Reviewed by Thomas Hoffmann, University of Osnabrück

All human languages are characterized by syntactic variation, with competing structures often being favored by different linguistic, cognitive, or social factors. The present volume takes a close look at how syntactic variation is motivated and constrained by genre and how specific genres are constituted by syntactic choices.

In their introduction (1–26), Heidrun Dorgeloh and Anja Wanner survey the field of syntactic variation, discuss the concept of genre and its relationship with register, style, and text type, and provide an overview of various approaches to the study of variation and genre. The rest of the book is divided into two parts. The contributions in Part 1 focus on the concept of genre, and those in Part 2 investigate specific linguistic phenomena and their relation to genre.

Part 1 begins with Janet Giltrow’s  chapter, ‘Genre as difference: The sociality of linguistic variation’ (29–51), in which she argues that form plays a crucial role in the investigation of genre and that function can affect form at a low level of generality. Following is a chapter by Tuija Virtanen (53–84), which presents a two-level model separating text types and discourse types, and shows how variation studies can profit from taking into account genre dynamics and text/discourse types. Maurizio Gotti (‘A new genre for a specialized community’, 85–110) documents the rise of a new genre, namely the experimental essay in seventeenth-century English, and Javier Pérez-Guerra and Ana E. Martínez-Insua (111–40) investigate the relationship of linguistic complexity and textual formality. In the following chapter, ‘Mein Problem ist/mein Thema ist (‘My problem is/my topic is’): How syntactic patterns and genres interact’ (141–66), Wolfgang Imo shows how genres are signalled by specific syntactic constructions and set phrases. Similarly, Cornelius Puschmann (167–91) finds that certain pronominal patterns are characteristic of the emerging genre of corporate blogging.

Various syntactic phenomena and their genre-specific use are the topic of Part 2. Susanne Günthner (‘Grammatical constructions and communicative genres’, 195–217) looks at non-finite constructions and was-questions in spoken German interaction, and Britta Mondorf (219–45) investigates genre effects in the replacement of reflexives by particles. Johannes Kabatek, Philip Obrist, and Valentina Vincis (‘Clause linkage techniques as a symptom of discourse traditions: Methodological issues and evidence from Romance languages’, 247–75) discuss the development of clause-linking in written Spanish genres using diachronic corpus data. The function of fronted locative constituents in fictional prose to recreate immediate visual experience is explored by Rolf Kreyer (‘Syntactic constructions as a means of spatial representations in fictional prose’, 277–303), and a corpus-based study of agreement in educated Jamaican English is the topic of a chapter by Susanne Jantos (305–31). Finally, Theresa Heyd (‘I know you guys hate forwards: Address pronouns in digital folklore’, 333–58) takes on second-person plural forms and their occurrence in email hoaxes.

Syntactic variation and genre study are two fascinating and vibrant research areas. As this book shows, exploring their mutual relationship yields a number of interesting findings that should inspire much future research.

Reviewed by Mark J. Elson, University of Virginia

This book is an etymological dictionary of sorts, comprising seventy-seven entries (1–294), followed by notes (295–338) and an index (339–48). The phrase ‘familiar legal expressions’ in the title will surely mislead some prospective readers, who will assume it refers to legal terms in the conventional sense, which occur with some frequency in everyday life and are accompanied by a discussion of their meaning and origin. Few, if any, would dispute the existence of such terms (e.g. amicus curiae, battery, civil suit, class action suit, de facto, felony, habeas corpus, larceny, manslaughter, plea bargain, restraining order, subpoena, summons). For many, such terms will fit the authors’ definition of familiar legal expressions as ‘words and phrases that have a particular connection with law or are used in talking about law’(ix). However, the authors have reserved this definition for terms such as abuse excuse, affirmative action, attorney general, billable hour, blackmail, blood money, day in court, electoral college, indict a ham sandwich, kangaroo court, make a federal case of, politically correct, posse, rap, read the riot act, the whole truth, and many others. We do find terms of the more technical type, but only a few, including attorney (versus lawyer), corpus delicti, grand jury, hearsay, and testify. We also find terms that will not be familiar to all, perhaps most, readers, such as hornbook law and Comstockery.

My clarification of the contents of this book should not be mistaken for criticism. Beyond its potentially misleading title, it is a scholarly work treating in a serious and competent fashion a sub-component of the lexicon of American popular culture. The care and expertise brought to the task are reflected in the length and detail of the entries. The authors offer interesting and informative historical discussion of the terms they have chosen, accompanied by notes that include references to many sources, legal and otherwise. They themselves provide the best description of their work: ‘The accounts in this book…collectively constitute a picture window on American cultural history’ (xi). It is the emphasis on American cultural history in the form of relevant jokes, urban legends, and folk etymologies culled from literature, newspapers, and scholarly writing, that unites the entries and serves as the backdrop against which they are treated. Although the authors did not intend the book to be used as such, it might well serve pedagogically as a useful point of departure, in conjunction with an inventory of legal terms in the more usual sense, for a consideration of specialized lexicon in American English, and, more generally, of semantic change as well as the linguistic and socio-linguistic factors which are relevant to the stability of lexicon over time. The fact that the authors are not offering their work in that capacity, but only as a reference, enhances its pedagogical value because the terms are not considered within a theoretical framework or as part of a system. They would, therefore, as a database, require students not merely to read them as entries in a dictionary, but to interact with them analytically.

Reviewed by John Ryan, University of Northern Colorado

An Introduction to Italian dialectology offers a refreshing and unique treatment of the major dialect groups across the Italian Peninsula by tracing their separate development from their common ancestor of Latin. The book is divided into five chapters, the first of which serves as a comprehensive introduction to the study of dialectology in general and the methodology to be employed in both examining and presenting the dialects studied in the book. This chapter discusses important tools of the enterprise, including dialect atlases and the historical-comparative approach when considering both the Tuscan standard and other dialects of the Peninsula. The chapter closes with a discussion of Uriel Weinreich’s (1954) notion of diasystems corresponding to the structural components of language (such as phonology, grammar, and lexicon) that will serve to both compare dialect varieties and organize the remainder of the book.

Chs. 2 and 3, the most substantive parts of the book, are devoted to the phonological and grammatical/lexical diasystems, respectively. Ch. 2 starts with a brief explanation of phonological theory and then proceeds to discuss the various phonemes and allophones associated with both the Tuscan standard and the other dialects, first vowels and then consonants, tracing in each case the evolution from Latin to the modern pronunciation. The chapter closes with a brief discussion of suprasegmental features, including syllabic structure and prosody. Ch. 3 begins its discussion of grammatical differences among the Italian dialects with André Martinet’s (1955) hypothesis regarding phonological changes which in turn induce other changes. Akin to the previous chapter on phonology, the next order of business is a brief explanation of morphological theory as an introduction to discussion of morphological diasystems, emphasizing articles, nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech. Following a brief section on syntax, the chapter concludes with differences in the lexicon.

The final two chapters of the book deal with sociolinguistic and modern-day aspects of the Italian dialects.  Ch. 4 deals with diglossia in the Italian Peninsula and the effects of contact of Standard Italian with other languages, both within and outside the Peninsula, including the results of contact with Italian within immigrant communities. Ch. 5, the last of the book, serves as a brief epilogue that addresses the state of Standard Italian today, with a special section on the effects of media and technology, as well as a discussion on the principle of least effort and its role in both language variation and change. After a short discussion on Italian in cyberspace, the chapter closes with some final remarks about concerns for the future of the Italian dialects because of technology and encroachment of the Tuscan standard.

This book, both introductory in tone and level of difficulty, would serve as an ideal companion text to a beginner’s course on the history of the Italian language as well as an introductory class on Italian dialectology.

Reviewed by David Elton Gay, Bloomington, IN

A companion to the Latin language is a comprehensive handbook on the various historical stages of the Latin language and their grammatical forms, registers, and regional and literary forms.

After a brief general introduction by the editor, the book is divided into five thematic parts. The first of these, ‘Sources’, looks at various sources for the Latin language. The idea of sources is read very broadly, and thus the section includes essays on the Latin alphabet and orthography by Rex Wallace, inscriptions and other non-literary documents by James Clackson, manuscripts by Bruce Gibson, and the Romance languages as a source for spoken Latin by Roger Wright.

The second section, ‘The language’, turns to the structure of Latin, with essays on Latin phonology by Matthew McCullagh; prosody and metrics by Benjamin W. Fortson, IV; inflectional morphology by James Clackson; syntax by Geoffrey Horrocks; vocabulary by Michèle Fruyt; word formation, also by Fruyt; and Latin particles by Caroline Kroon. The third section, ‘Latin through time’, includes essays on Latin within its Indo-European context by Fortson; archaic and Old Latin by John Penney; Classical Latin by Clackson; Late Latin by J. N. Adams; Medieval Latin by Greti Dinkova-Bruun; and, finally, Neo-Latin by David Butterfield.

The fourth section addresses literary registers, with essays describing the registers of Latin in comedies, by Wolfgang de Melo; epic and lyric poetry, by Rolando Ferri; satire, by Anna Chahoud; oratory and rhetoric, by J. G. F. Powell; historiography, by Christina Shuttleworth Kraus; epistolary Latin, by Hilla Halla-aho; scientific and technical Latin, by Thorsten Fögen; legal Latin, also by Powell; and Christian Latin, by Philip Burton. The book’s final section is ‘Latin in social and political contexts’, and includes essays on the social dialects of Latin, by Clackson; bilingualism in the Latin-speaking world, by Alex Mullen; the language policies of the Roman Republic and Empire, by Bruno Rochette; and the regional variants of Latin in the Roman world, by Giovanbattista Galdi.

The linguistics in the essays tends to be fairly traditional, which will widen the readership of the book, but the level of linguistic and philological sophistication varies considerably. While most of the essays will be accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of Latin or historical linguistics, others, like those by Geoffrey Horrocks and Caroline Kroon, require considerably more linguistic knowledge than is often found among Latinists.

This book is not, it should be noted, a reference grammar; rather, it is a description of Latin in its myriad historical and regional registers and forms, which covers far more than the Classical Latin covered by most reference grammars. Such broad coverage makes the Companion to the Latin language a very useful book both for students of Latin and for scholars working on Latin as a linguistic or philological topic.

Reviewed by Irene Theodoropoulou, Qatar University

This textbook, accompanied by a DVD, is designed to enable students to communicate effectively using Moroccan Arabic (MA) through the use of multimedia content-based material. It presents the basic structures of the Arabic language, including the letters and sounds in both Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and MA. As an Arabic dialect (al amiyya), Moroccan Arabic is rarely written or used in formal communication, but is used extensively in everyday conversation. In light of this, the textbook focuses on developing speaking and listening skills.

The thematic units covered in the book include realistic circumstances, where MA is used for communication purposes: greeting people, introducing oneself, asking and replying to simple questions, using days and numbers in context, ordering food, shopping and bargaining, making appointments and reservations, giving directions, talking about future plans, and using idiomatic expressions. Each of the fourteen chapters includes the following components: cultural introduction to social, religious, or cultural aspects of Moroccan society, listening comprehension exercises, vocabulary exercises, dialogues and texts, conversation practice, grammar instruction on how native speakers structure their speech, and interactive and video materials to support cultural understanding, listening, speaking, and grammar explanations.

The cultural introductions are designed to develop an ability to produce culturally appropriate forms. The listening exercises, which avoid localisms in order to be comprehensible in the Arab world and especially in the Maghreb (i.e. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania), consists of three texts (dialogue and narration), each one composed of five parts: vocabulary with English translations, various drills for the classroom and beyond, questions related to the dialogue or text, fill in the blank exercises and oral role play or practice. The grammatical component of the textbook is designed to help learners understand how native speakers structure their speech, so as to construct their own utterances in MA.

Finally, the cultural element provides learners with some background information about Morocco, which is essential in the learning and understanding of the linguistic peculiarities of MA. The book uses Romanized transcription alongside Arabic script for the first three chapters and thereafter only the Arabic script. It also includes a glossary and an answer key. Approximately 120 contact hours, plus 180–240 additional hours of preparation outside class, are required. According to the book’s description, ‘a novice student should reach the intermediate-mid level of proficiency by the end of this course’ (xiii).

The comprehensive DVD that is included offers a user-friendly interface with drop-down menus focusing on the sociolinguistics of MA, Moroccans’ perception of their language, and the use of Arabic in the religious context. In addition, it contains a number of historical, geographical and cultural information on Morocco (primarily family, food, religion, clothing, music, public bath, and major events, like Ramadan) given through interactive maps.

Overall, this textbook is well structured and informative. It not only gives a brief and concise description of the basic linguistic peculiarities of MA, but it also offers a multidimensional picture of the Moroccan society. As such, it should appeal to anyone interested in Moroccan Arabic dialect and culture.

Reviewed by Engin Arik, Isik University

When we speak, we sometimes gesture, and sometimes we gesture while not speaking, but what is gesture and how can it be analyzed? This book provides answers to these questions. The book, translated by Mary M. Copple, consists of a foreword, acknowledgments, an introduction, ten chapters, a conclusion, references, two appendices, a postscript, and person and subject indices. The book has a website that includes videos of the seventy-five gesture examples. I highly recommend this book to anyone studying gesture because it is one of the most informative works on gestures.

The introductory chapter (1–8) outlines the book where the author defines gesture as ‘the visible movement of any body part that one makes in order to communicate’ (2) having semiotic potential. In Ch. 1, ‘The gestural sign and related key concepts’ (9–34), the author argues that gestures originate in our experience with the physical world, such as the way we handle an instrument, and representational gestures can contain multiple meanings in discourse.

The remaining chapters are organized into four parts. Part 1 ‘The functions of gesture in relation to speech’ consists of two chapters. Ch. 2, ‘The demarcative function of gesture’ (37–55) discusses the functions of gesture accompanying speech. The author convincingly shows that changes in co-speech gestures can cooccur with rhythmic changes in speech. Ch. 3, ‘Identifying the referential function of gesture’ (57–71), focuses more on manual gestures and shows that these gestures can express meaning of concepts and ideas in speech.

Part 2, ‘The systematic organization of gestural signs’, consists of two chapters. Ch. 4, ‘Classification of referential gestures according to their priority components’ (75–100), identifies physical characteristics of bodily gestures such as configuration, orientation, movement, and localization of a body part with regard to meaning in context. Ch. 5, ‘Systematic analysis to identify gestural signs’ (101–24), targets how to identify and code relevant components of gestures in data and establish links between gestures and meaning.

Part 3, ‘The symbolic relations between gestures and notions’, consists of three chapters. Ch. 6, ‘Different gestures represent one notion: Variation’ (127–62), discusses how a single concept can be expressed by gestures in various ways whereas Ch. 7, ‘One gesture represents different notions’ (163–95), discusses to what extent a single gesture expresses several concepts. Ch. 8, ‘The analogical links between gestures and notions’ (197–242), shows how to establish meaning relations between gestures and concepts that can have multiple forms.

Part 4, ‘The gestural sign in utterance’, consists of two chapters. Ch. 9, ‘The gestural sign and speech’ (245–85), examines gestures and speech according to their temporal order. Some gestures occur before speech, some during, and others yet after speech. Finally, some gestures add information to the message. Ch. 10, ‘Gesture, thought and speech’ (287–341), argues that gestures represent both concrete and abstract thought.

Reviewed by Lucas Bietti, Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen

Paul Bouissac’s original and excellently written book is a success at all levels. B uses semiotics, pragmatics, and cultural studies in order to provide an analysis of numerous circus performances that he has documented as a researcher and circus enthusiast over the past thirty years. This enthusiasm comes through in his style of writing, turning the book into a fine work of scholarship combining all the elements of an ethnographic journey and an academic autobiography set in circus performance’s around the world.

The book is divided into eleven chapters, including an introduction and a conclusion. It coherently explains the cultural and social origins of the circus, its cognitive and emotional dimensions, the central role that animals and cultural artifacts (e.g. the bicycle) play in circus performances, the complex synchronization in acrobatics (e.g. the pyramid and the wheel), the logic and biosemiotics of clowns’ faces, and the marketing processes of involved with circus performance. In one chapter, B includes an interesting study on cases of negative experiences, failure, and accidents in the circus. There is another important and purely theoretical chapter in which the author presents the principles of a semiotic theory of live performances. These principles are mostly based on Paul Grice’s maxims of linguistic communication, which include the maxims of quality (i.e. ‘say what you believe to be true’), relevance (i.e. ‘make what you say relevant and timely’), quantity (i.e. ‘don’t say more or less than is required’), and manner (i.e. ‘be brief and clear’).

Several of B’s impressions and analyses of circus performances arise out of cross-cultural comparisons and personal experiences in geographically and culturally distant places, such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and India. Based on his experiences, having been part of the audience in these places, B not only provides a detailed description of the cultural and social differences in circus performances but also sheds light on the way the performances are received. Thus, a live performance which seemed to violate rules established by Western standards, which would automatically have made it a total failure, was considered a masterpiece by the local audience in places such as Mumbai and Kerala.

Examples like this show the ways in which the proposed principles for a semiotics theory of live performance undoubtedly are culturally, socially, and historically bounded. Perhaps the lack of a deeper cross-cultural reception study about how different audiences cognitively and emotionally engage with circus performances is one of the few downsides of the book. The book mostly draws on the author’s own experience as a circus enthusiast, spectator, and researcher.

Reviewed by Michael Cahill, SIL International

This dictionary of about 7000 Màʹdí entries is written by a Màʹdíspeaker/linguist. The second edition has added 2000 entries since the first edition in 2000. It includes a six-page introduction explaining how to use the dictionary, including a list of phonemes and two notes on prefixes, but no other grammatical notes. The Màʹdí entries are in bold type, followed by a more phonetic-looking entry in square brackets. The first, bolded, entry is in the old orthography, and the second entry is in the new orthography, which includes tone marks and distinguishes +/- advanced tongue root (ATR) vowels with dots under [-ATR] vowels. Implosives are marked by an apostrophe before b, d, j, and gb, which varies between left- or right-hand single quote marks and an acute accent-like symbol, as in the volume’s title above. The entry includes the part of speech, one or more brief English definitions, and sometimes an example sentence or phrase, alternative forms, dialect label, or source of a borrowed word. The presence vs. lack of examples makes the book appear to be a mix of glossary and full dictionary. An English-Màʹdí glossary is included, with the English term, part of speech, and Màʹdí equivalent in the new orthography. For convenience, I refer below to Màʹdí entries in the old orthography.

There are many examples of identically spelled adjacent entries, like eku and eku (also identical in the new orthography) defined as ‘fish species’ and ‘glory’, edi and edi, ‘to have washed clothes’ and ‘to shout for help’, te and te, ‘to be drunk’ and ‘to fart’, and eco and eco, ‘to assume a different form’ and ‘to change’. Examples such as the last are obviously related and perhaps could be combined under one main entry, but the others do not seem related. If these are not mistakes, then either Màʹdí has quite a large number of homonyms, or there are phonetic distinctions not captured in the new orthography.

There is not a one-to-one correlation between the Màʹdí-English and English-Màʹdí sections. The head entry for ‘cook’ (noun) is oddly listed with the plural form la’di’ba, with the singular la’dire as a sub-entry. If one looks at the English-Màʹdí glossary, we find la’dire as well as another entry late’do, which does not appear in the main Màʹdí-English section at all. Those wanting to know the difference between la’dire and late’do will therefore be disappointed. One finds ‘rot’ and ‘decay’ both have ngma as the Màʹdí gloss, but when one looks up ngma in the Màʹdísection, we find only ‘decay’.

Likewise, there are many Màʹdí terms for plant and animal names where it would be helpful to have species names, such as with ngulinguli, which is simply defined as ‘a herb’, and rota ‘plant species’, without any other details. (Recall also eku was simply ‘a species of fish’.) Line drawings or some other illustrations would be helpful to identify terms more specifically.

Despite the unevenness of entries, this is a valuable and informative book for researchers. One could wish for a price affordable for the Màʹdí people themselves.

Reviewed by John Ryan, University of Northern Colorado

This book is an advanced-level, Italian-language textbook based on the literary and visual artistic work of Carlo Levi, namely, that associated with his acclaimed novel, Christ Stopped at Eboli, and his ten-month exile to the southern Italian region of Basilicata (also known as Lucania) during the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. The reason for the book’s specific regional focus is to give voice to Italy’s south, hence the book’s title, deviating from the more typical coverage of such northern regions of the Peninsula as Florence, Rome, or Venice.

This book is carefully divided into seven chapters, spanning historical, regional, literary, visual art, and cinematic treatment of Levi’s novel and exile. Providing an historical backdrop to Levi’s novel from the years of unification until the time when the novel takes place (1935), Ch. 1 takes students through several important milestones and realities which helped form the south as a different entity from the north. Ch. 2 is a comprehensive review of Levi’s novel, which summarizes each of Levi’s chapters, and each summary includes vocabulary, comprehension questions, and prompts for reflection. Ch. 3 transforms the student’s experience from literary to visual with inclusion and analysis of twelve color reproductions of paintings produced by Levi during his exile. Students are encouraged to reflect and think critically by ‘reading’ the featured paintings.

Moving from the visual arts to cinematographic representation, Ch. 4 is a comprehensive discussion of Francesco Rosi’s 1979 film based on Levi’s novel and emphasizes certain topics more suited to discussion of the film medium, such as the use of language, portrayal of women, nationalism, power, Levi’s transformation in the film, and American colonization, among others. Chs. 5–7 provide a more modern look at Italy’s south. Ch. 5 resumes the history lesson of Ch. 1 from World War II to modern times. Ch. 6 takes a closer look at the Basilicata region of Italy, how it has evolved since Levi’s times and continues to evolve. Finally, Ch. 7 takes a closer look at Aliano, the town of exile in Levi’s novel, where it is today, and what its present-day citizens think and feel about its past, present, and future.

The book includes separate appendices in which short essays and narratives about the south by authors other than Levi are included for additional reading. The book is also supplemented by a companion website at yalebooks.com/vocidalsud, which currently includes audio files of the interviews presented in the text, sample syllabi, photos of the Basilicata region, and web links mentioned in the textbook. Readers are urged to return periodically for updates to the site.

This book makes a valuable contribution for all advanced students of Italian in that it presents another side to the story of Italy’s history and development, namely that of its southern region. This is especially important given the large percentage of Southern Italians who immigrated to America at the end of the nineteenth-early twentieth century, a theme also treated in the book.

Reviewed by Richard W. Hallett, Northeastern Illinois University

Taking the stand ‘that multilingualism subsumes bilingualism’ (2), Larissa Aronin and Britta Hufeisen explain in an introductory chapter how this book is the result of the ‘coming of age’ (3) of research in trilingualism. Accordingly, the chapters that follow go beyond the canonical presentation of research on second language (L2) acquisition research. In Ch. 2, ‘Defining multilingualism’ (11–26), Charlotte Kemp not only defines the terms ‘monolingual’, ‘bilingual’, and ‘multilingual’, but also discusses current debates in multilingual acquisition research. Building on Kemp’s claims, Rita Francheschini argues that ‘multilingualism is a separate phenomenon in its own right and not equivalent to bilingualism’ (35) in Ch. 3, ‘The genesis and development of research in multilingualism: Perspectives for future research’ (27–61). In Ch. 4, ‘The development of psycholinguistic research on crosslinguistic influence’ (63–77), Gessica De Angelis and Jean-Marc Dewaele present a succinct literature review of crosslinguistic influence in multilingualism and the foundation of the International Association of Multilingualism.

In Ch. 5, ‘The role of prior knowledge in L3 learning and use: Further evidence of psychotypological dimensions’ (79–102), Muiris Ó Laoire and David Singleton present two multilingual acquisition studies: one on the learning of French as a third language (L3) and the other on German as an L3. To encourage further investigations of multilingual acquisition Larissa Aronin and Britta Hufeisen proffer ‘emerging and promising’ (103) methodologies in Ch. 6, ‘Methods of research in multilingualism studies: Researching a comprehensive perspective’ (103–20). Focusing primarily on the European context, Jasone Cenoz and Ulrike Jessner compare and contrast multilingual education and bilingual education in Ch. 7, ‘The study of multilingualism in educational contexts’ (121–38). To facilitate further research into multilingual acquisition, Peter Ecke lists numerous resources in Ch. 8, ‘Multilingualism resources: Associations, journals, book series, bibliographies and conference lists’ (139–54). The book concludes with Ch. 9, ‘Crossing the second threshold’ (155–60), in which Larissa Aronin and Britta Hufeisen summarize the findings of the previous chapters and discuss future possibilities for research on L3, multilingual, and multiple language acquisition.

This book will be useful as a primary text in new classes on multiple language acquisition and also as a supplemental text in existing classes on second language acquisition.