Hb).

Reviewed by Charlotte Brammer, Samford University

In Dialect and dichotomy: Literary representations of African American speech, Lisa Cohen Minnick combines qualitative criticism with quantitative corpus-linguistics methods to analyze the use of African American dialects in literary texts or ‘literary dialect’. M justifies this dual approach by arguing that ‘in order to give a thorough evaluation of an artist’s work with respect to literary dialect, neither exclusively linguistic nor exclusively literary approaches can do justice to literature that incorporates imaginative recreation of the sounds of language along with the social themes surrounding the places in time that are recreated’ (149). The first two chapters of the text provide rich background on, including criticism of, literary dialect and its analysis. Combined, the chapters present a strong case for adding corpus approaches to literary analysis for understanding authorial use of literary dialects.

M uses two well-known text-analysis programs (the Summer Institute of Linguistics’s LinguaLinks and Oxford University Press’s WordSmith Tools) to examine select phonological and grammatical features of direct speech from four important American texts: Mark Twain’s The adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Charles W. Chesnutt’s ‘Dave’s Neckliss’ (1889), William Faulkner’s The sound and the fury (1929), and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their eyes were watching God (1937). For each text, she analyzes between 4,000 and 6,000 words and reports statistically significant quantitative results that enhance the qualitative discussion. While she cannot definitively assert that Twain either was or was not racist in his depiction of Jim, she can demonstrate that Twain ‘incorporated features that have been identified with African American speakers in the scholarship, and he did so in a way that reveals his understanding of how these features functioned in real speech’ (67). Similarly, she asserts that Chesnutt’s ‘exacting depiction of [phonological and grammatical] features contributes substantially to an image of Chesnutt as a conscientious and definitive recorder of late-nineteenth-century black speech in North Carolina’ (94).

In her analysis of literary dialect use in each text, M tries to reframe the most salient debates, not to resolve them. For example, one critical and persistent debate about Faulkner’s use of dialect in The sound and the fury centers around race: specifically, was he a racist? Though troubled by some of Faulkner’s recorded comments, M does not seem to accept an unqualified view of the author as racist and concludes ‘that Faulkner’s use of dialectal grammatical features probably indicates a sincere attempt to represent them realistically rather than stereotypically’ (101). The sheer quantity of direct speech in Hurston’s text creates space for interesting corpus analysis. As M points out, ‘substantial portions of the novel consist not of narration or presentation of actual events but in fact are related second-hand in conversation’ (138). Importantly, M’s discussion of this text focuses more on gender conflicts than racism.

In her conclusion, M restates her justification for engaging such challenging and unconventional methods: ‘using interdisciplinary methods to access literary texts helps to offer fresh insight not only into the texts themselves but also into issues of language variation and attitudes surrounding it’ (152–53). Both literature scholars and linguists can appreciate that.

Talk that counts: Age, gender, and social class differences in discourse. By Ronald K. S. Macaulay. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. 236. ISBN 0195173821. $39.95.

Reviewed by Charlotte Brammer, Samford University

In Talk that counts: Age, gender, and social class differences in discourse, Ronald K. S. Macaulay applies quantitative analysis ‘to determine to what extent variation in the use of certain linguistic features correlates with extralinguistic categories, in this case, age, gender, and social class’ (8). He situates this text with other variation studies (notably Labov 1966, Wolfram 1969, Fasold 1972, Trudgill 1974, Milroy 1980, Coates 1996, Eckert 2000) and claims a continued interest in ‘the distribution and effects of stable differences … similar to those expressed in Bernstein’s early work (e.g., Bernstein 1962)’ (5).

To explore linguistic variation in terms of age, gender, and social class, M works with two groups of data: (i) Ayr interviews, a recorded collection of twelve interviews with speakers from Ayr, Scotland (reported in Macaulay 1991), and (ii) Glasgow conversations, recorded talk between friends (reported in Stuart-Smith 1999). The Ayr interviews were analyzed for social-class comparisons; the Glasgow conversations were analyzed for age, gender, and social class. Using frequency counts, comparisons with other variationist studies, and some statistical analysis (primarily the Mann-Whitney nonparametric test), M provides good support for his findings. After thoroughly discussing the corpora, his methods, and specific definitions of social class, age, and gender, M unveils his findings in Chs. 6 through 14.

In terms of social class, M identifies differences in frequency of use and variation of application, and reveals as well similarities in the use of specific discourse features. For example, he found that middle-class speakers use passive voice more frequently than working-class speakers do (p < 0.05) and that working-class speakers use dislocated syntax (e.g. she was a very quiet woman my mother) more frequently than middle-class speakers do (p < 0.001) (Ch. 8). In terms of modifiers, M found that middle-class speakers use evaluative adjectives more frequently than do working-class speakers (p < 0.004) (Ch. 10). He also found minimal social-class differences in the frequency of use of you know (Ch. 7) and the use of modal auxiliaries (Ch. 9), and suggests that syntactic variation may not be as salient for exploring social-class linguistic differences as originally thought.

Gender, particularly when linked to social class, may yield the more interesting findings. Age is also an important aspect of his findings. In the Glasgow data, for example, M found that females, especially middle-class women and girls, use you know substantially more often than do males, and that middle-class females are more likely to use you know for emphasis or elaboration, reserving I mean for explanations. In Ch. 7, M proposes that ‘the use of these discourse lubricants is a distinctive part of the discourse style used by middle-class women and that their daughters are learning to follow their example’ (86). Two important discoveries include the females’ more frequent use of coordinate clauses and because clauses (p < 0.05). M found neither modals nor modifiers particularly promising as identifying either gender- or age-specific discourse features. Pronouns are more frequently used by females than males, and M points out that this is consistent with other research, noting that ‘in their use of articles and pronouns the males show themselves to be less interested in people than are the females’ (Ch. 11, 138).

In addition to the highly accessible and engaging discussion, the text’s rich context and extensive bibliography (some thirteen pages) make it an important resource for future studies in discourse and variation analysis.