Language, cohesion and form. By Margaret Masterman, ed. by Yorick Wilks. (Studies in natural language processing.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. x, 312. ISBN 0521454891. $101 (Hb).

Reviewed by Aleksandar Čarapić, University of Belgrade

Language, cohesion and form brings together some of the most influential papers by Margaret Masterman (1910–1986), a pioneer in the field of computational linguistics and the founder of the Cambridge Language Research Unit. According to the editor, Yorick Wilks, the collection ‘is a posthumous tribute to Margaret Masterman’, which aims to represent ‘the influence of her ideas and life on the development of processing of language by computers, a part of what would now be called artificial intelligence’ (ix).

In addition to the editor’s preface, the collection consists of eleven chapters, which are organized into five parts. Part 1, ‘Basic forms for language structure’ (21–80), opens with Ch. 1, ‘Words’, which—using the term ‘word’ in the sense used by logicians—discusses three typical philosophers’ replies to the question ‘What is a word?’. Ch. 2, ‘Fans and heads’, is an extreme instance of M’s idea that certain kinds of logical formalism were essential for understanding the function of language. Outlining a sketch of a mathematical model of language, Ch. 3, ‘Classification, concept-formation and language’, proposes an alternative method of analyzing language.

As the opening chapter of Part 2, ‘The thesaurus as a tool for machine translation’ (81–146), Ch. 4, ‘Potentialities of a mechanical thesaurus’, deals with the thesaurus as an aid to mechanical translation (MT). It also provides examples of dictionary tree uses and outlines a mechanical translation program using a thesaurus. Ch. 5, ‘What is a thesaurus’, presents arguments for the necessity of an MT thesaurus.

Part 3, ‘Experiments in machine translation’ (147–223), opens with Ch. 6, ‘Agricola in curvo terram dimovit aratro’, which, using Roget’s Thesaurus, examines a first-stage translation from Latin into English. Ch. 7, ‘Mechanical pidgin translation’, provides ‘an estimate of the research value of word-for-word translation into a language, rather than into the full normal form of an output language’ (161). Ch. 8, ‘Translation’, presents a philosophical model of translation.

Ch. 9, ‘Commentary on the Guberina hypothesis’, opens Part 4, ‘Phrasings, breath groups and text processing’ (225–88). Ch. 10, ‘Semantics algorithms’, aims to compute semantic paragraph patterns.

Part 5, ‘Metaphor, analogy, and the philosophy of science’ (281–309), includes the final chapter, ‘Braithwaite and Kuhn: Analogy-clusters within and without hypothetico-deductive systems in science’, which, on the one hand, discusses Thomas Kuhn’s relativist conceptions of science and of a paradigm, and on the other, Richard B. Braithwaite’s account of science.

As the collection shows, M was ahead of her time because her beliefs and proposals ‘for language processing by computer have now become part of the common stock of ideas in artificial intelligence (AI) and MT fields’ (1). Some parts would not be easy to read without the commentaries of both the editor (Chs. 2, 8, and 10) and Karen Spärk Jones (Ch. 6). In short, the collection represents an important document on the development of ideas related to AI and MT and is a nice tribute to a scientist whose ideas did not get sufficient attention during her lifetime.

Language endangerment and language revitalization. By Tasaku Tsunoda. (Trends in linguistics: Studies and monographs 148.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005. Pp. xxvi, 307. ISBN 3110176629. $179.20 (Hb).

Reviewed by Picus S. Ding, Macao Polytechnic Institute

This book is based on Tsunoda’s lecture notes for a university course intended for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students of linguistics. Having worked on aboriginal languages of Australia since 1971, T has presented a high-quality introductory textbook to language endangerment and revitalization with the voice and perspective of an active participant in this field.

The book is composed of fourteen chapters, appended with three indices. Ch. 1 is a brief review of the history of language loss and terminology (1–8). Ch. 2 deals with how languages may be and have been classified according to their degree of endangerment (9–15). Ch. 3 surveys the current state of language endangerment worldwide (16–28). Ch. 4 discusses approaches to the issue of language endangerment (29–35). Ch. 5 addresses problems in defining language death and identifies various types of language death (36–48). Ch. 6 focuses on the cause of language endangerment with reference to external setting such as ecology of language (49–64). Ch. 7 concerns speech behavior, looking at sociolinguistic aspects of language endangerment such as language shift (65–75). Ch. 8 turns to structural changes in language endangerment: how the critical condition of a language may impinge on its linguistic system (76–116). Ch. 9 centers on speakers and the speaking community of endangered languages (117–33). Ch. 10 highlights the value of linguistic heritage, offering views from the speaking community, language activists, and linguists, and pointing out a lack of concern for language endangerment by the general public and governments (134–67). Ch. 11 is devoted to language revitalization, covering issues from theory to practice (168–215). Ch. 12 revolves around the role and ethics of professional linguists (216–28). Ch. 13 continues with method of language documentation and training of fieldworkers (229–52). Finally, concluding remarks are made in Ch. 14 (253–54).

Since a large part of the book comes from T’s lifelong engagement in working on endangered languages of Australia, observations and insights from his first-hand experience greatly enhance the readability of the book. Given its intention as a textbook, I suggest that some questions for discussion be included in some chapters. A definition of language death, even provisional, would also be beneficial to students. Just as declaring the death of a human being is controversial (with ‘brain death’ vs. ‘clinical death’), perhaps language death could also be approached at different levels.

There is a fault concerning Xixia (Tangut). While its disappearance is triggered by glottocide, it does not represent an instance of sudden language death (as claimed on p. 45). According to archeological findings, Xixia characters were in use until as late as 1502 AD after the Xixia kingdom was destroyed in 1227 (cf. LIU Pujiang, ‘On descendants of the Khitan, Tangut and Jurchen’, Mainland Journal 96.6.19–34, 1998).

Sociolinguistics: The study of speakers’ choices. By Florian Coulmas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. 263. ISBN 0521543932. $28.50.

Reviewed by Rotimi Badejo, University of Maiduguri

How can the study of language in society be viewed from the perspective of choice? This is Florian Coulmas’s primary objective in Sociolinguistics: The study of speakers’ choices, where he develops the theme that what, where, and how we speak are all ultimately dependent on the choices we make. The book consists of thirteen chapters: an introductory chapter followed by twelve others in two evenly distributed parts. Ch. 1, ‘Introduction: Notions of language’, isolates sociolinguistics from all other language sciences and considers all of the choices we make as either micro or macro. Opening up the micro choices, Ch. 2, ‘Standard and dialect: Social stratification as a factor of linguistic choice’, shows how language varies along a social dimension. Such concepts as dialect variation, social stratification, and accommodation are presented as factors influencing our choices.

Ch. 3, ‘Gendered speech: Sex as a factor of linguistic choice’, takes the argument further to the sphere of gender. Is gendered speech a sign of sex-difference or one of domination? C presents both ideologies and takes an eclectic position, positing that network and culture may eventually lead to language reform. In Ch. 4, ‘Communicating across generations: Age as a factor of linguistic choice’, C deals with the variable linguistic choices of coexisting generations of speakers, showing how beliefs and attitudes about age divisions and notions of age-specific suitability determine speakers’ choices.

Ch. 5, ‘Choice and change’, shows how languages may change over time, driven by the needs of standardization, promoted more often by women than by men. In Ch. 6, ‘Politeness: Cultural dimensions of linguistic choice’, C differentiates between common-sense and theory-bound definitions of politeness as a factor shaping interpersonal relationships, but advocates the interplay of both in conducting research into how politeness is encoded in a language, the strategies employed, and the demands of culture that come into play in shaping politeness.

Ch. 7, ‘Code-switching: Linguistic choices across language boundaries’, kicks off the ‘macro-choices’ part of the book by examining the why, the who, the how, and the when of code-switching. C highlights the critical role of choice in code-switching in view of the fact that the speaker chooses how much and in what proportion he or she wants to use the different linguistic codes at his or her disposal. And Ch. 8, ‘Diglossia and bilingualism: Functional restrictions on language choice’, continues the discussion by bringing out language-contact situations in which switching may be restricted: with diglossia, writing may promote the high variety of a language at the expense of the low and at the same time engineer standardization in order to demonstrate its linguistic ideology, while (societal) bilingualism exercises controls through (i) status and function of language, (ii) domains of language use, (iii) context of use, (vi) language accommodation, and (v) networks of individuals as well as their cooperation (which may produce pidgins and creoles).

In Ch. 9, ‘Language spread, shift and maintenance: How groups choose their language’, C considers language spread as involving situations in which a language spills over beyond its primary speech community. The opposing notions of language shift and maintenance are discussed via the concepts of language loyalty, ethnolinguistic vitality, and demographic factors, as well as perceived utility. Ch. 10, ‘Language and identity—Individual, social, national’, brings out how language is used in constructing individual, social, and national identities of people according to ‘a multilayered dynamic process’.

In Ch. 11, ‘Language planning: Communication demands, public choice, utility’, C sets language planning apart from the other subfields of sociolinguistics because of its prescriptive nature and shows its low success rate in complex multilingual settings. Ch. 12, ‘Select letters: A major divide’, presents a writing system as the outcome of choices in terms of language variety, writing system, and spelling conventions, which users usually cling to. In Ch. 13, ‘The language of choice’, C presents Global English as the premier choice of those who use it.

C’s central theme, choice, which is greatly enriched by citations from literary works and propelled by his and others’ findings (such as those of Neville Alexander, David Crystal, and Lachman Khubchandani), ensures a coherent presentation of the basic preoccupations of this fascinating branch of linguistic enquiry. The work, apart from its appeal to both specialists and nonspecialists (there are questions for discussion, notes, and further reading sections at the end of most chapters), therefore plays a tripartite role of extensively covering topics, raising key issues, and indicating future trends in the complex relationship between language and society.

Politeness and face in Caribbean Creoles. Ed. by Susanne Mühleisen and Bettina Migge. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. 293. ISBN 9789027248947. $169 (Hb).

Reviewed by Michael Haugh, Griffith University

The notions of ‘politeness’ and ‘face’ in different languages and cultures have been the subject of a vast amount of research over the past thirty years. However, there has been little research done on politeness phenomena and facework in nonstandard Englishes. The eleven chapters in this edited volume address a significant gap in face and politeness research to date, focusing on these issues in the context of communicative practices in various Caribbean Creole communities.

Bettina Migge and Susanne Mühleisen’s opening chapter, ‘Politeness and face in Caribbean Creoles’, gives an overview of previous anthropological research in the Caribbean context, before framing the collection in terms of Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s politeness theory and Erving Goffman’s work on face and self. The remaining chapters are divided into three broad sections.

Part 1, which focuses on facework in the context of performing rudeness, contains four chapters. Peter Snow, in ‘The use of “bad” language as a politeness strategy in a Panamanian Creole community’, investigates the use of ‘obscene’ language to participate in conversation and thereby cooperatively preserve the face of the storyteller. In ‘Ritualized insults and the African diaspora’, Nicolas Faraclas, Lourdes Pérez González, Migdalia Medina, and Wendell Villanueva Reyes compare ritual insulting among Nigerian Pidgin-speaking children with African American practices, as well as with patterns found among young people in Turkey. Esther Figueroa, in ‘Rude sounds: Kiss Teeth and negotiation of the public sphere’, shows how this gesture is involved in the negotiation of moral standing between individuals in public contexts. Finally, Joseph Farquharson, in ‘The sociopragmatics of homophobia in Jamaican (Dancehall) culture’, analyzes how the use of derogatory words and threats in songs is used to perform and maintain heterosexual norms and identity.

Part 2, which attends to face and positive politeness practices in the context of performing speech acts, contains another four chapters. Bettina Migge, in ‘Greeting and social change’, examines changes in greeting routines in the East Maroon community. Jack Sidnell then argues that displays of both uncertainty and expertise are interactionally achieved rather than being driven by face needs in ‘Advice in an Indo-Guyanese village and the interactional organization of uncertainty’. Janina Fenigsen, in ‘Meaningful routines’, next examines ideological contestation of greeting routines for satirical purposes rather than being courteous indications of recognition. Finally, Susanne Mühleisen, in ‘Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles’, discusses the origins and development of different uses of address forms across English-based Creoles.

Part 3, which discusses the development of face in relation to linguistic and cultural socialization, encompasses two more chapters. In the first chapter, ‘The development of face-saving in young Trinidadian children’, Valerie Youssef examines how the development of attention to face needs can be observed in the conversations of three Trinidadian children. Lastly, Alex Louise Tessonneau examines the teaching of greetings to very young children in ‘Learning respect in Guadeloupe’.

While acknowledging recent work that has attempted to move beyond Parsonian conceptualizations of politeness and face, this collection makes a contribution that is oriented more toward broadening our understanding of these phenomena in social contexts that have been relatively unexplored to date, rather than on theorizing about face or politeness per se. Nevertheless, interesting theoretical insights and implications for face and politeness theory can be gleaned from various chapters in this volume.

A handbook of phonetics. By Luciano Canepari. (LINCOM textbooks in linguistics 10.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2005. Pp. 502. ISBN 3895864803. $209.72 (Hb).

Reviewed by Jason Brown, University of British Columbia

A handbook of phonetics was originally written in Italian and translated into English and is the companion volume to A handbook of pronunciation, also authored by Canepari. The book introduces the phonetic method of natural phonetics, which involves articulatory, auditory, and functional aspects. The work is a full system of descriptive phonetics, especially for means of teaching and learning pronunciation. Thus, the aims are toward a systematic method and thoroughly descriptive set of phonetic symbols and visual components that are designed to help a learner develop phonetic kinesthesia and accurate pronunciation.

The book can be broken down into two main parts: a general part, and a series of phonetic descriptions of various languages. The first fourteen chapters deal with issues concerning phonetics and the learning of pronunciation. A description of all of the segmental sounds of speech, the suprasegmental sounds (including tone and intonation), and paralinguistic phenomena is provided. The book deals with approximately one thousand segmental sounds, and each is described in detail with regard to place of articulation, manner of articulation, and so on. Many visual devices are introduced in order to aid in phonetic description and pronunciation, such as vocograms, labiograms, orograms, palatograms, and tonograms. The book provides a detailed criticism of the official International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and offers the alternative, extended version of the IPA, referred to as ^CANIPA. In general, the goal of using ^CANIPA is to achieve greater accuracy with respect to teaching and learning a given pronunciation, but also with respect to the description of languages. Such accuracy is the stimulus for the second part of the book, which is based on actual recordings of each language as analyzed by the author.

The second part of the book, Chs. 15–23, gives a brief overview of the phonetics, or ‘phonosyntheses’, of various languages. The languages covered in these chapters are classed geographically (and not necessarily genetically). In concordance with the original Italian version of the handbook, sixty-three Italian dialects are described first, followed by languages from Europe (79), Africa (25), Asia (58), Oceania (6), and America (31). There are also phonosyntheses of seventy-two dead languages, devised through internal reconstruction and the sound files of existing daughter languages, and one extraterrestrial language (considered as a potential interlanguage). Each phonosynthesis consists of a description of the segmental inventory of each language, a brief intonational inventory, and notable differences from related languages or dialects. Also provided is a utilizable bibliography at the end of the book.

Overall, the book offers a systematic method (and alphabet) for transcribing and describing speech sounds, as well as a series of descriptions of the sounds of many languages. While natural phonetics involves more symbols and more descriptive rigor than other phonetic methods, it has been designed for the maximal amount of accuracy attainable, both for the sake of language description, and with the learner of pronunciation in mind. It is in this way that the author has produced a comprehensive system of descriptive standards, as well as provided a set of language descriptions based on this method.

Sociolinguistic variation in seventeenth-century France. By Wendy Ayres-Bennett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 267. ISBN 052182088X. $101 (Hb).

Reviewed by Kirsten Fudeman, University of Pittsburgh

Near the beginning of her latest book, Wendy Ayres-Bennett writes, ‘it may seem perverse to try and reconstruct variation in seventeenth-century France, since this period is generally characterized as one of rigid codification and standardization, concerned with the establishment of the norms of written French, and thus of the elimination of variation’ (3–4). In fact, as she states and then demonstrates, the seventeenth century is fertile ground for this kind of enterprise, thanks to the attention paid by authors of metalinguistic texts (e.g. dictionaries, grammars, and collections of observations on the French language) to even small departures from the standard. The genius of this study lies in the way that A combines information from these sources with data from literary and nonliterary texts, and comparative evidence from Canadian French and French-based creoles.

The book has six chapters. Ch. 1, ‘Introduction: Methodological issues’ (1–16), addresses topics such as finding appropriate sources, choosing variables for analysis, and interpreting the data. Ch. 2, ‘Spoken and written French’ (17–60), explores in greater detail the sources available for evidence regarding spoken seventeenth-century French and offers several case studies, with many more to follow in later chapters. In Ch. 3, ‘Social and stylistic variation’ (61–110), A examines evidence of variation according to socioeconomic status or social class and asks to what degree it is possible to separate this from register. Ch. 4, ‘Women’s language’ (111–80), deals with a number of issues, including women’s education and position in society, positive and negative attitudes toward women’s language use, préciosité, and specific features of women’s language. Ch. 5, ‘Age, variation and change’ (181–224), is primarily concerned with change over time. Ch. 6 is the ‘Conclusion’ (225–29). An appendix contains a useful listing of metalinguistic texts available for the study of seventeenth-century French, ranging from collections of observations and remarques to dictionaries, grammars, model dialogues, and works on French pronunciation, orthography, versification, and prosody.

A’s concern with methodology is evident throughout the volume. How does the sociohistorical linguist concerned with variation in the spoken language select appropriate sources? What problems are associated with these sources, and is it possible to compensate for them using other types of evidence? When are statistical approaches possible, and when does the type of evidence available render them meaningless or impossible? A demonstrates that historical studies of syntactic variation in speech can pose particular challenges. Syntactic constructions that were presumably common in lower registers based on criticisms found in metalinguistic texts are not necessarily well documented in other types of written sources, even those that are rich in dialogue. Literary texts often convey the impression of lower-register speech through their vocabulary; their syntax tends to be standardized. Nonetheless, A successfully documents syntactic variation, along with variation in morphology, phonology, and lexis.

This volume will be of great interest not only to specialists in the history of the French language, but also to scholars interested in historical and sociohistorical linguistics in general. A’s many carefully constructed case studies would make excellent models for graduate students and others wishing to embark on similar kinds of studies.

The phonology of Endo: A southern Nilotic language of Kenya. By Joost Zwarts. (LINCOM studies in African linguistics 59.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2004. Pp. 142. ISBN 3895868205. $80.36.

Reviewed by Carolina González, Florida State University

This book is a comprehensive description of the phonology of Endo, a Southern Nilotic language spoken by 50,000 speakers in Kenya. It is based on previous sources and Zwarts’s fieldwork in the area from 1998 to 2002.

The book is divided into eight chapters. Ch. 1 (11–15) is a brief introduction to Endo and its genetic affiliation. Chs. 2 (17–19) and 3 (20–32) outline the consonant and vowel inventories of the language. There are thirteen consonant phonemes and twenty vowels; the vowels are distinguished on the basis of quality (there are five distinct qualities), length (short vs. long), and tongue-root position (advanced or retracted).

Ch. 4 (33–53) provides a description of syllable structure. Endo has simple codas and certain complex onsets. Clusters with initial [p] or nasal-plosive sequences are considered extrasyllabic because they are never codas and they appear only root-initially. Roots typically have one or two syllables. An interesting distinction is made between absent and empty onsets; empty onsets may be realized as [h] in intervocalic position before nonlow vowels. This chapter also considers reduplication, which can be total or partial. In partial reduplication, the coda or the onset of the base might delete, depending on which has less sonority.

Chs. 5 (54–69) and 6 (70–82) describe phonological processes involving consonants and vowels respectively. Some examples include assimilation, which primarily targets plosives and glides, and elision, which occurs both in onsets and codas. For vowels, Z describes glide formation, vowel length changes, and coalescence, among other phenomena.

Vowel harmony is discussed separately in Ch. 7 (83–94). It primarily involves [+ATR] dominant vowel harmony in the domain of the word. Neutral [–ATR] affixes that block harmony and [+ATR] affixes that fail to trigger it are also discussed, as well as a floating [+ATR] feature, which is active in certain cases of plural formation, plural agent nominalization, and irregular allomorphy in noun roots.

The last chapter sketches the main characteristics of tone (95–97). Three contrastive tones are identified: high, low, and falling. All have conditioned variants in certain contexts. Two appendices follow. Appendix A lists minimal pairs in the language (98–101); this appendix probably should have been incorporated into the main text. Appendix B (102–33) provides a summary of segmental morphology as related to the main issues described in the book. A list of references and a thematic index follow.

This book provides a succinct description of the phonology of Endo. The organization is good overall, but it would have been nice to see an overview of the contents in the first chapter. A more thorough analysis of tone would also be welcome. Phonologists and linguists interested in the morphology and phonology of African languages will mostly benefit from this description.

Angles on the English-speaking world, vol. 4: Writing and vocabulary in foreign language acquisition. Ed. by Dorte Albrechtsen, Kirtsen Haastrup, and Birgit Henriksen. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2004. Pp. 151. ISBN 8772899328. $25.

Reviewed by Richard W. Hallett, Northeastern Illinois University

This volume, one of a series of annual publications by the Department of English at the University of Copenhagen, focuses on issues of writing and vocabulary acquisition. The first three articles concern the former and the remaining five the latter.

In the first article, ‘Activity systems for ESL writing improvement: Case studies of three Chinese and three Japanese adult learners of English’ (13–33), Luxin Yang, Kyoko Baba, and Alister Cumming use activity theory to explain how preuniversity English as a second language (ESL) students acquire written skills in academic English. They conclude that learning to write in a second language is both an ‘internal process’ and ‘the product of external factors’ (29).

Alister Cumming, Keanre Eouanzoui, Guillaume Gentil, and Luxin Yang, in ‘Scaling changes in learners’ goals for writing improvement over an ESL course’ (35–49), also focus their research on preuniversity ESL students. They show that ESL students’ long-term aspirations, goal objectives, and actions toward their goals in ESL writing are ‘fundamentally similar’ at the beginning and end of their ESL programs (45).

In ‘Attention to argumentation in learner text production: How do we capture learner ability in argumentation?’ (51–68), Dorte Albrechtsen, Kirsten Haastrup, and Birgit Henriksen present their analysis of five English as a foreign language (EFL) protocols. They conclude that restricted writing tasks might give insight into the development of argumentative writing.

Anna Cieślicka and David Singleton, in ‘Metaphorical competence and the L2 learner’ (69–84), define metaphorical competence in second language (L2) learning and review work in the area, and offer possible pedagogical implications.

‘V_links: Beyond vocabulary depth’ (85–96), by Paul Meara and Brent Wolter, argues against distinguishing between vocabulary depth and breadth. Instead, the article claims that a more productive distinction is between vocabulary size and organization.

In ‘Second language reading and incidental vocabulary learning’ (97–110), Rob Waring and Paul Nation review current research on L2 reading and incidental vocabulary acquisition and conclude with possible pedagogical implications.

Kirsten Haastrup, Dorte Albrechtsen, and Birgit Henriksen, in ‘Lexical inferencing processes in L1 and L2: Same or different? Focus on issues in design and method’ (111–28), report on their initial foray into the lexical inference processing of Danish learners of English in their native language and English. The authors conclude with additional matters to be taken into consideration in their full study.

In the final article, ‘The relationship between vocabulary size and reading comprehension in the L2’ (129–47), Birgit Henriksen, Dorte Albrechtsen, and Kirsten Haastrup also examine Danish learners’ acquisition of English vocabulary. They suggest ‘a probability zone’ (137) that considers vocabulary size as well as lexical inferencing skills and lexical organizational structures that determine reading ability.

This book is a nice addition to the current publications on L2 vocabulary acquisition and would provide good supplemental readings for courses on second language acquisition and seminars on vocabulary learning.

Language in use: Cognitive and discourse perspectives on language and language learning. Ed. by Andrea E. Tyler, Mari Takada, Yiyoung Kim, and Diana Marinova. (Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics.) Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005. Pp. xiv, 223. ISBN 1589010442. $44.95.

Reviewed by Susanna Bartsch, Center for General Linguistics, Typology, and Universals Research

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 2003 Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT 2003), which had the main goal of bringing together research focusing on discourse-based and cognitive linguistics (CL) accounts of language. The papers are structured in four parts: language processing and L1 learning, L2 learning, discourse resources and meaning construction, and language and identity. In what follows, one paper from each of these parts is highlighted.

Adele Eva Goldberg and Giulia M. L. Bencini present their constructional approach to argument structure, in which the meaning of both verb and argument structure construction contribute to the overall meaning of a sentence. Evidence for this assumption is drawn from experimental research on sentence comprehension and production in adults. For instance, in production, a ‘constructional priming’ effect (11f.) is observed, in which not constituent structures, but constructions, as form-meaning pairings, are primed.

Susanne Niemeier explores the application of crucial tenets of CL to L2 teaching. She focuses on the handling of metaphorization of content and functional words in L2 teaching and how it might help learners to assess similar structuring principles underlying lexis and grammar. For instance, working with metaphor can enhance the learning of prepositions, if it is shown how basic (spatial) meanings and metaphorized (e.g. temporal and abstract) meanings of prepositions are related to each other.

Ann Wennerstrom is concerned with the use of CL models for studying the patterns of high-pitched contrast intonation and low-pitched given intonation and their interaction with cognitive processes (categorization and inference). In discourse, for instance, contrast intonation often aligns with ad hoc categorical oppositions, creating new mental spaces for them, whereas given intonation has a deictic function, indicating elements available in the mental space network. Interestingly, the (de)accentuated items do not require lexical opposites and antecedents.

Cynthia Gordon investigates the way adult members of the family of a three-year-old child use future-oriented narrative-like discourse to socialize the child into her future identity as ‘big sister’. Gordon identifies four narrative dimensions (action, interpersonal, imaginative, and evaluative) in adult-child conversations that do the most identity work. One shortcoming of this study is that it relies on a very small corpus (only nine instances of adult-child conversations).

The editors deserve praise for the organization of the volume in broad areas of inquiry relevant for the related discourse and CL paradigms, as well as for their selection of papers (sixteen from among the 120 papers presented at GURT 2003) dealing with topics of great interest in the mentioned research paradigms. Complementing this volume, another publication presents eighteen more papers from the GURT 2003 conference (Language in the context of use: Discourse and cognitive approaches to language, ed. by Andrea Tyler, Yiyoung Kim, and Mari Takada, Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008). GURT 2003 and both volumes constitute a most valuable contribution to the strengthening of linguistic research programs in which nonmodular and usage-based views of language and cognition are crucial.

The phonology of Mongolian. By Jan-Olof Svantesson, Anna Tsendina, Anastasia Karlsson, and Vivan Franzén. (The phonology of the world’s languages.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. 334. ISBN 0199260176. $125 (Hb).

Reviewed by Jason Brown, University of British Columbia

This book, a comprehensive treatment of the phonology of Mongolian, is the culmination of many years of research on the topic by the authors. It provides an overview of the various aspects of the phonology of the language, and also gives both a synchronic and a diachronic treatment of Mongolian. Halh Mongolian (commonly known as Khalkha) is the primary language studied in the book; the authors, however, have given an extensive overview of the phonologies of all of the Mongolic languages, including their geographic locations, phonemic inventories, their major phonological processes (where divergent from Halh), and their historical development.

The initial chapters provide a description of the consonants and vowels of Mongolian, followed by an overview of the phonemic contrasts. Issues such as labialization, palatalization, and vowel reduction are discussed. Further chapters cover the major phonological aspects of Mongolian, including syllabification and epenthesis, prosody (including accent and prominence, intonation, and word stress), reduplication, and of course, the well-known case of vowel harmony. Also covered are the issues concerning syllable structure, the alternations between schwa and zero, and full and reduced vowels, as well as consonant cluster phonotactics and cooccurrence constraints. The discussion of vowel harmony includes an in-depth synchronic analysis, as well as a diachronic treatment, where the authors trace the variation in vowel harmony between the various Mongolic languages back to diachronic sound changes and the restructuring of vowel inventories. The same type of analysis is given for stop deaspiration, palatalization, and labialization. The book also provides a fairly detailed discussion of the various writing systems that have been used for Mongolian, including historical scripts, and those used today, most notably the Cyrillic and the modern Mongolian scripts.

There are many chapters dedicated to the historical aspects of Mongolian. The authors reconstruct the phonology of Proto-Mongolian, and illustrate the sound changes that have shaped the present-day phonologies of the various Mongolic languages. The treatment of Old Mongolian includes the various stages of that language and detailed phonological reconstructions. Each of the Mongolic languages, in turn, receives a synchronic phonological treatment. There is also an extended comparative vocabulary of the various languages, which allows the reader to identify phonological variations in cognate forms.

This book is comprehensive in its scope; not only is a synchronic treatment of Mongolian given, but also a diachronic treatment that includes the reconstruction of Old Mongolian and the pathways that each of the Mongolic languages followed in their sound changes and development. The book stands as a model; it is written in a fairly theory-neutral fashion, with more attention paid to the sound patterns than to theoretical approaches to those patterns. Such an in-depth analysis of a language, and family of languages, will be interesting to most phoneticians and phonologists who read it. It is accessible both to phonologists and to scholars of Mongolian.