Computational Psycholinguistics is an integrated collection by researchers within psycholinguistics aimed at providing a balanced treatment of current computational modeling in both language perception and generation. The initial chapters of the book provide an introduction to the general techniques used in computational modeling (Dijkstra & de Smedt), as well as perspectives from traditional symbolic artificial intelligence (Daelemans & de Smedt) and connectionist approaches (Murre & Goebel). The themes presented in the introductory chapters are well integrated into the rest of the book, consistent with the goal of providing a relatively self-contained introduction, suitable for a graduate-level psycholinguistics classroom or a general introductory source.

This book, like its four predecessors, consists of invited articles selected from presentations at the previous year's International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning. In a review of this length, it would be unreasonable to attempt to do justice to all 18 articles, so I will concentrate on a few of the theoretically oriented discussions and provide a brief overview of the rest.

An invaluable contribution of scholarly papers on the bilingual–bicultural nature of deaf people is the volume edited by Ila Parasnis. This collection of 18 insightful papers is a welcome contribution in the context of recent national debates about whether deaf people are considered a minority group with their own unique linguistic and cultural identity, or considered as audiologically disabled individuals. Collectively, the authors of the papers provide strong arguments in favor of recognizing the bilingual and bicultural nature of deaf people's experience. The contents of this well-edited book provides both theoretical and practical knowledge leading to the empowerment of deaf people and to expanded views of bilingualism and second language acquisition. Reflective presentations by deaf people and applied linguistic discussions by researchers are combined to provide researchers and practitioners innovative perspectives on the development of psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic competence of this unique population. The authors also contribute to research on linguistic, cognitive, and social aspects of language and literacy development.

This collection of 15 papers includes two that also appear in Lambert (1994). Lambert has included significant perspectives on language teaching in America, with papers reflecting elementary and secondary education as well as adult needs and language-maintenance efforts. Presenting an excellent, inclusive set of concerns, this issue of Annals deserves special attention.

This volume contains 34 papers presented at the Groningen Assembly on Language Acquisition in September 1995. According to the editors, the conference was designed to promote “a lively discussion about the merits and constraints of different approaches to language acquisition.” Not surprisingly, in a conference that explicitly mentions it is continuing in the tradition of GALA 1993, Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, 23 of the papers in one way or the other deal with the innate properties of language and their status in language acquisition, whereas 7 papers have a connectionist perspective. Only 2 of the connectionist papers provide data from language learners. Two papers describe aspects of first language acquisition without an obvious theoretical allegiance. Only 1 paper considers how children make use of negative input provided in an experimental setting for learning about irregular verb forms. There is not a single paper on how interaction with caregivers influences language acquisition or how language is socially constructed.

As part of the Cambridge Language Teaching Library series, this book provides a solid introduction to vocabulary and semantics for teachers and teacher trainers involved in language education. The authors maintain a multidisciplinary perspective on these topics by including both L1 and L2 views and research from linguistics, psychology, anthropology, cognitive science, and education.

Language Contact, Language Conflict treats the increasingly common phenomenon of language contact and the subsequent cultural influences that contact can entail. The collection of papers is the result of a symposium held in Duisburg in March 1992 and is divided into two sections: (a) theoretical linguistic issues and (b) case studies from throughout the world. In the foreword, Hymes admits his skepticism toward the search for universals in linguistics, cognition, and human nature when “so much of anger as of joy is in the details” and, therefore, to preserve humanity, “the complex, emergent configurations of particular languages and ways of life are what need to be understood and shared” (foreword, no page number).

This book, based on an undergraduate course at Cambridge University, provides a comprehensive introduction to language change. Chapter 1 sets forth the history of the study of language change and the basic questions in the field. The remainder of the book is divided into two parts. Chapters 2–7 examine internally motivated change at the phonological, syntactic, semantic, and lexical levels. Within each chapter, the author outlines important theoretical positions, from the Neogrammarians to the generative work of Lightfoot and more recent studies of grammaticalization. Although, as McMahon notes, the separation of types of language change by levels involves considerable idealization, the result is greater clarity of organization. The second part (Chapters 8–12), which is concerned with language contact, language variation, pidgins and creoles, language attrition and death, and linguistic evolution, is organized topically. It is this section that is perhaps of most interest to students of SLA. As in the first section, McMahon reviews the perspectives on language change that emerge from a wide variety of classic studies, including Bickerton's work on Guyanese Creole and Dorian's studies of East Sutherland Gaelic. Although specialists might be disappointed to see their favorite studies missing, the examples provide an effective introduction for the intended audience of undergraduates.

Ethnomethodology is a qualitative research methodology developed as an alternative possibility for social scientists investigating the different ways in which reality is socially constructed. For theorists and researchers of language acquisition and language use in educational settings, ethnomethodology makes it possible to examine social discourse and participation structures in and out of school that are tied to success or failure in language learning. As Gumperz explains, with the help of ethnomethodology we study how knowledge is acquired, what role differences in home and ethnic background play in the acquisition process, and how the acquisition process interacts with evaluational progress and the child's motivation to learn.