Donal A. Carbaugh, Cultures in conversation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xxvii, 149. $22.50.

Cultures in conversation examines intercultural interactions in Finland, Russia, and the United States. Drawing primarily on research in communications, the book presents selected case studies that highlight key “cultural symbols” and the communicative practices these make relevant. These include American beliefs about self-expression, Finnish “silence,” the Russian “soul,” and Blackfeet “spirit.” In each chapter, intercultural encounters (e.g. Russian/American, Finnish/American, Blackfeet/White) are explained using a key concept. Both public and private interactions are covered, and the author himself features prominently as a participant in several of the examples. The transcripts of the encounters include ones drawn from fieldnotes, videotaped reenacted versions of earlier interactions, and broadcast media.

Anna Fenyvesi (ed.), Hungarian language contact outside Hungary: Studies on Hungarian as a minority language. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. xx, 424. Hb $162.00.

Hungarians living outside Hungary left the country in various ways: Some were voluntary migrants who began to seek economic opportunity or political asylum, while others became involuntary immigrants to neighboring countries when the Treaty of Trianon shrank the borders of Hungary by two-thirds in 1920. Because these involuntary minorities were difficult for researchers to discuss under the communist regimes that ruled until 1989 (p. 4), this edited volume introduces a recent body of research that previously has been published mostly in Hungarian.

Roger W. Shuy, Linguistics in the courtroom: A practical guide. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xiv + 146. Hb $35.00.

The focus of Linguistics in the courtroom is narrower than the title implies: It is not intended for, say, linguists who are courtroom interpreters or those who are concerned with reforming jury instructions to make them more intelligible. Rather, this is a succinct, authoritative guidebook for linguists who give scientific advice to attorneys about linguistic issues in criminal and civil court cases. Consultants frequently are asked to write reports, filed under oath, that are intended to influence judges and worry opposing counsel; Roger Shuy cogently describes such documents, their purposes, and the processes for drawing them up (chapter 6). In civil cases, report writers are usually cross-examined under oath in a discovery procedure called a “deposition” (chapter 7). Occasionally, the linguist also appears as an expert witness in trial appearances before judges and juries (chapters 8–9). These chapters alone are well worth the price of the book.

C. Paulin (ed.), Multiculturalisme, multilinguisme et milieu urbain. Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, Université de Franche-Comté, 2005. Pp. 3, 286. Hb €32.

This edited book, written in French, brings together the contributions of 15 researchers from a number of research centers in France. Their studies are situated in various regions of France and around the world. The book provides an understanding of languages and cultures in contact in urban settings and includes work on language variation, language policies, the construction of identity, and linguistic minorities. Most of the chapters focus on a linguistic analysis of languages and cultures in contact, and some address the sociological and political aspects of these languages. Some of the data come from quantitative analysis of languages in different settings, including variation and ethnicity in England (S. Dalban), the preposition qu in Chiac, Canada (P. D. Giancarli), and Anglo-American lexis (A. Paulin).

Sali Tagliamonte, Analysing sociolinguistic variation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xi, 296. Pb $34.99.

Analysing sociolinguistic variation fulfills the expectations of a modern textbook. It includes exercises (one at the end of each chapter) and breakout boxes containing tips, summaries, tables, and data analysis examples. However, I can envision myself using it more in my own research than in the classroom. This is not because it lacks much as a textbook, but because its detailed explanations and breadth of coverage concerning variationist statistical analysis should direct scholars to more thorough and responsible methodology.

Valerie E. Besag, Understanding girls' friendships, fights and feuds: A practical approach to girls' bullying. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education, 2006. Pp. 237. Hb £60.00. Pb £19.99.

This volume addresses the question of bullying among young girls through a detailed investigation of the strategies and language employed by girls to control peer relations. Section 1 accordingly introduces the issue of bullying, the lack of any rationale for the fractious nature of girls' friendships, and the covert nature of their forms of aggression to entice some into their groups and exclude others. The core of the book consists of a 16-month study examining girls' conversations and social behavior in an informal activity club.

Jane Sunderland, Language and gender: An advanced resource book. London & New York: Routledge, 2006. Pp. xxiv, 359. Hb $110 Pb $33.95.

This is a textbook designed for use by those studying, researching, and teaching in the field of gender and language. Although it is written from the perspective of linguistics, it is also accessible to people in other relevant disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, and education. As a teacher (Celia Kitzinger) and as an advanced undergraduate student (Rose Rickford) in a sociology department, we read this book at our different academic career stages and both found it a comprehensive and scholarly overview of the field and a useful resource for our own work.

Ruth Mace, Clare J. Holden and Stephen Shennan (eds.), The evolution of cultural diversity: A phylogenetic approach. London: UCL Press, 2005 Pp. x, 291. Pb $34.95.

This book is in two parts, the first of which presents papers on unified anthropological themes and the second, coevolutionary approaches to some anthropological questions, involving the integration of findings from more than one anthropological field.