In some ways the preface to this volume, by Chris Candlin, preempts this review. He makes some insightful points that a dutiful reviewer would otherwise have made. This volume of original chapters reflects Breen's concern for the learner as a cognitive, human, and social being. As Candlin rightly points out, the volume provides a positive and creative accommodation of research paradigms that come from both cognitive and social traditions such that the volume constitutes a so-called sociocognitive position: “the interplay between communication as both a socially and a cognitively strategic act” (p. xix).